Maria Montoya Martinez

At age ten, Mar'a Montoya Mart'nez was stricken with smallpox. Near death, she lay limply in her mother's arms, unable even to swallow the herbal teas offered her. All the attempts to revive her seemed to have failed. Trying one last remedy, her aunt and mother filled the hearth with thick green cedar boughs and smoked the room, waving the fumes towards the sick little girl. Mar'a's mother desperately prayed to Santo Ni'o, the children's saint,...
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At age ten, Mar'a Montoya
Mart'nez was stricken with smallpox. Near death, she lay limply in her
mother's arms, unable even to swallow the herbal teas offered her. All the
attempts to revive her seemed to have failed. Trying one last remedy, her aunt
and mother filled the hearth with thick green cedar boughs and smoked the room,
waving the fumes towards the sick little girl. Mar'a's mother
desperately prayed to Santo Ni'o, the children's saint, promising that
if Mar'a lived, she would send her on a pilgrimage to see him.
Mar'a lived to make the pilgrimage and enjoy a long life. But she was
forever marked by this event.
Mar'a's pilgrimage to the Santuario in Chimayo, New Mexico, becomes a
symbol of her life. It is a journey towards humility, hard work, and
perfection. She feels special since she was favored to live. And so she
constantly strives to create the most worthy pots she can, always keeping in
mind Old Grandmother's prowess with clay. The clay connects her to the earth,
and the clay links her to her future husband, Juli'n, who becomes a
painter of her pots. Throughout the years, she is blessed and blesses her whole
pueblo with money and, more importantly, love.
Mar'a Montoya Mart'nez: Master Potter is the
biography of a very sick little girl who grew to be a strong and talented
woman. She won many awards through the years for her pottery, so many that some
of them were lost. This story beautifully depicts her exemplary life. She
represented her people and her art well.
Elsie Karr Kreischer was a personal friend of Mar'a Montoya
Mart'nez. A writer based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, she is also the
author of The Navaho Magic of Hunting , which won the 1992
National League of American Pen Women Children's Book Award.
Roberta Sinnock is the owner of Seven Oaks Studio, a 20-year-old company
that specializes in book design and illustration. She earned her B.F.A. from
Arizona State University with a specialty in graphic design and currently
resides in Tucson, Arizona.