Louise Abeita Chewiwi (E-Yeh-Shure or Blue Corn)
(September 9, 1926 – July 21, 2014), was a
Puebloan
The Puebloans or Pueblo peoples, are Native Americans in the Southwestern United States who share common agricultural, material, and religious practices. Currently 100 pueblos are actively inhabited, among which Taos, San Ildefonso, Acoma, Zu ...
writer, poet, and educator, who was an enrolled member of
Isleta Pueblo
Pueblo of Isleta ( tix, Shiewhibak , kjq, Dîiw'a'ane ; nv, Naatoohó ) is an unincorporated community and Tanoan pueblo in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, United States, originally established in the . The Southern Tiwa name of the pueblo ...
.
Early life
Louise Abeita was born and raised at
Isleta Pueblo
Pueblo of Isleta ( tix, Shiewhibak , kjq, Dîiw'a'ane ; nv, Naatoohó ) is an unincorporated community and Tanoan pueblo in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, United States, originally established in the . The Southern Tiwa name of the pueblo ...
,
New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Tiguex
, OfficialLang = None
, Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...
.
Her father, Diego Abeita, was active in tribal government. Her mother, Lottie Gunn Abeita, was from
Laguna Pueblo
The Laguna Pueblo ( Western Keres: Kawaika ʰɑwɑjkʰɑ is a federally recognized tribe of Native American Pueblo people in west-central New Mexico, near the city of Albuquerque, in the United States. Part of the Laguna territory is inclu ...
.
''I am a Pueblo Indian Girl''
To showcase his daughter's poems, Diego brought together artists from
Navajo
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...
,
Apache
The Apache () are a group of culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreño, Ndendahe (Bedonkohe or Mogollon and Nednhi or Carrizaleño an ...
and
Pueblo
In the Southwestern United States, Pueblo (capitalized) refers to the Native tribes of Puebloans having fixed-location communities with permanent buildings which also are called pueblos (lowercased). The Spanish explorers of northern New Spain ...
communities to print a book based on them. This group formed the
National Gallery of the American Indian (NGAI), and published Abeita's illustrated book.
She was 13 years old at the time.
[ ''I am a Pueblo Indian Girl'' (1939) has been described as the "first truly Indian book" by historians Gretchen Bataille and Laurie Lisa.]prose
Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...
and poetry. Themes throughout the book touch on Pueblo traditions, with illustrations by artists from NGAI complimenting her writing. This book is considered to be the first effort in the Pueblo community to document their own art and culture for non-Native viewers.
See also
*List of writers from peoples indigenous to the Americas
This is a list of notable writers who are Indigenous peoples of the Americas.
This list includes authors who are Alaskan Native, American Indian, First Nations, Inuit, Métis, and Indigenous peoples of Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, a ...
* Native American Studies
Notes
References
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Abeita, Louise
1926 births
2014 deaths
20th-century American poets
20th-century American women writers
American women poets
Native American poets
Native American women writers
People from Pueblo of Isleta
Pueblo people
Writers from New Mexico
20th-century Native Americans
21st-century Native Americans
20th-century Native American women
21st-century Native American women