These stories, collected by the Teresa Pijoan since she was eight years old, actually came from many different storytellers, some of them childhood friends of the author. She had heard several versions of each story before writing it down and she often used elements from one version to fill in the parts missing from other versions. She then showed her drafts of each story to members of several different pueblos and weighed their comments before putting each story in its present form. Ms. Pijoan grew up on the San Juan Pueblo reservation and the Nambe Indian reservation in New Mexico, even though she herself is not Native American. But her early experiences and bicultural background… instilled in her a deep respect for and an understanding of pueblo life.