If you've ever lived (even for a short two week vacation!) in a desert environment, then you know how all consuming the need for water becomes. Water for drinking is obvious - water for washing becomes far less significant and the awareness of our impact on the water in the immediate eco system (hopefully!) becomes far greater. In Puebloan culture the hummingbird is a reminder of rainbows and the promise they bring of needed rain. Their shimmering colors are as welcome as the nourishing rain that's hoped for.

A story is told in Acoma (the pueblo nearest to Zuni in the east): A volcanic demon, Kaupat'a played a gambling game with the Sun God's son and he lost. The Sun God's son blinded the loser and the blind Kaupat'a sang a terrible supernatural song which caused fire to rise from the pinon pines. He stirred the fire around and around until lava flowed in north and west. (The El Mapais lava fields are between Acoma and Zuni.)

Many birds tried to come to the rescue and attempted to put out the fires. None succeeded until the hummingbird flew around all the great waters to the north, the west, south and to the east. The tides rose up and put out the fire and the ascending moisture created a great rainbow which the hummingbird flew through. And now the hummingbird carries all the colors of the rainbow in his feathers.

Edison Bobelu has carved this beautiful little hummer from green serpentine. He's given it wing patches of red coral and a long nectar-sipping beak of pen shell. The eyes are inlaid of turquoise. A beautiful reminder of how precious rain, the rainbow and the hummingbird truly are. Signed.