Storyteller (pottery)

A Storyteller Doll is a clay figurine made by the Pueblo people of New Mexico. The first contemporary storyteller was made by Helen Cordero of the Cochiti Pueblo in 1964 in honor of her grandfather, Santiago Quintana, who was a tribal storyteller. It looks like a figure of a storyteller, usually a man or a woman and its mouth is always open. It is surrounded by figures of children and other things, who represent those who are listening to the storyteller. The motif is based on the traditional "singing mother" motif which depicts a woman with her mouth open holding one or two children.

A late 20th-century storyteller figurine from New Mexico on display in the Horniman Museum, London

See also

• Mary Ellen Toya

Further reading

• Babcock, Barbara A.; Monthan, Guy & Monthan, Doris Born (1986). The Pueblo Storyteller: Development of a figurative ceramic tradition. Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press. ISBN 978-0-8165-0870-9.
• Bahti, Mark (1988). Pueblo Stories and Storytellers. Tucson, Arizona: Treasure Chest Publications. ISBN 0-918080-16-9.
• Congdon-Martin, Douglas (1990). Storytellers and other Figurative Pottery. West Chester, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing. ISBN 978-0-88740-270-8.
• Howard, Nancy Shroyer (1995). Helen Cordero and the Storytellers of Cochiti People. Worcester, Massachusetts: Davis Publications. ISBN 978-0-87192-295-3.
• Morss, Noel (1954). Clay figurines of the American Southwest: with a description of the new Pillings find in northeastern Utah and a comparison with certain North American figurines. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University. ISBN 978-0-527-01329-5.