Storm Maker's Tipi

Rating:
Summary: Paul Goble on how Storm Maker granted the tipi to the people
Review: In "Storm Maker's Tipi" writer and artist Paul Goble tells of how tipis were first given to the Blackfoot people. Before the story begins Goble diagrams how to pitch a tipi in a series of 21 drawings. Of course all young readers know about tipis, even if they do not know how to spell the word correctly, and Goble not only retells the old myth of the time when Storm Maker was consideration to the people, but why the painted designs on tipis have the meaning and power they have come to possess.

The story is about how the terrible thunderstorms and blizzards that endangered the children and grandchildren of the first Man and the first Woman. Then one day the Blackfoot hunter Sacred Otter and his son Morning Plume, who were out hunting among a gathering of the Buffalo Nation, were suddenly caught and nearly blinded by a wind-driven snowstorm on the plains. Huddled beneath a buffalo skin Sacred Otter was given a dream of the gigantic, mystic tipi of Storm Maker and some key words of advice from the Bringer of Blizzards.

Of course, eventually the Bear and Eagle, Fish and Tree, Horse and Beaver, gave their tipis so that their people would be safe from the elements as well. At the end of book Goble includes a photograph of old painted tipis pitched in a Blackfoot summer camp as a reminder of the how if we listen we can learn whatever we most need to know. Then there is a page that you can photocopy (and enlarge) to draw, color, cut, and glue a model tipi, along with some lines of Lakota and Kiowa poetry about the tipi.

"Storm Maker's Tipi" is one of the most instructive of Goble's books, since it tells not only the story of how the tipi came to be, but also because young students will be able to make their own miniature version. As always there are Goble's wonderful illustrations, which capture the style and culture of the plains tribes. As much as I enjoy Goble's retelling of the tales of Iktomi the Trickster, his more serious efforts are even better.