Saturday the 4th..............

We had a wonderful day. Drove early over to Moenkopi to visit Shirley Ann ( who came to Spring city on Indian Placement so that we attended Junior High School together 55 years ago!) Is that amazing or what? As we were leaving her house, she said - I have something to show you - my cousin is making piki bread in the piki house on our property........and so we got to go watch. Piki bread is a tissue thin bread made from blue corn meal and ash.....there is a little open fire with about a 2 x 3 ft stone slab (the stone has become really difficult for them to get) it is a black stone. It is perfectly flat and sits directly on the fire. The woman cooking the bread has a little cut out place where her legs actually go beneath the fire, so that she can work the dough with her fingers on the stone. She was making a box of the bread in payment to another person for her daughter's being able to dance in a ceremony. She gave us one "hot off the stone" and it was very good! It was so fun to visit with them. This art is passed from mother to daughter. We loved it - fascinating! She had been baking the bread since early morning........