The story behind this is the 3 sisters are corn beans and squash .
Depending on which tribe each one has their own legend or story . I have heard legends and stories from many of the tribes around the 4 corners . I am afraid I will butcher their oral traditions by mixing stories . The one I know is from back east.
Many years ago there were three sisters who lived together in a meadow . The sisters were very different from one another. First of the three was a little sister, so young that she could only crawl at first, and if she wanted to stand up she had to twine herself around her eldest sister who carried her younger sister all the time. The little sister wore velvet green with fancy ribbons.The eldest. She was always standing very straight and tall above the other sisters trying to guard them . The eldest sisters feet gets sore and hot holding up little sis and protecting the middle sis. The middle of the three sisters, wore a shawl of bright yellow and was running off across the field when the sun shone and the wind blew in her face. She wrapped herself around big sisters feet keeping them cool in the hot summer sun
There was only one way in which the three sisters were alike. They loved one another very much and were never separated. They were sure that they wouldn’t be able to live apart.
After a while, a stranger came to the sister’s field. It was a little Seneca boy. He was as straight as an arrow and as fearless as the eagle that circled his head far above in the sky. He knew the way of talking to the birds and the small brothers of the earth, the mouse, the groundhog, the chipmunk, squirrel and fox. The three sisters were very interested in this little Seneca boy. They watched him fit his arrow in his bow, saw him carve a bowl with his knife and wondered where he went at night.
Late that summer, the youngest sister in green velvet who couldn’t stand up without the help of her big sister, disappeared. Her sisters mourned for her until the fall, but she did not return.
Once again the little Seneca boy came to the three sister’s field. He came to gather reeds at the edge of the nearby stream to make arrow shafts. The two sisters who were left watched him and gazed at him with wonder at the prints of his moccasins marking his trail to the field.
That night the second of the sisters disappeared. This time it was the sister who dressed in brilliant yellow and always wanted to run off across the field. She left no mark of her going but it may have been that she set her feet in the moccasin tracks of the little Seneca boy and followed him.
Now there was only elder sister was left. Tall and straight she stood in the field never bowing her head with sorrow, but it seemed to her that she could not bear to live in her meadow alone. The days grew shorter and the night grew longer and colder. Her green shawl faded and grew thin and old. Her hair once long and golden was now brown and tangled by the wind. Day and night she sighed for her sisters to return to her, but they did not hear her. Her voice when she tried to call them it was low and sad like the cold winter wind.
But one day when it was the season of the final harvest, the little Seneca boy heard the crying of the third sister. He felt sorry for her so he took her in his arms and carried her to the longhouse of his father and mother. Oh what a surprise awaited her! Her two lost sisters were there in the longhouse of the little Seneca boy, safe and very glad to see her. They had been curious about the boy and they had gone home with him to see how and where he lived. They had liked his warm longhouse so well that they decided to stay there for the cold winter. And they were doing all they could to be useful.
The little sister in green, now quite grown up, was helping to keep the dinner pot full. The sister in yellow sat on the shelf drying herself for she planned to fill the dinner pot later. The third sister joined them, ready to grind some meal for the Seneca family’s bread. Ever since then the three sisters spend their spring and summers in the field together, and their winters in the longhouse, helping to feed the family of the little Seneca boy. And the three sisters and the Seneca have never been separated since.
This is the preliminary sketch 18 x 24
Acrylic on 22 x 28 gallery wrapped canvas.
