Estefanita “Blue Water” Martinez

TEWA STORYTELLER & LINGUIST

Honored November, 1996

Estefanita “Blue Water” Martinez

Storytelling was a way the pueblo community of San Juan stayed together.  Estefanita learned to write and read in the Tewa language as an adult after an education in English at the Santa Fe Indian School.  She has helped translate the Bible from English, worked as a linguistic consultant for universities and developed the first written dictionary of the language.  She has authored several children’s books, co-directed the Tewa Language Project at San Juan Pueblo and narrated in Tewa a video depicting the life of Christ and CD-ROM learning materials for her tribe.  In 2004, at age 92, she published her first book, My Life in San Juan Pueblo: Stories of Esther Martinez.

“Language goes hand in hand with tradition.  If you don’t have a language, your tradition goes too.  To keep a language alive, you have to keep speaking it and enjoy it. Use it or lose it.”