Mary of the Yellow Sea

Maria del Mar is the third of five children born to a poor seventh-generation Hispanic-Indigenous family in rural southern Colorado. Maria’s grandmother is a highly regarded midwife, and she herself is born with the healing gift. When she is twelve years old a gypsy reads her palm and predicts that she will soon receive a letter from the man that she will marry. Soon after the prophecy is made, Maria’s beloved father, Don Antonio suffers a heart attack and is left unable to work the family ranch, part of a land grant by the Spanish crown to their ancestors. Responsibility for running the ranch falls to Maria’s 15-year old brother, Ranger, but the family’s survival is in doubt. Investors begin to inquire about the ranch, and Maria’s mother invites one of them to visit and discuss the sale of the ranch. When he arrives she tells him he must marry one of her daughters, and though he initially focuses on fair-skinned Lourdes, the mother insists he marry Maria. Ranger strikes a deal with their father to purchase the ranch himself, thus thwarting Maria’s marriage and the fulfillment of the prophecy. The family moves into town, and Maria begins to spend more time in the company of the local witch and prostitute, Chavela. Under Chavela’s influence, Maria begins to explore her own burgeoning sexuality and gets pregnant. Per local custom, her illegitimate baby is given to her brother, and she sets about searching for an influential husband who will enable her to recover her baby. With Chavela’s help and for the price of giving up her healing abilities, she successfully seduces her former fiancé away from Lourdes, to whom he returned, marries him, and recovers her baby, though the child is unhappy. She returns the child to her brother and sinks into a depression. To recover her spirit, she goes to live in Chimayo with an old curandero who guides her back to her healing powers, which she never lost