Spider Grandmother

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"Spider Rock", Canyon de Chelly, AZ
Legendary home to Spider Grandmother

Spider Grandmother is an important figure in the mythology, oral traditions and folklore of many Native American cultures. She is creator of the world in Southwestern Native American religions and myths such as that of the Pueblo and Hopi peoples. Although accounts vary, according to mythology she was responsible for the stars in the sky; she took a web she had spun, laced it with dew, threw it into the sky and the dew became the stars. Navajo mythology tells of Spider Woman or Spider Old-Woman (Na'ashjéii Asdzáá)[1] also sometimes referred to as Spider Grandmother.[citation needed]

Playwright Murray Mednick wrote seven one-act plays called The Coyote circles [2] with the same four characters: Coyote, Coyote trickster, Spider Grandmother and Mute Girl. These same characters come from traditional native American stories and myths.

Traditional Navajo/Diné limit the telling of stories involving Spider Grandmother to the winter months, known as "the season when Thunder sleeps", when it is safe to discuss certain dangerous spirits, such as Spider Woman and Northern Thunder (whence the season takes its name), and esoteric topics, such as the Emergence narrative.[citation needed]

According to the Zuni, string games were given to them by Grandmother Spider.[3]

Traditionally, the stories involving Spider Grandmother are narratives passed down orally from generation to generation. Susan Hazen-Hammond, author of "Timelines of Native American History,"[4] and at least eight other movies, has gathered numerous tales collected from various tribes and written these narratives in her book, Spider Woman's Web.[5] In this book, Spider Grandmother is also referred to by the names Spider Woman and Spider Old Woman.

G. M. Mullett has also written a book documenting the oral legends of the Spider Woman specific to the Hopi Indians. In these narratives, Spider Woman is also known as the Earth Goddess,[6] by the name of Kokyangwuti.[7][8]

In the Northwest, the Coos people of Oregon have their version of a Spider Grandmother traditional tale (Spider-Old-Woman).[9]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Legendary Native American Figures: Spider Woman (Na'ashjéii Asdzáá)". Native Languages of the Americas. Retrieved 4 January 2014. 
  2. ↑ The Coyote Cycles, Padua Playwright's Press, 1993. ISBN 978-0-9630126-1-6
  3. ↑ Allan and Paulette Macfarlan (1958). Handbook of American Indian Games, p.189. ISBN 978-0-486-24837-0.
  4. ↑ Timelines of Native American History Penguin Group (USA) 1997 ISBN 978-0-399-52307-6
  5. ↑ Spider Woman's Web, published by Penguin Group (USA) 1999 ISBN 978-0-399-52546-9
  6. ↑ Spider Woman Stories, published by The University of Arizona Press, 1979. ISBN 0-8165-0621-3
  7. ↑ "Kokyangwuti". MythologyDictionary. Retrieved 23 November 2012. "A creator-goddess of the Hopi. Daughter of Sotuknang" 
  8. ↑ "Spider Woman / from the Hopi people". Resources for Indigenous Peoples' Religious Traditions. John Carroll University. Retrieved 23 November 2012. "This story is taken from Leeming, The World of Myth, 36-39; Leeming cites G. M. Mullett, Spider Woman Stories: Legends of the Hopi (Tucson, AZ: 1979), 1-6." 
  9. ↑ Frachtenberg, Leo J. (1913). Coos texts. California University contributions to anthropology (Vol. 1). New York: Columbia University Press. P.61

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