Spider Woman Weaves Her Web of Beauty

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Spider Rock stands with awesome dignity and beauty over 800 feet high in Arizona's colourful Canyon de Chelly National Park. Geologists of the National Park Service say that "the formation began 230 million years ago. Long ago, the Dine (Navajo) Indian tribe named it Spider Rock.....Spider Woman possessed supernatural power at the time of creation, when Dine (Navajo) emerged from the third world into this fourth world...Since Spider Woman loved the people, she gave power for Monster- Slayer and Child-Born-of-Water to search for the Sun-God who was their father. When they found him, Sun-God showed them how to destroy all the monsters on land and in the water. Because she preserved their people, Dine (Navajo) established Spider Woman among their most important and honoured Deities.
She chose the top of Spider Rock for her home. It was Spider Woman who taught Dine (Navajo) ancestors of long ago the art of weaving upon a loom. She told them, "My husband, Spider Man, constructed the weaving loom making the cross poles of sky and earth cords to support the structure; the warp sticks of sun rays, lengthwise to cross the woof; the healds of rock crystal and sheet lightning, to maintain original condition of fibres. For the batten, he chose a sun halo to seal joints, and for the comb he chose a white shell to clean strands in a combing manner." Through many generations, the Dine (Navajo) have always been accomplished weavers."
Spider Grandmother (Sussistanako or Tse-che-nako) is an important creation 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, including 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)....

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