Spider Woman
Leleua Loupe
Among the Taino Ti, they believe that When the Universe was still so dark that not even shadows could
be seen in the night, Grandmother Spider sat in her web in the Sky World, waiting and watching. No one
knows how old Grandmother Spider is, or how long she sat waiting for the universal mind to awaken.
But, every Creative being who has ever lived knows her song and dance as a weaver of the Web of Life.
From her we…she observed the first thoughts as the Universal Mind awakened from the dream. Seven
energy beings floated out from the shining light in the center of the Universal Mind and solidified into
bright, shining stars who went out to take their places in the sky world. Grandmother spider took a very
deep breath and softly began to sing her weaving song while she danced across the Sky. As she spun her
thread, Grandmother Spider envisioned the Web of Life. Within moments, she had woven her web
connecting the seven stars and creating the Spirit doorway through which all the rest of life would enter
(Schultz-Miller 2011, 349).
The idea or philosophy of Spider Woman, or Grandmother Spider, is something many pre-Christian
civilizations throughout the Americas share for conceptualizing and teaching about creation and the
creative process. The Huichol of western Mexico call her Takutsi Nakawe; the Navajo call her SusSistinnako and also Changing Woman, The Hopi call her Kokyangwuiti, the grandmother of the sun and
the great medicine power who sang people into the fourth and present world (Gunn-Allen 1986, 19).
The Kiowa call her Konatasohi, and the Cherokee call her Kanane’ski Amai’yehi. The Keres of the Pueblo
call her Cochito, or Thought Woman. The names given to conceptualize the creative process are many,
and reflect different aspects rather than different deities. The spider defined the world by stretching its
legs from the place of emergence and by partitioning the earth into four parts (Schuetz-Miller 2011).
Among the Laguna, Grandmother Spider, or Old Spider Woman brought the light, weaving, medicine
and life. Among the Keres, she was known as Thought Woman who created us all and keeps us in
creation even now (Gunn-Allen 1986, 45). Spider woman, Ts’its’tsi’nako, or Thought Woman, created
through her thinking mind. She also created the Kacina, or spirit messengers and protectors (Gunn-Allen
1986, 99, 119).
These women, through their changing nature and creative thought, teach several fundamental
principles that seek to guide the development of balanced relationship’s and “keep humans in harmony
with the rest of the world.” The intricate patterns of the web Spider Woman weaves teach us to look for
the patterns in the world, “the power of connection” and remind us that all beings are creations and
therefore relatives. In order to survive, we must first learn respect for all life. As children we continue to
learn the additional universal morals and values, and life patterns that make up intricate laws that
govern healthy relationships among all beings. Her web forms a medicine wheel, a way of discovering
oneself and ones place in the world by learning how to perceive the proper balance of relationships
among all creation. The gifts of medicine she teaches takes infinite forms of knowledge and
understanding and are gained through seeking life in all its infinite forms.
Spider Woman also reflects the recognition of many civilizations that the female creativity is central to
the universe and finds balance with male forces. Concepts of masculinity and femininity, like sexuality,
were unlike those introduced with European Christianity. The creator was most often identified as
female, though at times transformed into male. In the Southwest, spider webs along with vulvas were
incised into rocks about 7500 BCE to 600-900 BCE (Schuetz-Miller 2011, 350). In circular or polygonal
houses and temples throughout the Americas symbols of this understanding or perception of creation
include the full moon, spider web, womb, or place of emergence into the present world; and a
multilayered vertical universe or cosmic egg (Schuetz-Miller 2011). These perceptions not only informed
gender relationships and promoted complimentary and equal relationships between men and women,
but also respected or allowed space for all expressions and variations of gender and sexuality. Women
were valued in “their role as vitalizer’s and not just child bearers.” In Christian- European societies,
women are most often reduced to being creators in so far as they bear children, a mere biological act
(citation), their centrality to creation and the respect their creativity and intelligence engendered
diminished with the rise of a patriarchal church. In Pre-Christian societies Women were empowered as
creators because they were perceived as the center of the universe, “both heart (womb) and thought
(creativity)” (Gunn-Allen 1986, 22). With her intelligence she created and creates everything and
informs the right balance and harmony among all relations. The feminine is recognized as being creative
and destruction. Destruction as being a force that allows for regeneration and recreation, rather than
being of brute or unnecessary force. The Lakota also understood that all the earth and its creatures as
being intelligent, alive, and intricately and inherently connected (Gunn-Allen 1986, 119). Mothers or
mother goddesses are all an aspect of grandmother spider, or thought woman “ Women’s
empowerment is understood as being Thought, Memory, Instinct, Tradition, and Medicine or Sacred
Power; ritual, ceremony, food, and shelter; and she is the ways by which these are developed – the
bringer, teacher and creator of them” (Gunn-Allen 1986, 264).
Thought Woman or Old Spider Woman of the Keres Pueblo of the southwest is the Supreme Being, male
and female who, thinks all into creation. Cochito of the Keres, Spider Woman, or Thought Woman, lives
in the Shipapu, under the waters of the Lake in the second world. Though Woman thinks and sings all
into creation, she also sang her two sisters, or coequal female spirits, Uretsete and Naotsete, into
creation. The sisters then also began to create other aspects of life. They created the firmament, skies,
galaxies and seas through ritual magic. Serpent Woman, Corn Woman, Earth Woman are all aspects of
her. She and her sisters give all things life. New beings, once alive, take on the power to create
themselves through reproduction, but continue to depend on the supreme-being for subsistence.
The Pueblos were and are organized into a moiety system that reflects their understanding of ritual
empowerment through Thought Woman, Spider Woman, or numerous aspects of her. Everything is
ordered around this idea of complimentary forces of gender and sex, rather than in opposition (GunnAllen 1986, 19).
A strong attitude integrally connects the power of original thinking or creation thinking to the power of
mothering. The power to make, create and transform. “The great mother societies” are cultures that
valued peacefulness, harmony, cooperation, health, general prosperity and are systems of thought and
practice” (Gunn-Allen 1986, 29). Spider Woman teaches to share resources and to remain at peace in
ones hearts and relationships. She encourages a society that denounces violence and advances a moral
and value system that guides people to have control over their emotions and make decisions that are in
the community’s interest.
A complimentary system arose to maintain peace throughout many societies that separated domestic
concerns from external politics. In the southeast, women and men held positions designated as a red or
white chief (Gunn-Allen 1986, 18). The white chief (Cacique or Tiamuni) was the internal chief who
maintained peace and harmony among the population and administered domestic affairs. The red chief,
or outside chief (Hotchin or War Captain), administered to affairs outside of the community and
mediated between tribes and outsiders or called for defensive or retaliatory forays. Originally, Iyatiku,
an aspect of creation, lived among the people as the Tiamuni and authorized the first Hotchin. When she
left people became her representatives and gained their power through her. The Aztecs internal or
domestic god was a goddess, Cihuacoatl, or Coatlique, and the outside or external god was Quetzalcoatl,
the winged serpent, the god of amalgamation or expansion (Gunn-Allen 1986, 20). Among the Keres,
Naotsete, was associated with internal affairs, and Uretsete was concerned with maintaining political
boundaries.
The universal characteristics of life are embodied in the oral tradition, composed of rituals and
narratives that begin with Grandmother Spider, or aspects of creation. European colonization “created
chaos in all the old systems, the success of which depended on complementary institutions and
organized relationships among all sectors of their world. This significance of each part was seen as
necessary to the balanced and harmonious functioning of the whole, and both private and public
aspects of life were viewed as valuable and necessary components of society” (Carmean 2002, 100).
With the social transformation from egalitarian to patriarchal systems, mother creators were
masculinized. The primacy of female as creator was displaced with ideas like the Great Spirit. The Hopi
Goddess of Spider Woman became Maseo or Tawa, referred to in the masculine. Among the Cherokee,
the Goddess of the River Foam is replaced by thunder in many tales. Among the Iroquois, Sky Woman
often then got her ideas from her dead father or her monstrous grandson. This was the first step in
replacing a gender-complimentary system with Masculine deities (Gunn-Allen 1986, 41). Societies have
been thrown out of balance. In forgetting the feminine creation, and the often, gender-complimentary
nature of creation, relationships between men and women, the people and the earth, has been severely
compromised. Recovering or “maintaining imagery of mother creators is a crucial part of Indian
resistance to cultural and spiritual genocide by a male-dominant, capitalist, and often Christian, nuclear
family, society” (Gunn-Allen 1986, 42).
For Further Reading:
Carmean, Kelli. Spider Woman Walks This Land: Traditional Cultural Properties and the Navajo Nation.
Walnut Creek: Altamira Press, 2002.
Geerta, Armin W. "Hopi Indian Witchcraft and Healing." American Indian Quarterly, Summer 2011: 35.
Gunn-Allen, Paula. The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. Boston:
Beacon Press, 1986.
Paxon, Diana. "One of Ten Thousand: Goddess Lore and Ritual, Grandmother Spider, Spinner of
Wisdom." Sage Woman, 1994.
Shuetz-Miller, Mardith K. "Circular Temples of the Moon Goddess." Journal of the Southwest, 2011: 349372.
Shuetz-Miller, Mardith K. "Spider Grandmother and Other Avatars of the Moon Goddess in New World
Sacred Architecture." Journal of the Southwest, Summer 2012.
Turner, Sarah E. "Spider Woman's Grandaughter's: Autobiographical Writings by Native American
Women." Ethnic Autobiography, Winter 1997: 109-132.