Spider Woman, A Story of Navajo Weavers and Chanters E-Book

Gladys A. Reichard

• Herausgeber: David De Angelis
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

The book is a fascinating story of the daily lives of a Navajo family both at, and away from the loom. Spider Woman's picture of daily life goes far beyond rugs to describe trips to the trading post, tribal council meetings, curing ceremonies, and the deaths of family members. Spider Woman is valued today not just for its information on Navajo culture but as an early example of the kind of personal, honest ethnography that presents actual experiences and conversations rather than generalizing the beliefs and behaviors of a whole culture.

Leseprobe

Spider Woman

A Story of Navajo Weavers and Chanters

By

Gladys A. Reichard

1934

© David De Angelis 2017 – all rights reserved

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1. WHITE-SANDS

2. ESTABLISHED

3. TENSION

4. SAND-PAINTINGS

5. SYMPATHY

6. MARIE LEARNS TO WEAVE

7. RESULTS

8. AT THE WELL

9. TAKING COUNSEL

10. DESIGN

11. RAIN

12. UNDERSTANDING

13. SELF-RELIANCE

14. CRITICISM

15. DAN

16. SHEEP DIPPING

17. HOUSE GUARDIAN

18. WEDDING

19. SHOOTING CHANT

20. COMMUNION OF SUFFERING

21. THE GODS INVITED

22. THE HOLY TWINS

23. SUN'S HOUSE

24. THE GODS ACCEPT

25. EFFECTS

26. THE KINNI'S-SONS

27. STANDARDS

28. WHITE-SANDS DESOLATED

29. WAR DANCE

30. KILLING THE GHOST

31. MARIE'S LITTLE LAMB

32. TRAGEDY

33. DEATH

34. COLLECTING PLANTS

35. FATHER'S SISTER

36. DEGREE IN WEAVING

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Story of Navajo Weavers and Chanters is self-explanatory as to characters and circumstances. The only distortion of which I am conscious is a slight one of time and sequence. There is no twisting of facts; if there is of interpretation it is because of lack of understanding rather than of the will to understand.

My acknowledgments must be necessarily feeble in proportion to the harvest I have reaped of good will and kindness. The first are due to the Southwest Society, which had enough faith in a dubious undertaking to start me on my way. I thank next the Council for Research in the Social Sciences of Columbia University, which kept me going once I had started.

When I consider the service, spiritual and physical, rendered by the members of the J. L. Hubbell Trading Post, Ganado, Arizona, I am overwhelmed with the inadequacy of my vocabulary. Mr. Roman Hubbell, Old-Mexican's-Son, understood in a flash my somewhat difficult problems, and when he suggested Red-Point's family as the one with which to work he put the stamp of success on my project. He himself is a constant source of stimulation and inspiration as he follows my progress with evereager interest and coöperation. The sentiment applies equally to Mr. Lorenzo Hubbell of Oraibi.

My thanks to Mrs. Goodman, Mrs. Parker, Mrs. Hubbell, and their children are of the kind the lone stranger must have mentally accorded to the Good Samaritan when he came to.

The debt I contracted when I accepted the generalized information collected by Mr. Lloyd Ambrose (Mr. Little-Man-with-the-Spectacles) and Mr. Horace Boardman (Mr. Short-Pants) is one which can never be canceled since it is measured in the saving of that most rare and precious commodity, time. Mrs. Laura Armer (WhiteHaired-White-Woman) made the same sort of contribution. I am indebted to Franc J. Newcomb for the double sand-painting.

Can words express the satisfaction the acquisition of the friendship of a family like Red-Point's can give? I have tried to let Spider Woman make my declaration for me.

To Ruth M. Underhill, Charlotte Leavitt Dyer, and Elizabeth Howsare I waft gratitude for constructive criticism of the manuscript, and to Adele Froehlich for "walking happily" amidst the mechanical drudgery necessary to its preparation. There are many others who have helped by their interest and suggestions; I have not forgotten them, nor am I unappreciative.

I cannot sign my name to this and leave out the word "hospitality." I find the Southwest ever hospitable and, in emphasizing my feeling of well-being there, must refer back to the residents of the Southwest previously mentioned as largely responsible for it. This includes all their families and many others which the exigencies of space forbid me naming individually.

Gladys A. Reichard

Barnard College, New York City.

1.WHITE-SANDS

White-Sands lay silent and motionless in the dead light of mid-afternoon. Here and there a soft, capricious wind stirred up a tiny whirl of dust. A muffled lazy cluck came from a contented huddle of feathers where a hen leisurely gave herself a dust bath. Even the decrepit horde of mongrel dogs was scattered, asleep, or at least indifferent. The few houses with their covering of clay merged into the dull background of the clearing apparently devoid of life. A few yards north of the largest hut was a queer structure. An indeterminate arrangement of odds and ends of sticks and boards from packing boxes was stuck upright in the ground, forming an uncertain circle beginning at the trunk of a gnarled and northward-leaning piñon which served as a roof to this thing. For want of a better name it must be called a shade, because it served as such; but it is strictly individualistic: there was never a structure like it before, it would be impossible to duplicate it. Across the entrance of this affair two boards were laid as a barrier—against what, it is hard to say, for animals could gain ingress at almost any crack. If one crack were too small, a larger one could be found with ease, or the boards could be nosed farther apart at their loose upper ends. The barrier showed, however, that the people who used the shade were elsewhere.

A large dome-shaped hut appeared to be the center of the small settlement. The door was closed but the lock hung loose in the hasp. A cursory glance through the crack above the door showed that it, like the shade, was empty. We opened the door upon a neat silence. There was a broad expanse of carefully swept sand floor, hard and smooth from use, around two sides of which sheepskins, freshly shaken and fluffy, were laid. A large loom occupied the entire height and width of the north side of the house. A blanket five feet wide, about one-quarter finished, of gray, black, white, and tan was strung on it. A small packing case stood on the floor at the right. It contained the worker's yarns, weaving combs and the other small implements of her craft. Her batten was neatly laid between the top cords that fasten the movable part of her loom to the loom proper. All these signs told us of a good weaver who had left her work temporarily.

Carefully closing the door upon the cool silence, we sought further for the inhabitants. At a considerable distance to the south and slightly west is another hut, like the first in all but size, for this one is smaller. It, too, is dome-shaped and blends into the sand background of the clearing. But the door of this one, at the east as was the other, is open, and from its interior comes a dull thump thump, the sound of the comb pounding firmly, regularly, and rapidly the yarn which is becoming a Navajo rug. We stand respectfully at the doorway for a time, looking in and allowing our eyes to become accustomed to the dimness of the light, a contrast to the harsh glare from which we came. The woman, sitting on the floor before the loom at the west side continues thumping her comb, as if we did not exist, her way of greeting us respectfully.

This house bulges with life. Bursting sacks of wool hang from its sides. Long, clean, brightly colored skeins of spun yarn hang from the beams and loom posts. The box on the floor at the woman's side has strands of pink and red, orange and green, brown, gray and black yarn fringing its edges. Each one holds itself in readiness to be pulled by its mistress' skilful fingers. A cat rubs our legs, by way of investigative greeting, and returns to her litter of kittens behind the loom. A white dog with a black ear, no larger than a puppy herself, gives a warning yelp notifying us to keep clear of her two pups behind the flour box.

Now Old-Mexican's-Son, the trader, who is introducing me, directs a witty greeting to the woman at the loom. She, for the first time, shows awareness of our presence. We enter. The trader, who is at home in this Indian family, after pushing aside several dogs, uncertainly tolerant, and removing a pile of wool set out for the carding, finds himself a place on a soft sheepskin where he half reclines, lighting his pipe. The woman interrupts her weaving long enough to turn on me a gleaming smile and to indicate a strong low box on which I, being a stranger, may sit. As we talk and smoke, the woman weaves, her swiftly moving fingers causing the blanket to grow visibly. As I watch, I am consumed with envy mingled with admiration, for this is what I have come to learn.

The talk first locates the members of the family. The old mother, whose blanket stands upright in its loom, quiet and unfinished, is hoeing corn about half a mile away. Her husband, Red-Point, the head of this family, is at Ganado, six miles away, directing the irrigation of his fields. The woman, with her lips pursed toward the west, indicates that her sister, Marie, whom we came to see, is at her own home.

Conversation between the trader and the weaver continues, he sometimes interpreting for me, as the afternoon drones on. A lamb bleats at the door, comes in and smells us all, takes a drink from a basin near the entrance, walks over to her mistress for petting. Various goats and sheep, all pets, and dogs stalk in and are chased out by an unconvincing "Su! Su!" A baby, just able to walk, peeps shyly around the doorpost and backs away. Her sister, two years older, somewhat bolder, comes in and settles between her aunt and the trader, not daring to take her position near the strange white woman, to whom she is nevertheless attracted. The trader has learned where everybody is, that Marie will doubtless sell him a sheep, and he now comes to the main business of the day.

Here is a white woman, peculiar in many ways, who wants to learn to weave. As he tells the weaver this, she darts at me a pleased but quizzical look. Furthermore this white woman wants to live right here with the Indians. She wants to have a shade like theirs. She wants a loom anchored to the ground at which she can sit as they sit, on the ground. She wants to learn to weave as Navajo women weave. This particular Navajo woman is interested, but she cannot help being amused. The white woman had shown she liked the weaver from the moment she saw her, the weaver had reciprocated. But, if Marie is to teach her, we must see Marie.

The weaver finishes thumping down the row of yarn she has just laid in along her carefully parted warps, removes her batten, and lays it carefully along the upper cords of her loom. She then winds into its respective ball each thread of the variegated fringe hanging over her wool-box. We all rise, and with a comprehensive "Su! Su!" at the various animals who do not belong in the house, we go out into a different world.

White-Sands has come to life. The sun is on its rapid way to the west. The sand, no longer dull brown, has turned to rose, the piñons and junipers, in mid-afternoon dark dots on the landscape, now cast long purple shadows over the rose-colored earth; shadows draw the scattered objects—trees, houses, corrals, even bunches of grass—into a mellow, homelike whole, a contrast of rose and darkness and over all a golden glow. From the south comes a bleating within a cloud of gold dust. The flocks are coming home. Along the road from the same direction the clatter of wagon wheels and the deliberate tread of horses. The dogs, now an active antagonistic band, make ready to meet the horses with ear-splitting barks. The driver, complacently singing in a high falsetto, patiently urges the horses on.

We go toward Marie's house, but the children—there are now five—indicate that she is at the corral behind her house. Here we find her smiling a shy greeting as she stands among the sheep and goats, animated bunches of wool milling around and around her. Old-Mexican's-Son bargains for his sheep amidst the moving, bleating, belching, coughing flock. In an offhand way he remarks that I am coming here Monday morning to learn to weave (today is Saturday). He wants Tom, who is driving in now with the filled water barrels, to make me a shade by that time, when I will move in. No one denies the trader a wish, much less this Navajo family, whose daughters grew up with him. In a more timidly offhand manner they acquiesce, and we with a "Well, let's go!" start back to the trading post in my new Ford, which now interests dogs, children and grown-ups alike. Monday morning I will begin to learn to weave.

2.ESTABLISHED

Upon my arrival at White-Sands early Monday morning the dogs give me a vociferous and unfriendly welcome. I turn off the motor of Jonathan, my Ford, and wait until Red-Point quiets them. His few decided words cause them to slink in all directions, tails between legs, growling, disgruntled, thwarted. Several women, among them the old mother of the family, stand before the entrance of the shade, holding their hands before their mouths with shyness, ready to duck into the shade at a second's notice. This is not my first experience with the Navajo, and I have already learned to observe the short period of silence required by good manners when coming to a house. This over, I am not obliged to hunt up the family. Marie approaches from her home preceded by her husband, Tom, a lean handsome fellow smiling a welcome.

"We didn't build a shade. There is a storehouse up here. The old man thought it would be a better place for you to live than a shade. At this time of the year there are so many gnats. You can look at it, and if you don't like it we can build you a shade."

So saying, Tom leads off followed by me and the bevy of women and children who have assembled. He leads us to the apparent hole-in-the-ground which is from this time on to be considered mine. It is dug out of the earth about five feet deep.

To enter, we go down a step cut out of the ground, take two paces along a passage and down one more high step. Within, it is cool and comfortable. It has been neatly swept, and in some respects is more desirable than the ordinary Navajo hogan, or house. No one has ever lived in it—it has been used as a storeplace for wool in the winter. It is spacious, about twelve by fifteen feet in size and at least six feet high, and the light, from the large doorway at the east, is good—almost a studio light—at all times of the day.