The Magic Weaver of Rugs: A Tale of the Navajo

Spider Woman teaches two Navajo women how to dye wool and weave, and although the women are initially frightened, they realize that this new skill could be the salvation of their families. By the creators of How the Stars Fell into the Sky.

Grade 2-5-Sources for this story are not cited, and therein may lie some of its weaknesses. The Navajo people are starving and cold. Two women travel out into the mesa to pray for help. Here they encounter Spider Woman, a grand and frightening deity who teaches them how to weave rugs and dye wool. When the women tire of the long, hard task, they intentionally make mistakes that will free their souls from the rug. It is only after they return to their people and teach them their newly acquired skills that Spider Woman's gift becomes apparent. Intensely colored, stylized pastel illustrations capture the grandeur and mood of a mythic time. The focus on women and a female deity is refreshing and long overdue. However, inconsistencies mar this book. The weavers, who don't know a thing about cloth or dyeing, are wearing brightly colored post-conquest skirts and blouses. The rugs that the people weave are not especially Navajo, but rather generic striped blankets. And the colors, while attractive, do not reflect the Southwestern landscape. Such discrepancies illustrate the problems inherent in using borrowed cultural material.
Carolyn Polese, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In their second collaboration, Oughton and Desimini ( How the Stars Fell into the Sky ) bring to life another tale from the Navajo, this time explaining the origins of weaving and the famous Navajo rug. "In the beginning," hunger and cold are the source of constant worry until two women seek help through prayer. They are answered by Spider Woman, a forceful figure in shimmering emerald who radiates strength. She magically erects an enormous loom, then leaves the women with instructions: "Hold only beautiful thoughts in your mind while you weave" and "weave with your very souls." Fearful of trickery, the literal-minded women disobey, but the gift of weaving is theirs anyway. Oughton's fluid prose, studded with images ("white wolf of fear," "sun-blistered desert sand"), has a poetic intensity, mirrored by Desimini's lush if dark illustrations. These gleam with an otherworldiness, evoking an atmosphere of mythical wonder, rippling as if painted on fabric. Her Spider Woman, elfin yet godlike, severe yet generous, is especially well rendered. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A second Navajo myth from the team that collaborated on How the Stars Fell into the Sky (1992). The unsourced tale tells how two women, concerned for their cold and hungry people since ``Even when winter had come and gone, it stayed winter in their hearts because the white wolf of fear crept among them,'' encounter Spider Woman, who pulls them into her land near the sky, makes a giant loom, and shows them how to prepare wool, gather colors from all creation, and weave with reverence as well as skill (``Weave with your very souls and be sure to bind each end of the rug carefully''). Testy and imperious, Spider Woman isn't patient with their questions, so even when the lesson is complete the women don't understand, at first, what they have learned. Powerful and pleasingly enigmatic in Oughton's lyrical, compact retelling, the tale is well served by Desimini's handsomely designed illustrations featuring biomorphic forms--the land itself seems as organic as the human figures--and the glowering rusts and blues that are becoming her trademark. (Folklore/Picture book. 5-10) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Ages 7 and up. This sober and sophisticated tale--another fine collaboration from the gifted team that produced How the Stars Fell into the Sky (1992)--recounts how the Navajo came to acquire their weaving skill. During a period of hunger and cold, "when the white wolf of fear crept among them," two women leave the tribe to pray for aid. Spider Woman obliquely answers their prayer by building a loom and teaching them how to prepare wool and fashion a magnificent patterned rug, cautioning them to "hold only beautiful thoughts in your mind while you weave." But the tedium of the chore and concern for their hungry families cause the women to break faith with Spider Woman, who reproaches and dismisses them, keeping the rug. But the skill is now their own, and the tribe prospers through weaving and trade. Only then do the women understand Spider Woman's lesson. Returning to give thanks, "they called and called to her. But she did not come." Desimini's surreal paintings underscore the other worldly nature of the encounter. Eerily lit landscapes blanketed in shadow are suggestive of sacred place and time. And Spider Woman is no gentle earth mother but, rather, a complex, powerful woman. This wild-haired and sharp-toothed goddess hurls rocks and summons rain. But surprisingly delicate fingers also coax the colors from the whole world into her yarn. Spider Woman's web, cast around trees, sheep, and the earth itself, is at once her magical tool and her embrace. Elizabeth Bush