Spider Grandmother

The Spider Grandmother is creator of the world in Southwestern Native American religions and myths such as that of the Pueblo and Navajo peoples. 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.

Playwright Murray Mednick wrote seven one-act plays called The Coyote circles 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.

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

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," 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. 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, by the name of Kokyangwuti.

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