Changing women

The Apache called the earth-goddess by this name, for she never grew old.  When her age began to show, she simply walked toward the east until she saw her form coming toward herself.  She kept walking until her young self merged with her aging self and then, renewed, returned to her home.  Among the Chiricahua Apache, the name of this eternal Goddess was Painted Woman.
Picture copyright Hrana Janto, used by permission of the artist. http://hranajanto.com
Text from Patricia Monaghan's The New Book of Goddesses and Heroines
Published by Llewellyn, copyright 1997.  

• Changing Women

Hatai Wugti, Spider Woman  Among the people of America's southwestern desert, the earth-goddess was most familiar as a spider, big-bodied like the desert spiders who lived near the Zuni and Hopi, another name for this earth-Goddess was Awitelin Tsita. 

• Temple of Spider Grandmother

Awitelin Tsita A "fourfold vessel,: the earth seemed to be a mother to the Zuni, as to most people in the world.  She was thought to lie in constant intercourse with her lover the sky, until she filled her four wombs with his seed.  Then she withdrew to carry and birth her children-the human race.
  But men and woman, confused by the new world around them, needed more than life from their mother.  So she gave them directions to find their way around her surface; mountains, so that the land's divisions would be clear; clouds filled with rain, so that the earth's surface might bloom.  Challenged by her generosity, the sky father waved beneficial lights over the earth dwellers.  There after the Zuni lived in a happy world, well provided for by their immortal parents.

• Tales of the North American Indians

Activities to do:
Make a dream catcher and learn the story behind them.

North American crafts for kids