White-sands --
Established --
Tension --
Sand-paintings --
Sympathy --
Marie learns to weave --
Results --
At the well --
Taking counsel --
Design --
Rain --
Understanding --
Self-reliance --
Criticism --
Dan --
Sheep dipping --
House guardian --
Wedding --
Shooting chant --
Communion of suffering --
The gods invited --
The holy twins --
Sun's house --
The gods accept --
Effects --
The Kinni's-sons --
Standards --
White-sands desolated --
War dance --
Killing the ghost --
Marie's little lamb --
Tragedy --
Death --
Collecting plants --
Father's sister --
Degree in weaving.

This lively account of a pioneering anthropologist's experiences with a Navajo family grew out of the author's desire to learn to weave as a way of participating in Navajo culture rather than observing it from the outside. In 1930, when Gladys Reichard came to stay with the family of Red-Point, a well-known Navajo singer, it was unusual for an anthropologist to live with a family and become intimately connected with women's activities. First published in 1934 for a popular audience, 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. Readers interested in Navajo weaving will find it especially useful, but 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

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