Spider Woman

Hopi Creation Myth
Pen & Ink
Margaret Frey
$400

SOLD

Works copywritten 2013 by Margaret Frey.

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The world at first was endless space in which existed only the Creator, Taiowa. He created the finite in Sotuknang, who made the nine solid worlds and was charged with the creation of life. Sotuknang went to the world that was to first host life and there he created Spider Woman, and he gave her the power to create life. Spider Woman took some earth and mixed it with saliva to make the birds and animals. Then she made human beings, using yellow, red, white, and black earth mixed with her saliva. Singing the Creation Song, she made four men, and then in her own form she made four women.

In Native American myth, the spider is also said to be responsible for the creation of writing. This felt very much like a self-portrait as I was drawing it. The writer creates something from nothing with tiny little lines on paper, as I was creating images from nothing, one tiny little line at a time.