Now the moccasin game had a very serious purpose: to determine which animals would walk during the day, and which would be the creatures of the night. So to see which animals got the night shift, they began their game.

The Holy People who were living on the earth at that time performed the ceremony for Changing Woman. They did this so that she would be able to have children.

Jack Breed/FPG

A Navajo weaver at her loom in Monument Valley.

When she was grown into womanhood she bore twin sons who were to become saviors of the people. As they grew, they asked over and over again, “Who is our father?” but she never let them know.

One day the twins were out walking and passed a hole in the ground from which smoke rose. The boys climbed down the hole and found a woman with spider webs all over the walls and ceiling. In the webs were feathers from all kinds of birds. (Collecting feathers was Spider Woman's hobby.) She knew the boys were going to come, and she knew why they were there. She told them all the things they would need to know to find their father, the sun.

Spider Woman was one of the greatest women of all time. Today she would be a scientific or engineering genius.

She could foresee events, know plans, understand the laws of nature. Spider Woman was able to interpret natural law, and put it into use for the Navajo people.

“About your journey,” she told the twins, “it won't take a day, but a long, long time.”

We know that epic journeys in all literature are a metaphor for life, and in finding and searching for their father, the boys also find their strength and their identity, and the strength of the people at the same time.