Sacred Texts Native American Navajo Index Previous Next
Buy this Book at Amazon.com
Spider Woman, by Gladys A. Reichard, [1934], at sacred-texts.com
The Story of Navajo Weavers and Chanters is self-explanatory as to characters and circumstances. The only distortion of which I am conscious is a slight one of time and sequence. There is no twisting of facts; if there is of interpretation it is because of lack of understanding rather than of the will to understand.
My acknowledgments must be necessarily feeble in proportion to the harvest I have reaped of good will and kindness. The first are due to the Southwest Society, which had enough faith in a dubious undertaking to start me on my way. I thank next the Council for Research in the Social Sciences of Columbia University, which kept me going once I had started.
When I consider the service, spiritual and physical, rendered by the members of the J. L. Hubbell Trading Post, Ganado, Arizona, I am overwhelmed with the inadequacy of my vocabulary. Mr. Roman Hubbell, Old-Mexican's-Son, understood in a flash my somewhat difficult problems, and when he suggested Red-Point's family as the one with which to work he put the stamp of success on my project. He himself is a constant source of stimulation and inspiration as he follows my progress with ever-eager interest and coöperation. The sentiment applies equally to Mr. Lorenzo Hubbell of Oraibi.
My thanks to Mrs. Goodman, Mrs. Parker, Mrs. Hubbell, and their children are of the kind the lone stranger must have mentally accorded to the Good Samaritan when he came to.
The debt I contracted when I accepted the generalized information collected by Mr. Lloyd Ambrose (Mr. Little-Man-with-the-Spectacles) and Mr. Horace Boardman (Mr. Short-Pants) is one which can never be canceled since it is measured in the saving of that most rare and precious commodity, time. Mrs. Laura Armer (White-Haired-White-Woman) made the same sort of contribution. I am indebted to Franc J. Newcomb for the double sand-painting.
Can words express the satisfaction the acquisition of the friendship of a family like Red-Point's can give? I have tried to let Spider Woman make my declaration for me.
To Ruth M. Underhill, Charlotte Leavitt Dyer, and Elizabeth Howsare I waft gratitude for constructive criticism of the manuscript, and to Adele Froehlich for "walking happily" amidst the mechanical drudgery necessary to its preparation. There are many others who have helped by their interest and suggestions; I have not forgotten them, nor am I unappreciative.
I cannot sign my name to this and leave out the word "hospitality." I find the Southwest ever hospitable and, in emphasizing my feeling of well-being there, must refer back to the residents of the Southwest previously mentioned as largely responsible for it. This includes all their families and many others which the exigencies of space forbid me naming individually.
Gladys A. Reichard
Barnard College, New York City.