Module 1: "Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit" by Leslie Marmon Silko

In this universe, there is no absolute good or absolute bad; there are only balances and harmonies that ebb and flow.

The traditional Pueblo societies were communal and strictly egalitarian, which means that no matter how well or how poorly one might have dressed, there was no social ladder to fall from.

In the old-time Pueblo world, beauty was manifested in behavior and in one’s relationships with other living beings.

Beauty was as much a feeling of harmony as it was a visual, aural, or sensual effect.

Thus an unhappy person or spiteful person would not be considered beautiful.

One of my most vivid preschool memories is of the crew of Laguna women, in their forties and fifties, who came to cover our house with adobe plaster.

Because the Creator is female, there is no stigma on being female; gender is not used to control behavior.

She was small and wiry, but she could lift her weight in rolled roofing or boxes of nails.

At the same time, in the old-time Pueblo world, identity was acknowledged to be always in a flux; in the old stories, one minute Spider Woman is a little spider under a yucca plant, and the next instant she is a sprightly grandmother walking down the road.

At the same time, in the old-time Pueblo world, identity was acknowledged to be always in a flux; in the old stories, one minute Spider Woman is a little spider under a yucca plant, and the next instant she is a sprightly grandmother walking down the road.

Pueblo communities were and still are very interdependent, but they also have to be tolerant of individual eccentricities because survival of the group means everyone has to cooperate.

Pueblo communities were and still are very interdependent, but they also have to be tolerant of individual eccentricities because survival of the group means everyone has to cooperate.

Before the arrival of Christian missionaries, a man could dress as a woman and work with the women and even marry a man without any fanfare.

Before the arrival of Christian missionaries, a man could dress as a woman and work with the women and even marry a man without any fanfare.

Sexual inhibition did not begin until the Christian missionaries arrived.

Since the children belonged to the mother and her clan, and women owned and bequeathed the houses and farmland, the exact determination of paternity wasn’t critical.

In the sacred kiva ceremonies, men mask and dress as women to pay homage and to be possessed by the female energies of the spirit beings.

But the motions are stylized.

The old folks staunchly resisted the killing of flies because once, long, long ago, when human beings were in a great deal of trouble, a Green Bottle Fly carried the desperate messages of human beings to the Mother Creator in the Fourth World, below this one.

Human beings had outraged the Mother Creator by neglecting the Mother Corn altar while they dabbled with sorcery and magic.

Because Laguna Pueblo cosmology features a female Creator, the status of women is equal with the status of men, and women appear as often as men in the old stories as hero figures.

In each story, the beauty that Yellow Woman possesses is the beauty of her passion, her daring, and her sheer strength to act when catastrophe is imminent.

In each story, the beauty that Yellow Woman possesses is the beauty of her passion, her daring, and her sheer strength to act when catastrophe is imminent.

Kochininako falls in love with Buffalo Man, and because of this liaison, the Buffalo People agree to give their bodies to the hunters to feed the starving Pueblo.