- The novel opens with a poem. Well, we're going to refer to it as a poem, but you might also think of it as a story, or even a chant—it sounds like the kind of thing that someone would speak out loud.
- This first poem tells about the creation of the universe—"this world/ and the four worlds below." Since we know a bit about Silko's heritage, we can guess that this is a Laguna Pueblo story.
- Thought-Woman, the spider, thinks of things and then they appear.
- The narrator, or storyteller, tells us that Thought Woman is thinking of a story right now. In fact, she's thinking of the story we're about to read!
- So Thought Woman is responsible for thinking up this story (the novel we're reading), just as she's responsible for thinking up the entire universe.