Historically, among American Indians, the respect for the power of language has been expressed through the oral tradition: stories, myths, folklore, poetry, and song. As life experience has changed for American Indians, they continue to value these stories, recording tribal oral tradition as well as personal biography and life history. The status and strength carried by women and girls in Navajo culture is related to the image and power embodied in this original female deity; and the indigenous stories by community authors will continue to reflect this orientation and influence. Among the many publications reflective of the Navajo woman's experience, there are the following: "Kaibah" by Kay Bennett, "Women in Navajo Culture" by Ruth Roessel, "Alice Yazzie's Year" by Ramona Maher,"Morning and Myself" by Nia Francisco, "Female Rain" and "Male Rain" by Agnes Tso, and "Sandpainting and Bridge Perspective" by Irene Nakai. The most pervasive pattern in these stories and poems is the inference to "Changing Woman," a Navajo female deity--a creator who shapes man from white corn and woman from yellow corn. In Bennett's autobiography, she treats "The Changing Woman Story." At Kaibah's request, her grandmother repeats the actual story of Changing Woman; she concludes by noting that the "God of the Sun" decided to give Changing Woman everything she could wish for and sent his helpers to build a hogan that would please her. Similarly, Roessel explains that while the Changing Woman goes through various changes and stages in her life each year, the Navajo women's lives are greatly influenced by the four seasons. In "Alice Yazzie's Year," a picturebook which is endorsed as a valuable resource by the Navajo Community College at Tsalie, the illustrations move the reader through the Navajo months and seasons--symbolically reinforcing the idea of youth, fertility, maturity, death, and rejuvenation. This historic and religious background of tribal women is of importance in understanding the self-image of the modern young Indian girls, and the source of the strengths that they draw upon to become the contemporary changing woman.