Navajo

Navajo Myth 1 The Navajo creation story involves three underworlds where important events happened to shape the Fourth World where we now live.
The Navajo creation story involves three underworlds where important events happened to shape the Fourth World where we now live.
The Navajo were given the name Niihookaa Diyan DinE by their creators. It means 'Holy Earth People' or 'Lords of the Earth'. Navajos today simply call themselves "DinE", meaning "The People". The Tewa Indians were the first to call them "Navahu", which means "the large area of cultivated land". The Mexicans knew them as 'Apaches Du Nabahu' (Apaches of the Cultivated Fields), where 'Apache' (Enemy) was picked up from the Zuni Indian language. The "Apaches Du Nabahu" were known as a special group somewhat distinct from the rest of the Apaches. Alonso de Benavides changed the name to "Navaho" in a book written in 1630. The name the DinE officially use for themselves is "Navajo".
According to the DinE, they emerged from three previous underworlds into this, the fourth, or "Glittering World", through a magic reed. The first people from the other three worlds were not like the people of today. They were animals, insects or masked spirits as depicted in Navajo ceremonies. First Man ('AltsE Hastiin), and First Woman ('AltsE 'Asdz), were two of the beings from the First or Black World. First Man was made in the east from the meeting of the white and black clouds. First Woman was made in the west from the joining of the yellow and blue clouds. Spider Woman (Na ashjeiii' Asdz), who taught Navajo women how to weave, was also from the first world.
Once in the Glittering World, the first thing the people did was build a sweat house and sing the Blessing Song. Then they met in the first house (hogan) made exactly as Talking God (Haashchieeltiii) had prescribed. In this hogan, the people began to arrange their world, naming the four sacred mountains surrounding the land and designating the four sacred stones that would become the boundaries of their homeland. In actuality, these mountains do not contain the symbolic sacred stones.
The San Francisco Peaks (Dookioiosllld), represents the Abalone and Coral stones. It is located just north of Flagstaff, and is the Navajo's religious western boundary. Mt. Blanco (Tsisnaasjini'), in Colorado, represents the White Shell stone, and represents the Navajo's religious eastern boundary. Mt. Taylor (Tsoodzil) east of Grants, New Mexico, represents the Turquoise stone, and represents the Navajo's religious southern boundary. Mt. Hesperus (DibE Nitsaa), in Colorado, represents the Black Jet stone, and represents the Navajo's religious northern boundary.
After setting the mountains down where they should go, the Navajo deities, or "Holy People", put the sun and the moon into the sky and were in the process of carefully placing the stars in an orderly way. But the Coyote, known as the trickster, grew impatient from the long deliberations being held, and seized the corner of the blanket where it lay and flung the remaining stars into the sky.
The Holy People continued to make the necessities of life, like clouds, trees and rain. Everything was as it should be when the evil monsters appeared and began to kill the new Earth People. But a miracle happened to save them, by the birth of Ever Changing Woman (Asdzaa Nadleehe) at Gobernador Knob (Chiuolilil), New Mexico.
Changing Woman grew up around El Huerfano Mesa (Dzil Naioodilii), in northern New Mexico. She married the Sun and bore two son, twins, and heroes to the Navajo people. They were known as "Monster Slayer" and "Child-Born-of-Water". The twins traveled to their father the Sun who gave them weapons of lighting bolts to fight the dreaded monsters. Every place the Hero Twins killed a monster it turned to stone.
An example of this is the lave flows near Mt. Taylor in New Mexico, believed to be the blood from the death of Ye'iitsoh, or the 'Monster who Sucked in People'. All of the angular rock formations on the reservation, such as the immense Black Mesa (Dzil Yijiin), are seen as the turned-to-stone bodies of the monsters.
With all of the monsters dead, the Navajo deities, or 'Holy People', turned their attention to the making of the four original clans. Kiiyaa aanii, or Tall House People, was the first clan. They were made of yellow and white corn. Eventually other clans traveled to the area round the San Juan River, bring their important contributions to the tribe. Some were Paiutes who brought their beautiful baskets. Others were Pueblos who shared their farming and weaving skills. Still others were Utes and Apaches.
For her husband, the 'Sun', to visit her every evening, Changing Woman went to live in the western sea on an island made of rock crystal. Her home was made of the four sacred stones: Abalone, White Shell, Turquoise, and Black Jet. During the day she became lonely and decided to make her own people. She made four clans from the flakes of her skin. These were known as the Near Water People, Mud People, Salt Water People, and Bitter Water People. When these newly formed clans heard that there were humans to the east who shared their heritage, they wanted to go meet them.
Changing Woman gave her permission for them to travel from the western sea to the San Francisco Peaks. They then traveled through the Hopi mesas where they left porcupine, still commonly found there today. Then they traveled toward the Chuska Mountains and on to Mt. Taylor. Finally, the people arrived at Dinetah, the DinE traditional homeland, and joined the other clans already living there. Dinetah is located in the many canyons that drain the San Juan River about 30 miles east of Farmington, New Mexico.
Myth 2 Holy Supreme Wind being created by the mists of lights arose through the darkness to animate and bring purpose to the myriad Holy People, supernatural and sacred in the different three lower worlds. All these things were spiritually created in the time before the earth existed and the physical aspect of man did not exist yet, but the spiritual did.
In the first world the insect people started fighting with one another and were instructed by the Holy People to depart.
They journeyed to the second world and lived for a time in peace. Eventually they fought with each other and were instructed to depart.
In the third world the same thing happens again an they are forced to journey to the fourth world.
In the fourth world, they found the Hopi living there and succeeded in not fighting with one another or their neighbors, and their bodies were transformed from the insect forms to human forms.
First man and First woman physically appear in the narrative here by being formed from ears of white and yellow corn, but they were also created back in the beginning. There is a separation of male and female humans because each did not appreaciate the contributions of the other, and this laid the ground work for the appearance of the Monsters that would start to kill off the people in the next world.
Coyote, the trickster, also appears and steals the baby of water monster, who brings a great flood in the third world which primarily forces the humans as well as Holy People to journey to the surface of the fifth world through a hollow reed. Some things are left behind and some things are brought to help the people re-create the world each time they entered a new one. Death and the Monsters are born into this world as is Changing Woman who gives birth to the Hero Twins, called "Monster Slayer" and "Child of the Waters" who had many adventures in which they helped to rid the world of much evil.
Earth Surface People, mortals, were created in the fourth world, and the gods gave them ceremonies, which are still practiced today.