Navajo

Navajo

Navajo Four Worlds Emergence Myth In the beginning Begochiddy created the dark world with its five mountains, in the north a black mountain, in the east a white mountain, in the south, a blue mountain, and a yellow mountain in the west, and red mountain in the center (Klah, Hasteen.) This world was inhabited by ant people, and Begochiddy then gives them the first law (Zolbrod, Leeming, and Page.) This annoys Hashjeshjin, the son of fire, so he begins to burn the dark earth. Begochiddy takes a stick of bamboo from under the west mountain, and places it in the center of the red mountain. All the creatures climb into it, and it grows, puncturing the sky and bringing them into the second world (Klah, Hasteen).

On this new blue world Begochiddy recreates the things he had on the first, and creates two female twins, and two male twins. Hashjeshjin is displeased with this world as well, and kills both the male twins and the female twins. Hashjeshjin kills them, chopping them into little bits and stuffing their bits into their heads. He then takes a foot long reed and places it in the mouth of each head, and breathes his spirit into them. This creates cotton plants, and grasses, and clouds. And the clouds begin to swell and soon rain began in the east. The creatures of the second world climbed the mountains and enjoyed it so much they asked Begochiddy and Hashjeshjin four times if they could live there. This irritates Hashjeshjin so much that he burns all the water in the world, forcing Begochiddy to once again, break through the sky with a stick of bamboo, bringing them into the third world.

All of Begochiddy’s creations poured from the bamboo and spread out onto the third yellow world, meeting the grasshopper people, and replanting everything they had on the world before. They met the four grasshopper people, who welcomed them to their world. There were two rivers flowing, a female stretching from east to west and a male, coming from the north and going south. At the intersection of these two rivers Begochiddy created a meeting place. Feeling the world a little empty, he then created trees, and all kinds of animals and insects. He then created four men and four women, and with a piece of bamboo, breathes life into all of them. All that he had created spoke the same language, and even though there was no sun or moon, the mountains provided enough light. Feeling content Begochiddy created a rainbow house for himself on the east mountain, to watch over the people living in the middle of the world. The people flourished, and grew corn, tobacco, beans, pumpkins, and squash. They hunted deer for meat, and everything worked together in harmony. The first marriage took place not long after that, and first man married first woman. First man was the Chief, and lead hunting parties every day. While he was out hunting first woman was unfaithful to him, and because of this Begochiddy separated all the men and women, having them live on opposite sides of the river. The men did very well, but the women did poorly. Begochiddy decided to let them live together again, but created his third law “the male shall rule and whatever your chiefs say, that must be done.” He said that if anything else went wrong, he would create a flood to destroy them. Soon after, Begochiddy began noticing troubling clouds. He sent animals in all directions to investigate, and they found four different storms coming from the north, the east, the south, and the west. First woman declared that all who had been good would come with them to the fourth world, while everyone else would go back to the first world, which was still burning. To protect themselves from the storm while they traveled to the fourth world, they sang and chanted, which is the basis for the first three ceremonies. With the help of the locust chief they were able to make it to the fourth world, and escape the storm.

Upon emerging into the fourth world the creatures saw nothing, just a large white cloud. Begochiddy summoned cyclones to dry the wet ground, but still saw nothing. They looked to the east, but found nothing, they looked to the south, and found nothing, they looked to the west, and found nothing. But when they finally looked to the north they found peaceful people farming. They spread over this world and began living happily. The chiefs had a meeting and decided they needed a sweat house for purification. Everyone contributed and soon it was complete. With the purifying powers of the sweat house the chiefs formed mountains, the sun and moon, the stars and constellations, and the months. They came out of the sweat house content with what they had formed, and so people have lived on the white world ever since.

[|http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~rfrey/PDF/329/329Dine%20Creation%20Account.pdf] [] [] NOTE: having trouble with space and indentation. dont know why

Navajo Five Worlds

The Navajo history began in the 1st world. It was a small, dark, world where adulterous insect people lived. The world was surrounded on all sides by oceans. There was day and night, but not a sun and a moon. It was known as the red world, where only insect people lived. Eventually a group of insect people were kicked out, so they moved to the second world.The second world was blue, with air. But swallows inhabit this world. Eventually, the insect people get kicked out for adultery.So they move onto the 3rd world, with the help of Nilch'i (the wind). In here, the Yellow World, Locust people live. They lived along the river, and there was nothing but darkness to the north and they accept these Insect People. But soon after wards they are kicked out again for adultery. They enter the 4th world, promising not to do any more bad actions. Here they meet some holy people, who make an elaborate ceremony. The holy people put a white and yellow ear of corn under two buckskins, Nilch'i blows into it, and that's how First Man and First Woman came to be, the first true ancestors of the Navajo. They have several sets of twins, that marry into the Mirage People. After that, there are some conflicts between men and women, but eventually all of their disputes are resolved (with the help of Owl). Everything goes fine until there's a great tide of water coming from all the sides of the land. The people need to escape to the 5th world, with the help of two men that grow very high trees with the help of sacred soil from the mountain borders. The people enter the reed, and it reaches its way into the 5th (or Glittering) world, where we have been living since.

Leeming, David, and Jake Page. //The Mythology of Native North America.// Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998. Print.

The first thing people did in the Glittering World was build a sweathouse and sing the blessing song. Then they met in hogan, or the First House, that was made how Talking God had prescribed it. In this house, the First Man and Woman, along with the Holy People, started to arrange the world. They named the four surrounding mountains, and determined their boundaries. Then, the Holy People put the moon and sun in the sky, and were carefully placing the stars, until Coyote, the main trickster, grew impatient and just threw them all into they sky. Other necessities were made, and the first Earth People inhabited the planet. Everything went fine until evil Monsters started to inhabit the world and terrorize the Earth People. They were saved by the birth of Changing Woman. Changing Woman married the sun and bore two sons, the heroes of the Navajo People. They were called "Monster Slayer" and "Child-Born-of-Water". The twins went to their father (the sun) who gave them lightning bolts to use against the monsters. Once all the monsters were vanquished, the Navajo turned their attention to the making of clans. Then, Changing Woman created four of her own clans, that eventually joined the original Navajo clans, at Dinetah (located in the canyons which drain the San Juan River).

[|Lapahie Jr., H. (2009, August 23). The Navajo creation story. In //Portal to the////Navajo internet//. Retrieved November 7, 2010, from http://www.lapahie.com/creation.cfm]

Navajo Myth of Constellations & The Demons:

After all of the plants, animals, and land was created Black god was appointed with a job to do by Fire God. He was supposed to make representations of each animal in the sky with stars, which he had in a bag so humans could worship them. Before this Humans didn't know how to worship and the deities were stars, so to make it easier Black God arranged them in such way. Coyote was a trickster that fed off of despair and discord because he gets pleasure from it. He was born from the earth and the sky along with his brother Badger. Since Coyote fed off of discord he went up to the bag at night and through a bunch of stars in the sky creating confusion for the humans on which stars to worship when and such matters (Andrews, Tamra. 49).

Because the humans couldn't worship the stars correctly they became vengeful and said that there was a certain way for each individual person to live and worship, but that was still a problem because humans didn't know how to learn how to do this. Eventually humans discovered how to worship the correct stars and learn the path they are supposed to take and arranged special houses for the shamans that told the shamans which stars to worship and which paths people should take called hogans. If they do not worship the stars correctly or don't follow a certain paths demons created by sexual intercourse between the women during the split between men and women in the creation of the earth would create chaos and take power over the earth. The demons eventually started to put up fake stars and suns so that the humans would interpret their path wrong and worship the wrong stars. Once the humans started to worship the wrong stars the demons took power and started eating humans (Andrews, Tamra. 50).

During this time of discord First Man and First Woman encountered a small turquoise figurine of a women on a mountain, supposedly the figurine was the figurine of the child they wanted. The gods turned her into a human and First Man and First Woman raised her. Once she hit puberty First Man and First Woman held a ceremony which consists of the daughter running to a designated sacred spot one time on the first day, two times on the second, and three times on the third. When this was over they spread a sacred cornmeal on her head to finish the ritual called Kinaalda which is still used to day to ensure fertility. When the ceremony was over the child became Changing Women. The ceremony was very tiring so Changing women took a sun bath, which resulted in the sun impregnating her. Soon after she gave birth to two children, Monster Slayer and Child-Born-of-Water (Leeming, David, Jake Page).

When the children were growing up the monsters wanted to kill them, because them, their mother, their grandparents, and four other people were the only ones left. As they matured the demons had more and more intent on killing them, but every time they were about to something intervened. The first time their mother convinced them into thinking that she hadn't undergone the ceremony yet so she couldn't have given birth. The second time the wind blew the monsters away, which resulted in them becoming afraid of Changing Woman. When the kids were adults they were wondering around and came upon a hole. In the hole was Spider Woman who had taught the Navajo how to weave. Spider Woman told them their father was the sun which resulted in them wanting to reach their father. In light of their new discovery Spider Woman put a spell on them to protect them from the dangers there were to reach their father. They had to go through a cactus field that tore at their skin, a desert that had sand that could turn a man into ashes, and a swamp with reads that cut deep in their skin, but the magic protected them. Once they got to the sun's house and told them they were his sons he didn't believe them so they had to prove to him that they were his sons. The tasks were composed of smoking tobacco that would kill a normal man, eat poisoned cornmeal, take a sweat bath so hot it could melt them, and be flung against a wall with flint spikes multiple times. Once they did this the sun gave them lightning bolts and flint armor to kill monsters (Leeming, David, Jake Page).

They first had to kill Big Giant at Mount Taylor. They cut off his head and flung it onto the top of Mount Taylor. Every once in a while blood will spurt from the head and it will fuse with the rocks to create lava. After that they wiped out the rest of the demons and buried them at Mount Taylor. Every once in a while the bones will come back up, which humans confuse with fossils. Next they had to kill the five underground monsters, Hunger, Sleep, Old Age, Liceman, and Poverty. They were going to kill them when they started to give them reasons why they are important and should be spared. Hunger said that without him people would starve and wouldn't cultivate the land. Sleep said that without him people couldn't recover from sickness and would die. Old Age said that if he was dead people would over populate the earth and we would die. Liceman said that he made it so that people would wash them selves as preventative measures, which resulted in good hygiene and people not catching diseases. Poverty argued that if he weren't around people wouldn't work and chaos would ensue. Because of their arguments Monster Slayer and Child-Born-of-Water spared them. When this was over and prosperity was restored to the land, sun met with Changing Woman who lived in the west. They arranged that each day when the sun was done with his work in the east he would go to the west to meet Changing Woman, which resulted in night and day (Leeming, David, Jake Page).

Andrews, Tamra. Legends of the Earth, Sea, and Land. 49-50: ABC-CLIO, Inc., 1998. Print.

Leeming, David, and Jake Page. //The Mythology of Native North America.// Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998. Print.