The Creation Story Of Navajo

THE CREATION STORY OF NAVAJO

NAVAJO

CREATION STORY People didn't always live here, where they live now. The Insect People passed through four separate worlds, but in each world they displeased the gods and were forced to flee through a hole in the sky into the next world. Then they walked up a reed from the bottom of a lake and that's how they got into this world. In the Fourth World they met up with the Kisani people (the Pueblo Indians) and the Insect People created First Man and First Woman of the Dinè (Navajo people). First Man and First Woman led the people to this world, and they brought along their two children, the Changing Twins. They were Monster Slayer and Child of the Water.

CREATION STORY When First Man and First Woman and the twins got to this world, it was all covered with water. But winds came and blew the water off of some of the land, so people could live on it. Then First Man got help from the diyin dine (spirit people) to make all the things on earth. He had a sacred medicine bundle and he took out the things in the bundle one by one and sang to it, and so he turned it into a mountain, or a tree, or an animal, or a time of day, or something else.

CREATION STORY Once the earth was made, the twin brothers made all the things that people need. First one of the twins scooped up some clay from the stream in his hand and shaped it into a food bowl. Then his brother found some reeds growing and wove them into a basket. The twins picked up stones and made them into knives and spear points and hammers, and they made digging sticks out of wood, and hoes from deer shoulder blades. So people got all the tools that they needed.

CREATION STORY The original world lay deep within the present earth. Lit by neither sun nor moon, it contained dimly colored clouds that moved around the horizon to mark the hours. At first life was peaceful; then the evils of lust and envy took hold, and violence broke out. So the ancestral Navajo fled into exile, grappling upward through a hole in the sky to another world directly above. Here, where the light was blue, harmony at first prevailed. Then again the same story: bitter quarreling, followed by escape and a climb to yet another world, and then another.

CREATION STORY Finally, First Man and First Woman, the direct ancestors of humankind, emerged on the present earth. Water covered the earth's surface, but sacred winds gusted in to blow it away. With the aid of a sacred medicine bundle, and guided by beings known as diyin dine, the holy people, First Man then filled the world with all its natural bounty and wonder. He laid out each object in the bundle and by chanting transformed it into an animal, a plant, a mountain peak, an hour of the day.

CREATION STORY Everything in the new universe resided in perfect balance, controlled by a kind of spiritual symmetry; four directions, four winds, four seasons, and the four basic colors of black, blue, amber and white. Most of all, an essential harmony prevailed, called hozho, which blended the concepts of beauty, peace, happiness and righteousness.

Earth Navajo Sandpainting Textile The creation story of Navajo

Pueblo people

• The Pueblo people are a Native American people in the Southwestern United States. • Of the approximately 25 pueblos that exist today, Hopi are the best-known.