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 Ni’hookaa Diyan Diné by their creators. It means “Holy Earth People”. Navajos today simply call themselves “Diné”, meaning “The People”. The Tewa Indians were the first to call them Navahu, which means “the large area of cultivated land.”
Diné Bahaneʼ is the Navajo Creation Story. It describes the prehistoric emergence of the Navajo, and centers on the area known as the Dinétah, the traditional homeland of the Navajo. This story forms the basis for the traditional Navajo way of life.
Niłchʼi Diyin (Holy Wind) – created as the mists of lights which arose through the darkness to animate and bring purpose to the four Diyin Dineʼé (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 humans did not exist yet, but the spiritual did.
Niʼ Hodiłhił (The First or Dark World) – was small and centered on an island floating in the middle of four seas. The inhabitants of the first world were the four Diyin Dineʼé, the two Coyotes, the four rulers of the four seas, mist beings and various insect and bat people, the latter being the Air-Spirit People. The supernatural beings First Woman and First Man came into existence here and met for the first time after seeing each other’s fire. The various beings on The First World started fighting with one another and departed by flying out an opening in the east.
Niʼ Hodootłʼizh (Second or Blue World) – which was inhabited by various blue-gray furred mammals and various birds, including blue swallows. The beings from the First World offended Táshchózhii, (Swallow Chief), and they were asked to leave. First Man created a wand of jet and other materials to allow the people to walk upon it up into the next world through an opening in the south.
Niʼ Hałtsooí(Third or Yellow World) – there were two rivers that formed a cross and the Sacred Mountains but there was still no sun. More animal people lived here too. This time it was not discord among the people that drove them away but a great flood caused by Tééhoołtsódii when Coyote stole her two children.
Niʼ Hodisxǫs(The fourth world) – was covered in water and there were monsters (naayééʼ) living here. The Sacred Mountains were re-formed from soil taken from the original mountains in the Second World.
First Man, and the Holy People created the sun, moon, seasons, and stars. It was here that true death came into existence via Coyote tossing a stone into a lake and declaring that if it sank then the dead would go back to the previous world.
Yoołgaii Asdzą́ą́(First Person born in the Fourth World) – matures into Asdzą́ą́ Nádleehé, in turn, gives birth to the Hero Twins called Naayééʼ Neizghání and Tóbájíshchíní. The twins have many adventures in which they helped to rid the world of various monsters.
Multiple batches of modern humans were created a number of times in the Fourth World and the Diyin Dineʼé gave them ceremonies which are still practiced today.
Spider Woman (Spider Grandmother) and Spider Man knew how to weave the fibers of cotton and hemp and other plants. First Woman asked Spider Woman and Spider Man to teach people how to weave the fibers of plants so they would not have to depend on animal skins for clothing.
Spider Woman is also said to cast her web like a net to capture and eat misbehaving children. In another myth, Spider Woman aided the twins (born of the Sun and the Changing Woman) in killing the monsters that were endangering The Earth surface People by giving them feather hoops that protected them from attacks.
Áłtsé Hastiin – First Woman
Haashchʼééshzhiní (Black Yéʼii) – the God of fire.
Tsé Nináhálééh – Monster Eagle.
Tsé dah Hódziiłtáłii – The Monster Who Kicks People Down the Cliff.
Binááʼ yee Aghání – the Monsters That Kill with Their Eyes.
Yéʼiitsoh (Big Giant) – hid along paths, and killed and devoured travelers.
Déélgééd – the Horned Monster.
Téʼéʼį́ Dineʼé – the Poverty Creatures.
Tóbájíshchíní – Child of the Water.
Tó Neinilí (Water Sprinkler) –
Monster Slayer Twins –
Changing Woman –
Water Sprinkler – the Rain God.
Spider Rock stands with awesome dignity and beauty over 800 feet high in Arizona's colourful Canyon de Chelly National Park (pronounced da Shay). Geologists of the National Park Service say that "the formation began 230 million years ago.
AUTHOR: Dine’ or Navajo creation story, legend, myth, oral story There was once a First World below the World as we know it. Everything was black and it had in it only six beings. They were First Man, the Son…