Navajo rugs, blankets and weavings
Navajo religion Creation - page 1 of 7

Great-grandfathers still explain the beginning of time through folk tales and how the First People were led out of the pitch in the center of the earth and emerged into Navajoland. On its red earth they lived close to nature and they survive to this day in their hogans, looms nearby, and flocks of sheep spread out, grazing on the sparse life-nurturing plants. Mothers still caution children not to kill spiders because they are friends. It was Mrs. Spider, they say, who taught Navajo women how to spin fine threads from leaf fibers, cotton, and wool into useful articles.

Navajo religion teaches that they traveled through three or four worlds beneath this one and emerged into this sphere in the La Plata mountains of southwestern Colorado or the Navajo Dam area of northwestern New Mexico. The gods or first man and woman created the four sacred mountains - Blanca Peak and Hesperus Peak in Colorado, Mount Taylor in New Mexico, and the San Francisco Peaks in Arizona; preparing them as supernatural boundaries within which all was safe and protected. In addition, the gods also established four rivers, one of which was the San Juan, to serve as defensive guardians. This river played an important role in some of the Navajo chantway myths and functioned as a clear line of demarcation between Navajo and Ute territories.

Part of the larger Navajo origin story includes the importance of the four sacred mountains. When First Man , Áltsé Hastiin, and First Woman, Áltsé Asdzáá, emerged into the Fourth World they created these four sacred mountains. After the first four Navajo clans emerged from a subsequent global flood, they moved into the area bounded by these four mountains. This was the original Dinétah, Navajo country. Those mountains are recognized today as San Francisco Peak, Mount Hesperus, Mount Taylor, and Mount Blanca. The importance of place and the relationship of place to spirituality is evidenced in the four sacred mountains. The full account of the origin story reveals dozens of place-specific episodes that can be recognized in modern geography. It is not hard to discern the Navajo desire for order and their devotion to clan-based politics from their story of the world's beginning.

The first people were born in the Black world, home to spirits and holy men. Áltsé Hastiin, First Man, was born in the east out of a union between the white cloud and the black cloud. Born with him was Doo Honoot'ínii, the first seed corn. In the west, yellow cloud and blue cloud met and made Áltsé Asdzáá, First Woman. She arrived with yellow corn, white shell, and turquoise. Cooperation was a virtue in the Black World, demonstrated by Insect Beings. Other beings also lived in the Black World, including Wasp People, Bat People, Ant People, and Spider Woman. But infighting and bickering led all these beings to move up to the Blue World. They carried with them all the evils of the Black World.

• Navajo Creation
• Navajo ceremonies
• Navajo medicine men
• Navajo ceremonial sandpaintings
• Navajo sacred lands

Navajo religion Creation Emergence - page 2

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