Dine/Navajo Creation Words, Landscape and Dry Paintings

 

Locust is the first to come up the "reed of emergence" into this, the Fifth World, the earth surface world, followed by First Man and First Woman, Pollen Boy, Lightning God and Talking God, and all the other YeiDiyin Dinee, the Holy People.   All around is water and darkness.   There are no peoples, but there are many monsters.  There is much hocho - disorder and ugliness.

At the Emergence Place, the Holy People decide to build a sweathouse, like a hogan though much larger.   First Man brings his medicine bundle with him into the sweat bath, the bundle containing four jewels - turquoise, white shell, abalone and obsidian.  In the heat and the steam, the Holy   

People whisper to each other and, with the knowledge of hozho - beauty and harmony, plan the earth-surface world.  They think of the biiasti, the "in-standing ones," the inner forms of all things.  Then the Holy People speak the words of the world and sing the world into being.

 The earth will be,

the mountains will be . . . ,

The earth will be,

from ancient times with me there is knowledge of it.

The mountains will be,

from ancient times with me there is knowledge of it. . . .

The earth will be,

from the very beginning I have thought it.

The mountains will be,

from the very beginning I have thought it. . . .

The earth will be,

from the ancient times I speak it.

The mountains will be,

from the ancient times I speak it. . . .

The earth will be,

the mountains will be, . . .

and so it will be.  (from the Beginning of the World Song)

 And the rivers and mountains, the sun and moon, come forth; each with biiasti - spirit and life.    And there is Saah Naaghaii Bikeh Hozho, "continual reoccurring long life in an environment of beauty and harmony."  It would be landscape from which Changing Woman would come, as well as her sons, Monster Slayer and Child of the Water, bringing forth Hozho.  And she would bring forth the Dine, the Earth Surface People.

 Earth's feet have become my feet

by means of these I shall live on.

Earth's legs have become my legs

by means of these I shall live on.

Earth's body has become my body

by means of this I shall live on.

Earth's mind has become my mind

by means of this I shall live on.

Earth's voice has become my voice

by means of this I shall live on.

Earth's headplume has become my headplume

by means of this I shall live on.

The cord‑like extension from the top of its head

is cord‑like from the top of my head as by means of this I shall live on.

There are mountains encircling it and

Hozho extends up their slopes,

by means of these it will be hozho as I shall live on.

Saah Naaghaii Bikeh Hozho I shall be,

Before me it will be hozho as I live on,

Behind me it will be hozho as I live on,

Below me it will be hozho as I live on,

Above me it will be hozho as I live on.

Hozho has been restored.

Hozho has been restored.

Hozho has been restored.

Hozho has been restored. (from the Blessingway Song)

But there remains much hocho.    Monsters persist:  Sickness, Hunger, Poverty, Lice Man, Laziness.  In the heat and steam, the Holy People think the world and then speak the world into being.

 

Mount Hesperus (La Plata Mountain) - Obsidian Girl
San Francisco Peak - Abalone Boy click on to enlarge  and context Blanca Peak - Dawn Boy

Mount Taylor - Turquoise Girl

 

 

Gobernador Knob - Center of the Dine world

 

 

Hogan

 

The Four Mountains Dry Painting.  Among the images are the Pine Mountain, Black Spruce Mountain, Spruce Yellow Mountain, and Blue Mountain, as well as the Yei or Holy People -- Changing Grandchild (top), Monster Slayer (right), Child of the Water (bottom), Reared within the Mountain (left),  with Pink Herb, Black Herb, Yellow Herb and Blue Herb,  and the Moon and Sun (left)

Billy Yellow (18 min.,  this and the following clip, Beatrice, are from David Maybury-Lewis' 1992 Millennium: Tribal Wisdom and the Modern World PBS series. 
Maybury-Lewis is a recently retired professor of anthropology from Harvard University.  Anth 329)

 

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