Magnificent Navajoland

Peace and beauty flow from stories enshrined in sacred vistas

BENEVOLENT DEITIES GRANTED THE NAVAJO

Indians regard the sweeping vistas and remote canyons and mountains of their homeland as a place of peace and beauty, but it was not always so. In their story of creation, the Navajos had to purge their land of evil caused by the misdeeds of their ancestors. The Navajo homeland, a dramatic stretch of land that ranges out from Arizona into parts of Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, is larger in scope than mere sand and stone reaching out under turquoise skies. To the Navajos, each vista in this holy land has a story to tell along with a lesson to guide them in the Navajo way of life. Like the worn pages of an ancient text, the land anchors them to their iden-tity and their cultural values.

The Diné, as the Navajo people refer to them-selves, still occupy the majority of their ancestral homeland, created for them by First Man and First Woman so long ago. Navajoland, called Diné bi Keyah by Navajos-occupies an area larger than Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecti-cut and Rhode Island combined. With its scenic canyons, mountains and valleys, Navajoland not only inspires awe, but, according to its people, also chronicles the beginning of time in this world.

For all its beauty, this stark region of deeply cut canyons and sparse desert plants shows no kind-ness in its life lessons. Navajo stories tell of an ancient battle from which reminders still stand. Every rock and bush of the land recalls the sacri-fices made by the Holy People to save the Diné from their own folly.

THE ORAL HISTORY HANDED DOWN

From grandparents to children, from generation to generation, becomes unique with each telling. A Navajo storyteller may emphasize one piece of the larger story according to the life lesson that needs to be taught to the listeners. Though the stories are best told by the Navajos who cherish and live by them, the following retelling contains the key elements, which remain the same no matter who the teller. In the beginning, the First People emerged into this land, leaving behind the evils they had encountered in the previous worlds. Or so they thought. First Man and First Woman shaped the new world into a vision of beauty. They created the moon and sun and stars so that the People would have night and day and seasons. Bounding the land were four sacred rivers and four sacred mountains formed from materials First Man had brought into this new land of hopes and dreams. The rivers-the Colorado, the Little Colorado, the San Juan and the Rio Grande-marked the boundaries of the land created for the People. In the east, First Man and First Woman created Horizontal Black Belt (known as Blanca Peak), made of white shell, fastened to the Earth with lightning and covered with a blanket of daylight. Then they located Blue Bead Mountain (Mount Taylor) in the south, filling the dome with turquoise, pinning it to the Earth with a stone knife and covering the newly formed mountain with blue sky. Light Always Glitters On Top (the San Francisco Peaks) in the west contained abalone shell, secured with a sunbeam and covered in yellow twilight. They completed the boundaries of the sacred lands by erecting The Place of Big Mountain Sheep (Hesperus Mountain) in the north. It was created from jet, fastened to Earth with a rainbow and covered in darkness. Inside each of the four mountains, they placed protective holy beings called Those That Stand Within Them. And the newly formed world was filled with beauty and promise and hope. Although the People believed they had forever escaped the evils of the earlier worlds, they soon discovered that the women had carried the seeds of human destruction with them into this world. Because they could not live in harmony, the women gave birth to monsters that began killing the PeoPle. And beauty fled from the world. When the Earth was still new, First Man and First Woman found a baby by following her cry. She became known as Changing Woman. She grew to

(Continued from page 22) womanhood in four days, and the Sun came to her as she slept near a spring. Nine days later she gave birth to the Hero Twins-Monster Slayer and Child Born for Water.

The twins quickly grew into men and learned of their father from Spider Woman, one of the Holy People. With her help, the twins traveled to the house of the Sun and passed four hazardous tests, proving they were his sons. The Sun finally acknowledged them and granted them use of his powerful weapons-arrows of lightning, rainbows and sunbeams, and a stone knife. And they descended back to Earth to rid the world of the monsters.

Child Born for Water stayed at Huerfano Peak, working to restore the balance of beauty to the world as his twin brother Monster Slayer took off across the land to destroy the monsters.

On the first day, Monster Slayer began his mission near Navajo Springs, where he killed the first enemy of the Peoplehis father's son and his own half-brother, Yeitso, the One-Walking Giant. Monster Slayer cut off the giant's head and flung it to the east, where it now stands as Cabezon Peak. Yeitso's blood streamed down into the valley and was stopped by Monster Slayer's stone knife-where it hardened into the great lava flows southwest of the San Mateo Mountains.

On the second day, Monster Slayer set out to the Red Plains to slay the man-eating Giant Elk. Unable to approach the beast, Monster Slayer enlisted the help of the Gopher, who led him through her tunnel so he could get close to the monster. He shot

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[LEFT] Eroded layers of sandstone and shale form the colorful peaks and valleys of Coal Mine Canyon near Tuba City.

[ABOVE] Pottery shards and corncobs left behind by ancient Puebloan inhabitants create an enduring mosaic at the Keet Seel cliff dwellings at Navajo National Monument. BOTH BY LARRY ULRICH

(Continued from page 27) An arrow of lightning into Giant Elk's heart, and his lifeblood stained the sands red. Gopher helped Monster Slayer gather the blood vessels into a hide bag, which he slung around his neck. As Gopher busied herself at her task, she wiped her bloodied hands across her brow, which is why gophers have dark faces today. On the third day, Monster Slayer made his way to A Tall Rock Standing to find the Giant Birds and their brood. He carried the hide bag of the Giant Elk's blood around his neck and slung his lightning arrows across his back. With him, he carried two sacred feathers and a black knife, and as he walked he sang: I wonder if the lone eyes are watching me? I am he who has killed the monsters. The lightning is before me. All is beautiful behind me. The Giant Birds killed many of the People, smashing their victims against the sharp spires at Shiprock for their two children to eat. But Monster Slayer was saved from this fate by the two sacred feathers, which helped him to land lightly in the Giant Birds' nest. He then smashed the blood-filled bag against the ground to fool the Giant Bird. Monster Slayer hushed the two young monster birds, promising not to kill them if they would tell him when their parents would return, and they did. As the male Rain approached, so did the male Giant Bird, and Monster Slayer brought the bird down with one of his lightning arrows. On the following night, as the softer female Rain descended with the female Giant Bird, he slew her as well. Some stories say that the lava dike southwest of Shiprock

is the blood of these two destructive Giant Birds. Upon seeing their parents felled from the sky, the young birds cried in fear.

"If you had grown up you would have been evil," said Monster Slayer. "But I will make you into something that can be used for the good of the Diné."

Monster Slayer took the first nestling and swung it around him four times, saying that it would forget its evil origins and would instead furnish plumes and bones for the Diné. He let go and an eagle soared toward the sky. He then did the same with the second nestling, saying that men would listen to its voice to learn the future, and an owl departed in search of the night.

Monster Slayer wandered around the nest high up in the rocks but could not find a way down until he saw Bat Woman walking on the ground below.

"Grandmother," he called. "Please help me down from here, and I will give you the feathers of the Giant Birds I killed."

Bat Woman agreed and transported him in her basket back down to Earth. Monster Slayer helped her fill her basket with the feathers from the fallen giants and warned her not to go through the sunflowers with her bundle of precious feathers. But despite his warnings, she did just that, and hundreds of colorful birds flew out of her basket. In this manner, the feathers of the Giant Birds became a rainbow of color in the sky-the flickers, swallows, starlings, robins, sparrows, wrens, warblers, titmice, juncos and nuthatches.

Now that the first four monsters had been destroyed, Monster Slayer continued across Diné bi Keyah. He killed the Rolling Rock, which crushed people into the ground, by chiseling pieces away with knives of black, yellow, blue and white. When only

only a small piece of his stony enemy remained, Monster Slayer told the remaining fragment that it would forget its time as the Rolling Rock and would become flint to create fire for the People.

Then Monster Slayer headed to the plains and killed 11 of the tribe of 12 dangerous antelope. The remaining one he spared, saying that to repent for its evilness it would feed the People with its flesh.

And still Monster Slayer continued. He destroyed He Who Kicks People Off Cliffs, the Slashing Reeds, the Rock that Crushes, the Evil Eyes, and the lesser enemies scouring Earth. But he could not dispose of his enemies' bodies and instead left them behind as stony testaments to his great battles.

When he was through, Monster Slayer walked to the four corners of the land-to the mountains in the East, South, West, North-and returned, proclaiming that the monsters had been destroyed and that all was well to the ends of the Earth. To return to the state of beauty, the divine twins performed the first Enemyway ceremony. Monster Slayer's drumstick turned into stone, becoming Rainbow Bridge, as a reminder of his heroic deeds.

And so the Navajos live in a land created for them, formed from a dream of the First People, cleansed by the Hero Twins and watched over by Changing Woman-Mother Earth herself. The Diné don't need to bind their stories in books-they carry their sacred geography and all of its lessons with them, walking in beauty across prayers of stone. Al ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: For details about photography workshops in the Navajoland area presented by the Friends of Arizona Highways, call (602) 712-2004 or toll-free (888)790-7042.

HISTORY FRONTIER MEDICINE

EARLY ARIZONA DOCTORS RESORTED TO

PRIMITIVE TREATMENTS

BUT LEFT AN IMPORTANT LEGACY