An Origin Story: The Navajo

This week we are continuing eastward with our Origin Story series, focusing on the Americas. The Native American people were thought to have migrated from modern-day Russia, which is said to have been relatively easy since the two continents were once connected by land.

Historians report that this group of migrants traveled southward from the arctic region of North America over the years 38,000 BCE-3000 BCE, which covers three different migration periods. It’s important to note that historians also claim that migrants likely did not just travel across the arctic land bridge to populate the Americas, but other groups also sailed from southeast and east Asia, all the way across the Pacific Ocean.

This is an important fact when we ask ourselves, “where did these people originate”? And if we answer this question confidently, we can perhaps discover where these groups’ beliefs and ideas originated from too.

For time’s sake, we are going to be discussing the Navajo tribe’s creation story this time. The Navajo Indian reserve is the largest Native American reserve in America to date, comprised of 250,000 members, and counting. Initially, the Navajo had many more members, as did all Native American groups before the arrival of the Europeans.

The creation story of the Navajo goes as follows:

The world started with a world of darkness, called Nihodilhil, which was the “First World”. The First World had four corners with four different clouds appearing above the four corners. Within each cloud were the first four elements, appearing as the colors black, white, blue, and yellow. The Black Cloud represented the “Female Being or Substance”, because a child who sleeps in the darkness of a womb, so all life slept in the darkness of the cloud. The White Cloud represented the “Male Being or Substance”, who was the Dawn and the Light.

The Black Cloud met the White Cloud in the East of the First World, and together created First Man, as well as the perfect, white corn. The first seed that came from the corn was named Dohonotini, which is also the name of the place where the two Clouds met.

This First World was small, like an island in the ocean, or a mountain in the mist. On this World grew one Pine Tree, which will become important when the Present World is created.

The First Man was not in his Present form, and neither were the beings of this First World. They call these beings the Mist People, who had no definite form, but would later transform into the humans, beasts, birds and reptiles of the Present World.

In the West of the First World, (which would later be called the Land of the Sunset), the Yellow Cloud and Blue Cloud met and created First Woman. With her was the perfect, yellow corn, just like the white corn. Except, First Woman also had the white shell, yucca, and turquoise stone with her.

Now, the First Woman was standing in the West, far away from the First Man standing in the East, each representing different things. First Woman represented darkness and death, whereas First Man represented the Dawn, and Life.

The First Man had a crystal with him, and he burned it to light a fire. The crystal was clear, and was the awakening of the mind for the first time. It represented clear seeing for males.

The First Woman burned her turquoise to also light a fire. They both saw each other’s fires in the distance.

As the Black Cloud and White Cloud rose higher, the First Man desired to seek out the light. He tried to find it three times unsuccessfully, however, the fourth time he was able to mark the area using a forked tree branch. This when First Woman noticed, and said “I wondered why he did not come.”

As the Blue Cloud and Yellow Cloud rose higher, the same thing happened to First Woman! She tried to find the light three times unsuccessfully, but the fourth time, she found the smoke from the fire, and found the home of the First Man.

She had noticed that his crystal was stronger than her turquoise, and First Man asked “Why don’t you bring your fire and we can live together?” So the woman went with the man.

In came another person, called the Great-Coyote-Who-Was-Formed-in-the-Water, who was in the form of a man. He said to First Man and First Woman that he was hatched from an egg, and knew all that was under the water, and all that was in the skies. First Man decided that this being was to be put before all things in his life.

(Here it gets a bit more complicated).

After the Great Coyote came, and while the three began planning the future, another fourth being came to the house. He was also in the form of a man, but was wearing a hairy coat with a belted waist, and then he promptly fell to his knees. His name was “First Angry” or just Coyote. He said to the three, “You believe that you were the first persons. You are mistaken. I was living when you were formed.”

After that four more beings came together, who are called the Wasp People. These Wasp People knew the secret of shooting harm into others and causing evil, so they were very powerful.

Four more beings came after that, who were wearing red shirts and had black eyes- they were called the Spider Ants, who knew how to sting.

From this came more and more multitudes of beings, who all quarreled with each other constantly.

This is the story of the First World…which is only the beginning of the beginning! The story continues with the stories of the Blue Second World, Yellow Third World, and the White Fourth World.

The stories of each world constitute the entire Origin Story of the Navajo.

Here is a visual of the First World:

This story came from oral history, passed down from generations to generations, since the very beginning of Navajo culture. It was not written, like much of our history, but spoken. This is a precious story that has never died, and hopefully will never die with all of the time to come.

 

Thank you so much for reading, until next week, keep searching!

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