Diné Bahane': The Navajo Creation Story

by Paul G. Zolbrod

This is the most complete version of the Navajo creation story to appear in English since Washington Matthews' Navajo Legends of 1847. Zolbrod's new translation renders the power and delicacy of the oral storytelling performance on the page through a poetic idiom appropriate to the Navajo oral tradition. Zolbrod's book offers the general reader a vivid introduction to Navajo culture. For students of literature this book proposes a new way of looking at our literary heritage.

Genres: Mythology, Religion, Nonfiction, Native American, History, Indigenous, Folklore

431 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1984

Reviews

[Abby]

The dilapidated copy I read came as a discard from the high school library in Kirtland. Mom says it's one of the books that tends to walk out and not come back, which surprised me at first. However, I loved it. As far as authenticity goes, it's a little strange- written by an English prof from PA with no training in ethnology or anthropology, no experience with the Navajo culture, no knowledge of the language, and plenty of enthusiasm. His primary source is another book by another author from around the turn of the century, and although he did a vast amount of impeccable research, he collected very little of the material himself. That said, he took the greatest of pains to make sure each story reflected the least European influence and was told in a manner as close to a storytelling or performance experience as he could make it. In short, this is probably the closest those of us lacking Navajo grandparents will get to hearing the "real thing." I would far rather have heard it from grandparents, but Zolbrod did a fine job.

[Luke Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

This should be required reading. Powerful, majestic, and surprisingly humorous, this is more or less a transcription/dictation of the original American oral masterpiece.

[Lloyd Earickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

You longtime followers will remember, back in 2020, when I read a little book called the Popol Vuh , a translation of sorts of ancient American pictograms.  It was the only book I was able to find at the time that fit into my tour of ancient world literature which I was then conducting, so I left as an open item finding additional works from the ancient Americas.  When I eventually came across Diné Bahaneʼ, billed as the Navajo creation story, it immediately went on my reading list, and I was even more excited when I began the book.  Not only is Diné Bahaneʼ exactly what it claims to be, it is also a serious, scholarly treatment of the story, as accurately translated from an oral tradition as Zolbrod could manage.

His introduction itself is worth reading for anyone with an interest in history, historical literature, and translation.  Besides discussing work on Diné Bahaneʼ specifically, he provides the most insightful treatment I have yet seen on the art behind making translations, and insight into all of the choices that must go into even straightforward translations, such as from Greek or Latin to English.  Diné Bahaneʼ, crossing over to written prose English from an oral tradition in the Navajo language, is an even more difficult task, requiring more fraught decisions at every turn, and Zolbrod makes it abundantly clear how seriously he takes his task.  His insights about the nature of literature, and how oral storytelling is a form of preliterate poetry that should not be dismissed from the body of “literature,” are a worthwhile essay in their own right.

As for Diné Bahaneʼ itself, it did not disappoint.  Like the best of the other historical works I’ve read, it provided me an immersive experience of the ancient Navajo culture, though unlike a more familiar culture like ancient Greece, I cannot claim that I more than scratched the surface of this fascinating civilization (which, unlike many of the cultures represented in my reading, remains extant today).  By virtue of being so unique, even from what I learned from the Popol Vuh and The Inca, this might have been amongst the most fascinating ancient text I read even had the writing been poor and the story dull.  Neither was true.

From a gradual evolution from an insectoid state, to the fact that humans created the mortal world by naming it in the Navajo tradition (which reminds me a bit of how Middle Earth was sung into existence in The Silmarillion), to fascinating characters like the Coyote, or epic journeys and monster slaying, the Navajo creation story has everything, and is a truly unique and compelling interpretation of the human experience.  If stories are about experiencing vicariously things we can never personally experience so that we can understand them and live for a time with the people involved, Diné Bahaneʼ should be a must-read.

This is part mythological storytelling, and part oral history tradition, and the two blend throughout the text so that you will only separate one from the other if you're looking. I wish that I were more familiar with present understanding of the history of the region and the peoples who became the Navajo so that I could make more than the few connections I did to real-world events. There is, of course, a flood story, that famous tale that makes it into foundational stories as disparate as the Epic of Gilgamesh and Diné Bahaneʼ.

If I had to give a critique, and it's not so much a critique as a challenge, it would be the names. As a long-time fantasy reader, and more recently a reader of historical texts, I'm no stranger to weird, difficult to pronounce, difficult to track names, but Diné Bahaneʼ might be the most complicated I've read to date. Zolbrod preserves the Navajo names in most instances, and while he will sometimes include an English approximation of the meaning, it does not make it into every instance, obliging the reader to either remember, or look up, long strings of letters that in English don't look like they should go together, and are full of modifying symbols that most of us have never seen. In fact, there is an entire pronunciation guide to help readers read these Navajo words as they might sound when spoken aloud. All of this probably increases this translation's value as a work of scholarship and an immortalization of Navajo culture, but it does make the text less approachable.

A simple review cannot begin to encapsulate or even touch upon all of the insights I gained from reading Diné Bahaneʼ, and this is a book I will absolutely be rereading.  I know that not all of you share my fascination and interest in reading historical texts, but if you’re going to choose just one, I would encourage you to make it this one.  For once, I even have a specific translation to recommend – Zolbrod’s – whether you’re going to read the hundred pages of endnotes or just the story.  Truly, this was a valuable read, and I hope that you’ll understand why soon.

[Jarin Jove · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this creation mythology far more than I expected to. It is broken-up into four parts and each segment follows a different storyline. There’s an emphasis on repetition and continuous emphasis on east, south, north, and west with an emphasis on seemingly holy colors of white, yellow, black, and blue typically representing or emphasizing curiosity or acquiring knowledge. I’m not sure how this may come across, but for most of the story, I found a lot of the content hilarious and somewhat comical because most of the stories consisted of characters or groups of characters getting into bizarre antics or nonsensical feuds. There seemed to be a distinct playful tone within most of the stories insofar as what the writer appears to have paraphrased from oral Navajo traditions. The paraphraser, Paul G. Zolbrod, a professor of English at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, essentially admitted to having a translator to translate the stories and basing material on earlier written accounts from 1897 from the Matthews paraphrasing. He provides copious notes that give just as many rich details into Navajo tradition and distinct facets of each of the prominent characters of the Navajo Creation story. I want to stress that, as far as I can see, this is the most well-intentioned and complete format of the Navajo Creation mythology so far that is so detailed that people could use this book alone as a resource for writing stories utilizing Navajo mythology. However, there are a few distinct problems that I feel are important to go in detail about how the stories were paraphrased. The book is broken into four parts and revolve around the four major stories of the Navajo Creation myth.

This book was published in 1984 and the book’s notes largely assume a predominately Christian and European audience to be its readers. I don’t fault the author for this as even as early as in 1990, the US public was 90 percent Christian and so the author’s presumption makes sense in the context of when it was published. Nevertheless, the way the book is articulated, especially in the very beginning, can sometimes be confusing at best and asinine at worst. I must repeat that most of the stories, especially in Part II, are written fairly well and I largely had no problem with most of the content. However, the very beginning is written in the most infuriating manner possible and gave me a negative impression of the translation initially. Zolbrod kept adding “or in the White Man’s language” followed by the English term for specific references to locations and sometimes people. Unfortunately, he kept repeating this every one or two sentences ad nauseum to the point I had to re-read certain early parts because it read as if there was a deity called “or in the White Man’s language” instead of just writing the actual terms and what they meant. Both before and after describing what certain Navajo words meant, this buffoon of a paraphraser kept adding “or in the White Man’s language” to the point that I had to re-read to parse what he was even talking about. What specifically annoyed and – frankly – pissed me off about this was that there are four Holy Beings called the Holy People in the Navajo tradition who act as moral guides throughout the story and one of them is the White Holy Person representing the East and the daylight. Similar to the other Holy People, this spiritual being is defined as being the pure color of what they represent. For example, the Holy Being symbolized as Blue is a pure Blue person. Thus, the Holy Person representing Black is a pure Black person, the Holy being representing yellow is a pure yellow person, and the Holy Being representing the color white is represented as a being of pure whiteness. So, this moron of a paraphraser kept writing “or in the White Man’s language” when there is literally a holy, pure white being who is considered male in this theological tradition that could credibly be called “Holy White Man” or “Holy White Person” just as the one symbolizing Black would be the “Holy Black Man” or “Holy Black Person” and so on. Writing “in the White Man’s language” in this context was so infuriating and asinine to read through because of the confusion of terms and their contexts. He should never have written it in this idiotic way and I despise his idiotic decision to the fullest extent and in the strongest possible terms. Other contentions I have is that there is such a large extension of notes that he probably should have added some of those specific details in the actual written part of the story instead of adding the details in the notes page. The Sun God having their power represented by having lightning shoot out of their hair, fingertips, and whole body was a rather intriguing detail and honestly reminded me of Dragonball Z’s Super Saiyan form; the metaphor of Long-Life Boy and Happiness Girl representing the joys of giving birth to a newborn, and near the end, a rather interesting paragraph of how the First Man and First Woman – two beings created to lead the pre-Navajo people by the Four Holy People – refusing Changing Woman’s departure from their Clan (in some versions of the myths, she was found and adopted by them) and inadvertently or purposefully cursing the Navajo with disease, death, and physical ailments because they refused to accept her decision to leave and be with the Sun God. As a book published during its time, Zolbrod refers to the first two transgender children that are born as the first pair of twins from First Man and First Woman as “hermaphrodites” when referencing their gender fluidity. Finally, some of the content within the Navajo Creation myth makes more sense within the context of Aztec / Mexica mythology’s Order-Disorder paradigm and Zolbrod even began the notes mentioning the Order-Disorder paradigm with many of the monsters that the protagonists of these stories fight mentioning how they’ve turned a monster or event of disorder into a convenient function for the pre-Navajo community. Zolbrod interpreted this as a universal message of good against evil, but the simplified moral paradigm of good against evil seems altogether juvenile and weak when applied to the Navajo tradition. This is especially the case after reading James Maffie’s explanation of how Indigenous traditions conceive order and disorder as inherent within each other in his book about Aztec Philosophy. In many ways, reading Maffie’s book first gave better understanding and context when reading this much older book for me. It didn’t help that for some of the locations, instead of translating what they meant in the Navajo language, Zolbrod simply gave the English coined terms and that compounded to the confusion in the context of the Navajo narrative than helped to resolve it.

Part I of the Navajo Creation story begins in a rather zany fashion about earth-like worlds / earth-planes being stacked atop one another as a Pre-Navajo group called the Air-Spirit people. A people with the ability to fly and who may possibly lack five-fingers. The Air-Spirit people are often referred to as immoralists, because of repeated interactions whereby members of their clan intermingle with the wife of the chief of the clan they come in contact with. These other clans seem to also be pre-human groups. The most striking part of this narrative for me was the various areas described in varied colorful descriptions and how each sky had different multi-colored changes from each of these different “worlds” or earth-like planes of existence that were separate from each other. Each world is stacked atop each other and the clans make peace and then separate with various lower-world clans and move upward with some members of the other clans joining them. Eventually, the narrative shifts to the sudden appearance of the four Holy People who teach the Pre-Navajo people not to commit incest and who then create First Man and First Woman to guide the Pre-Navajo. There is a constant repetition of the clans having “listened and waited” repeatedly for help from the Four Holy People and spiritual animals throughout the Part I narrative. Some parts, such as how male and female genitals were created by First Man and First Woman, seem more like playful and humorous mythological stories. The story that follows on how the men and women divide themselves into two separate parts of a river was interesting due to the lasting consequences. The prevailing problem is lack of sexual stimulation for the two groups, some of the men are scolded for using foodstuffs as sexual objects whereas some women began using rocks. The intriguing aspect of this is that, judging from Maffie’s book on describing how the theological system of Order-Disorder works within Indigenous theology and mythology, with men mostly emitting ordered energies and women emitting disorderly energies; the pre-Navajo women who use energies from rocks and twigs for sexual gratification eventually give virgin births to deformed, disorderly monstrous spirits. Zolbrod seemed to ignore the implications of this portion and some internet blogs try to describe it in terms of anti-LGBT “lesbianism” but a woman masturbating and then using the properties of the object they’re using to give birth has nothing to do with two women having sexual intercourse. Zolbrod and others refer to them as “giants” but I don’t see any reason to call them that apart from their deformed sizes which is a result of their disorderly energy. It seems to me, if we go by the Order-Disorder paradigm, that these beings are Spirits of Disorder or Gods of Disorder and possibly Monster Gods or Monstrous Spirits who enact nefarious obstacles for the Pre-Navajo people. In other words, disorderly and deformed Monstrous Gods / Monstrous Spirits are clearly virgin born in the Navajo tradition. Being a virgin born spirit or God is a form of disorder and an obstacle to long life and happiness. Perhaps most intriguingly, the Navajo message of long-life and happiness as the ideal living condition goes against the death cult worshipping Abrahamic tradition that teaches life is a test that one must suffer through to be rewarded with a deranged idea: an eternal afterlife.

Part II is my favorite of the entire story. While I really like certain aspects of Part III more than Part II, I find Part II to be filled with the most fun moments. The story of Part II follows the rambunctious trickster, Coyote, and his various escapades arguing with other animal metaphors, helping different clans that he meets, and getting himself into trouble due to his existence as a being of perpetual disorder. His spirit name is referred to be First Scolder, denoting his disorderly behavior. Yet, much like the Mexica / Aztecs, his disorderly actions sometimes have positive benefits and bring order since the Order-Disorder paradigm is inherent in each other. Nevertheless, he’s basically a troublemaker. The most interesting story is when he tries to court the most beautiful Pe-Navajo woman, referred to as Tingling Woman. Tingling woman has notoriously turned down even the Holy People as prospects for marriage and many other Orderly suitors because of her high demands on courtship. Coyote asks about the tasks and Tingling woman, in her exasperation as she simply doesn’t believe he’ll be able to do it, informs him. First, he has to kill a disorderly spirit / Monster God who terrorizes innocent folk. Her explicit reason for requesting this is that this specific monster, the Grey Giant, hurts innocent people. Coyote agrees to scalp its head to show proof to her that he killed the monster. He first prepares a weapon to kill the monster, hides the weapon, goes up to the monster promising it immortality by showing himself get damaged and then restored, and convinces the monster to follow him to conduct an immortality ritual. He tricks the Grey Giant into a steamy sauna-like bath after putting the weapon into position, convinces the monster to break parts of its own body for the ritual, runs outside to get the weapon while the monster cannot see him clearly, and kills it to then scalp its head as proof. Upon presenting the proof, Tingling Woman then informs him that he has to endure four more trials of her killing him and him coming back to life. They proceed to do that four times with him coming back to life all four times and she then convinces him that she needs her brothers’ permission first but allows him to stay the night. The two then become sexually enticed with each other and copulate after what is implied to be an agreement to marry. The next morning, the 17 or so brothers arrive and are displeased with her choice of a life partner and kick them both out rather coldly. Coyote initially doesn’t return her affection until agreeing to uphold his promise of marrying someone whom he has killed four times. Coyote proceeds to brutally murder Tingling woman on four occasions and she returns to life each time. Thus, satisfying his personal requirement and the two then sharing a bed happily. Coyote tries to make amends by helping her brothers’ hunt and while his tips are successful, he ignores their warnings of following the short path for a longer path and gets killed after annoying several other talking spirit animals. When the brothers are questioned by their sister, they act indifferent and one of the notes mention that she accuses them of consorting with others to kill Coyote after one of them mentions that he was probably killed by the animal spirits in the alternate path. Due to her grief at the sudden loss of Coyote, Tingling Woman proceeds to invoke a night-time disorderly version of a vision quest to gain a Nahualli form as a brown bear. She then proceeds on a one woman venture to obliterate the groups of animals who conspired to kill her husband, comes back every evening to use a ritual to heal herself of injuries, and gets back-up during the day to continue her one-woman war against them. Tingling woman becomes known as She-Bear by this point due to her transformation and actions. After mostly succeeding on her revenge, she then tracks down her fleeing brothers to assassinate them but loses to the youngest one who discovers her secret of immortality and kills her before resurrecting her to be a regular brown bear and progenitor of all other brown bears from then on.

Part III was a joy to read once the Four Holy People helped to create Changing Woman and White-Shell Woman who respectively gave births to Naaye Neizghoni, translated literally as Slayer of Alien Gods but somehow changed to the more Abrahamic-friendly Monster-Slayer, and his brother, Water Sprinkler. The pair are the Hero Twins of the Navajo story. The names make more sense when used as metaphors. Changing Woman seems to represent the change for the Pre-Navajo clans and White-Shell woman, representing white-shells near water births Water Sprinkler. The focus is on the actionable occurrences. Twoness / Duality takes a prominent role in this portion as Changing Woman and White-Shell Woman speak with one voice as if they’re one person and so do the Hero Twins of the tale. The Hero Twins ask their mothers’ if they have a father and the mothers’ – speaking in unison – deny that they do. They meet with Spider-woman, who is revealed to be their grandmother, who gives them a charm ornament to get past disorderly areas so that they can meet their father, the Sun God. After being embarrassed in the presence of his wife, Sky-Woman, at having been found bearing other children out of wedlock, the Sun God fails at using tasks as an excuse to kill them thanks to their elder half-brother’s help and gives them weapons and armor to fight the Monster Gods threatening them. After the pair kill the largest one, the Yellow Giant, who is known to be a vicious cannibal monster, Water Sprinkler then acts as protector of the pre-Navajo clan and Naaye Neizghoni goes on to slay many other Monster Gods. Naaye Neizghoni then goes on to hunt down and slay various Monster Gods mentioned having been birthed in Part I. In most cases, he overwhelms them with arrows composed of variations of lightning such as sleet-lightning to strike at monstrous enemies and proceeds to give the killing blow with his stone knife. In a few cases, he has to outwit them before he wears them down to conduct the killing blow like against the Horned Monster who is described as a monstrous deer in this version.

Overall, I think this is definitely a very good translation with copious notes that help provide further explanation, but the paraphraser wrote an asinine beginning addition with “or in the White man’s language” ad nauseum and it did cause confusion for me to the point that I had to re-read it for further clarity due to there being a White Holy Person who was an actual character in the narrative. I really enjoyed Part II due to Ma’ii the Coyote and Tingling Woman who becomes She-Bear and their various escapades. Part III was a mostly fun and intriguing read but I didn’t like how Zolbrod seemed to add his own nonsense into Changing Woman’s mouth because he seemed to ignore or didn’t clearly understand the paradigm of Order-Disorder despite each Monster God being referred to as disordered. Zolbrod didn’t seem to understand the characters to be metaphors either, despite references to rock people near rivers or how Happiness Girl and Long-Life Boy represent joy at giving birth to a child. I really did enjoy reading this and I want to stress the positives far outweigh the negatives, but I’d give this a 3 out of 5 and if there’s ever a translation that improves upon this and removes the annoying beginning part, then I’d probably be willing to give it a higher score. I definitely recommend it for anyone interested in Navajo mythology, Navajo theology, and anyone who wants a better appreciation of their culture.

[Mary D · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned so much! I’m so grateful to have stumbled on this book in a used bookstore. Not only did I enjoy reading the creation story but I read every single footnote to learn more, from oral tradition and storytelling to Navajo cultural traditions and values.

[Daniel C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got this book after reading "The Indians of New Jersey: Dickon Among the Lenapes" in which in which the Dine Behane is presented has being a bundle of elaborately decorated sticks which contains the story. I don’t know enough Native American history to know if the Lenape and the Navajo are in anyway related or if Dine Behane is just a generic term for creation story or a sacred text. I enjoyed the book but it was challenging for several reasons which are certainly no fault of the author. The first was keeping track of who was who in the narration. The characters’ names are transliterated in a way that uses symbols I’ve never seen before and I struggled to keep track. The other, which was pretty enjoyable and probably the same feeling someone gets when they ready about the titanomachy or gigantomancy for the first time was the surreal imagery. For example first couple chapters have a lot of bird and bug tribes getting mad at each other over adultery. The star of the book is certainly coyote and his strange romance. I can’t help but imagine he is the inspiration for Wile E. Coyote based the number of times he is smashed, crushed, or burned.

[Sonya · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just loved this book! Loved the stories - they read similar to Greek mythologies in terms of how they approach certain aspects of the human condition, including weaknesses, strengths, and character traits that have been present since our species has existed.

Reading this book, it becomes clear just how much time and effort that Mr. Zolbrod put into making sure this was the most accurate and complete account of these creation stories; the bibliography is extensive. If you read this book, have two bookmarks for it: one for the main text, and a second for the footnotes, which are mandatory reading.

[Leila Bathke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this on the recommendation of my uncle! Super interesting. I'd like to read it again with someone who can help explain more about how the creation story relates to Navajo teachings. It didn't talk too much about the Kinaalda (a four day coming-of-age ceremony for Navajo girls modeled after a crucial figure in the Creation Story named Changing Woman which I had when I was 10!). I should suggest to my uncle to have a book club with him/my granny/my brother/and my dad...

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating account, very readable. The notes provide excellent annotation and further resources. I loved the values and priorities that are apparent throughout the story—equality, acceptance, harmony, equanimity, the gifts shared freely. A very advanced civilization.

[Sonja Dewing · Rating 5 out of 5]

Informative.

[Nora Justice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really, really wonderful.

[Morgan Shank · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting, engaging, and informative. I especially loved the "Notes" section, which offers further insight and resources to deepen any interests readers may have in the Navajo culture.

[Todd Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes the narratives get repetitive and fragmented--but this mythology is utterly fascinating. Such an invaluable resource.

[Steve Meli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super interesting to learn about the origin story of one of the largest native groups originally inhabiting the Americas. It was challenging at some parts but a really easy read in others.

[Wren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Makes me wish I’d taken Navajo instead of Spanish in high school, and that I could hear a telling of this without the need for a translation

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book actually took me a little while to get through. I picked it up from my university's library for a final 15 page paper that I need to write for my Indians of the Southwest Anthropology course.

This text is very interesting and it pays lots of attention to poetic detail, such as repetition of certain elements and repetition of events in a particular pattern. I don't know much about the Navajo, but based on the studies I've done regarding Mescalero Apache and the Hopi, it also includes reference to important elements that make up daily Navajo life in terms of existence and belief (cardinal directions, color association, ritual numbers, interaction with deities, etc.).

Glad I finally finished reading it so I can look at some other texts and finalize the research materials so I can have my paper completed for the May 2nd deadline.

[Liv · Rating 2 out of 5]

Super easy reading. Skimmed a lot of the replication. It's suppose to be writen like a song, a traditional chant, I think, but it could be the same story but better without the extra 100 pages and more folklore detail.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the one hand, the setting of this story was very familiar: the cast of animals and the geographical features are clearly those of my home country. On the other hand, the stories themselves, and the cultural norms and other elements, were foreign to me. It was a very interesting read.

[Zachary Roanhorse · Rating 4 out of 5]

My husband and I decided to read this aloud together after we got a copy this Christmas. It is an essential read. I would give it five stars but some of the editing mistakes were inexcusable. A sacred work such as this deserves better attention to detail.

[Jacquie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This will be the last book in my Navaho study

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would like to learn even more about traditional Navajo ways of understanding the world. This was an interesting starting point.

[Brea Plum]

APL only has the ebook.

[Mariana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty great once you've made allowances for some translation-related weirdness and the editor's unnecessary (and troubling) embellishments.

[Sheldon Fatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must read for all Navajos.