Bat- Navajo SpiritSpirit · Beast"Guide of the Twins"
Also known as: Jaaʼabání
Description
When Monster Slayer needed to reach the Monster Eagle's nest atop a sheer rock spire, no warrior and no weapon could solve the problem. Bat Woman solved it with her wings, carrying him up the cliff face to the bones and the eaglets waiting at the top.
Mythology & Lore
The Monster Eagle's Nest
The Monster Eagle snatched people from the ground and carried them to a towering rock spire to feed to his young. The bones of his victims littered the nest at the summit. No warrior could reach it. The cliff was sheer, and the height defeated every approach.
Monster Slayer had killed Yéʼiitsoh and the Horned Monster, but the Eagle required a different solution. He found it in Bat Woman (Jaaʼabání), who offered to carry him. In the account recorded by Washington Matthews, she bore him on her back up the cliff face, navigating the vertical rock in darkness. At the top, Monster Slayer found two eaglets crying among scattered bones. He waited. When the parent birds returned, he struck them down with the Sun's lightning arrows.
The eaglets remained. Rather than kill them, Monster Slayer transformed them: the older became an eagle, the younger an owl. He gave them new natures suited to the world the twins were clearing of monsters. Then Bat Woman carried him back down the cliff.
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