Big Fly- Navajo SpiritSpirit · Beast"Divine Messenger"

The Journey to the Sun's House

When Monster Slayer (Naayééʼ Neizghání) and Born for Water (Tóbájíshchíní) set out to find their father the Sun and obtain weapons to kill the monsters plaguing the Navajo people, Big Fly went with them. It sat on their shoulders or near their ears, so close its voice was barely audible, and told them what lay ahead before they reached it.

Spider Woman had given the twins life feathers for protection, but it was Big Fly who told them when to use them. The Sun did not welcome his sons easily. He threw them against walls of sharp flint. Big Fly had warned them to hold the feathers tight, and the flint did not cut them. The Sun locked them in a sweat lodge and raised the heat until the stones cracked. Big Fly had told them where to dig, and they pressed themselves into a cool hollow in the earth. Each test the Sun devised, Big Fly had already described to the twins in its thin, almost inaudible voice.

The Sun relented. He gave Monster Slayer the lightning bolt and Born for Water the weapons they had come for. Big Fly asked for nothing.

Wind Made Small

Big Fly belongs to the Air-Spirit-People (Nílchʼi Dineʼé), the Wind People who move through the world unseen. In the Diné Bahaneʼ, the Holy Wind (Nílchʼi) enters all living things at birth and gives them breath, thought, and speech. Big Fly carries a fragment of that wind in its wings. The buzzing is the wind speaking small.

It appears in Navajo sandpaintings alongside the Hero Twins, a tiny figure perched at the ear. Healers invoke Big Fly when they need to know what ceremony a patient requires. The spirit's gift has always been the same: not strength, not magic, but the right word at the right moment.