Hastsezini- Navajo GodDeity"Fire God"

The Star-Maker and the Coyote

After the emergence into the Glittering World, the night sky stretched dark and empty. Black God began to fill it. He placed the Pleiades first, near his own temple where the star cluster already marked his black mask. He set Náhookǫs, the Big Dipper, in the northern sky and began mapping parts of Orion. Each constellation took shape with precision.

Coyote could not tolerate the slow work. He seized the blanket where the remaining stars lay waiting and flung it skyward. Stars scattered across the heavens beyond any pattern or plan. The constellations are Black God's patient handiwork. The Milky Way is Coyote's.

Fire in Darkness

Black God governs both lights in darkness: the distant fire of the stars and the near fire that warms human hands. He carries the fire drill, and during the Nightway ceremony his impersonator enters the hogan to kindle flame.

In Washington Matthews' account of the Night Chant, when Black God first entered the assembly of the Holy People, the Pleiades sat at his ankle. He stamped his foot. They rose to his knee. He stamped again. To his hip. Again. To his shoulder. A fourth stamp, and the Pleiades settled at his left temple, where they have remained on his mask ever since.