Poverty- Navajo ConceptConcept
Domains
Description
After the Hero Twins killed the great monsters, they turned on Poverty, ready to destroy it too. Poverty argued that scarcity gives weight to abundance: without want, generosity loses its occasion and labor its reward. The Twins lowered their weapons and let it live.
Mythology & Lore
The Sparing
After Monster Slayer and Born for Water destroyed the náayéé', they turned on the beings that remained. Poverty was not a monster. It did not snatch people from the ground or devour them. But it caused suffering, and the Twins had come to end suffering.
Poverty spoke. Without want, it said, no one would work. Abundance would mean nothing if it were the only condition anyone knew. And when hard times came to one family, it was want that moved their neighbors to share. The bonds between people grew strongest in lean seasons.
The Twins listened. They had killed Yé'íiitsoh and the Horned Monster. But this was different. Poverty did not claim to be harmless. It claimed to be necessary. The Twins let it live, as they let Old Age and Hunger and Death live. The world would not be free of hardship. It would be free of monsters.