The Monster Slaying- Navajo EventEvent"Slaying of the Alien Monsters"

The World Besieged

After the Navajo people emerged into the Glittering World, they found it overrun. The Naayééʼ hunted and devoured the people. Yéʼiitsoh the Big Giant patrolled from Mount Taylor, killing all who crossed his path. The Monster Eagle carried victims to a towering cliff spire to feed to his young. Others lurked underground or struck from a distance with killing gazes. The people had no weapons that could touch these beings, and their numbers dwindled to a terrified remnant hiding in the canyons.

The Birth of the Monsters

In the Yellow World, before the final emergence, First Man and First Woman quarreled over the relative importance of men and women. First Man led the men across a river, and for four years the sexes lived apart. The men's fields were poorly tended. The women's crops failed. In their loneliness, some individuals engaged in unnatural acts. From these transgressions the Naayééʼ were conceived, born not of proper union but of disorder. They followed the people through the emergence into the Glittering World, where they grew to full and terrible power.

The Journey to the Sun

Changing Woman's twin sons grew to maturity in days and resolved to act. Monster Slayer was conceived from a sunbeam, Born for Water from waterfall spray. They needed weapons only their father the Sun could provide.

Spider Woman guided the twins past the crushing rocks, cutting reeds, boiling sands, and closing cacti that guarded the path to the Sun's turquoise house. Big Fly whispered counsel at each danger. When they arrived, the Sun tested them with trials of flint, fire, steam, and poison before accepting them as his sons.

He gave Monster Slayer four lightning arrows, flint armor, and a stone knife. Born for Water received prayer sticks that would burn if his brother faced mortal danger. The Sun named each Naayééʼ, described where to find them, and warned the twins: four beings must be spared.

The Campaign

The twins returned and began hunting the Naayééʼ. Monster Slayer fought while Born for Water stood in prayer, sustaining his brother's power through ritual and song.

The first battle was the greatest. Monster Slayer confronted Yéʼiitsoh at a lake near Mount Taylor, announcing himself as the Sun's son. The giant hurled boulders. Monster Slayer struck him down with four lightning arrows, then cut off his head. Yéʼiitsoh's blood flowed across the land, cooling into dark rivers of stone. Born for Water bestowed upon his brother the name Naayééʼ Neizghání.

The Horned Monster (Déélgééd) was lured and slain near what is now Shiprock. The Monster Eagle posed a different challenge: no one could reach its nest atop a towering rock spire. Monster Slayer enlisted Bat Woman, who carried him up the cliff face. At the top he found eaglets crying for food amid the bones of their victims. He killed the parent birds when they returned, then transformed the eaglets. The older became an eagle, the younger an owl. He gave them new natures rather than destroying them.

The Tracking Bear, the Binaye Ahani, and the remaining Naayééʼ fell in turn. With each killing, the people could spread farther across the land.

The Four Who Were Spared

When Monster Slayer sought to destroy the last dangerous beings, they argued for their own necessity. Old Age spoke first: without aging, people would never make room for new generations. Poverty and Hunger followed, each claiming that want and appetite gave life its purpose. Cold spoke last: without winter, there would be no spring. Remembering his father's warning, Monster Slayer let them live.

The Landscape Transformed

Each battle left permanent marks. Yéʼiitsoh's blood cooled into the great lava flows that stretch across the Southwest, dark rivers of basalt cutting through red earth. The Monster Eagle's cliff dwelling became Shiprock (Tsé Bitʼaʼí), its jagged wings of rock radiating from the central spire. Throughout Dinétah, mesas and rock formations are identified as the petrified bodies of fallen Naayééʼ. Every lava field is a monster's blood. Every mesa is a monster's corpse.