Monday, April 12, 2010

lightning and thunder have you seen it...

I wonder if there has been any thunder or lightning yet somewhere on
the rez...I am wondering if it has come and gone... for us this time marks the change of seasons, the stories of winter are put away and the things of summer come…it has always been so with First Thunder…

I wonder because I remember one time a long time ago, maybe by Agathla Peak by Kayenta or Cedar Ridge, or maybe by Grand Falls, or was it over by Borrego Pass way before there were any Beliganas (White Men) in the area, there were two brothers who travelled across this land called Dinetah.

One brother while camping with the other was introduced to relations, an old man, one they would call Che, explained to the boys that the Mountain Rising to the East, a mountain with black streaks was not a good place to visit, that it was not a safe place to go.

This in the days when Holy Beings followed closely the people, the Dine' living within a place where it was bordered by Four Sacred Mountains. They came in many forms to teach, to talk and to warn people on how they should live. This was done through song, ceremony and teaching. An old man told these two young boys to be careful and that this mountain was not a place to be.

When the boys sat in camp, they talked about going different places to visit the Arrow People, where they lived at the Head of the Earth. The one brother left that way on his own and the other sat around the fire, as he sat there he made bread by throwing the bread made from what is now called drop seeds and fashioned this into a cake and placed it in the ashes of the fire to cook. The wood used as juniper.

They were taught to use juniper, because scientists now days would
find that the blue ash given off is a form of calcium that can only be found in this way, juniper ash and when it coated this bread it provided a needed nutrient to these people. It was not written then, but they were told to do this and so they did.

This young man thought about going up on the mountain and the words and said to himself..."I wonder why they told me not to go up there?"

He sat there and thought about it to himself. "I wonder why they told
me not go up there? It is a mountain like any other"

He sat there and thought about it and said, "I am young, I am strong, I am fast and I know more about these things. Those old people don't really know anything, they are superstitious. I know more. I don't
under stand them, I don't need to....so I will go up there and see
for myself"

He went to sleep and slept under the stars and the Wind whispered
to him, because the Wind was a carrier of messages, that is why the
Navajo have the Windway Ceremony. Anyway, he went to sleep and when
he woke, he could hear the sound of thunder, rolling from the East,
then the South, then the West and then to the North. He got up and
rubbed his eyes and after gathering himself set out for the mountain
he was told not to go to...."

As he went he picked up some arrows and pointed them down to the
ground as he put them in his quiver, and that is when his trouble
started....from this he went on his way and would learn about Bear Man, the six beings who were not destroyed by the Twin Heros, meet a young maiden who was not what she appeared to be and many more things which are told in a certain way at a certain time…so it goes"

The stories, myths and legends of these people called Navajo with
funny names for places have some truth in them, it is through storytelling that some things are taught. I am no expert on the Navajo Way, but some things I remember. johnny rustywire