Flying with the Eagle, Racing the Great Bear by Joseph Bruchac

Author:Joseph Bruchac
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fulcrum Publishing
Published: 2012-08-29T16:00:00+00:00

How the Hero Twins Found Their Father

Diné (Navajo)

One day long ago, Changing Woman was feeling lonely. She left her hogan and began to walk around. At last she came to a small waterfall. It was peaceful there, and she fell asleep with the sound of its water. As she slept, she dreamed that someone was there with her. When she woke, she saw footprints that had been burned into the stone. Those prints led to her from the east and went away from her to the west. So she realized that Sun had chosen her to be his wife.

In time she gave birth to two boys. She called them Older Twin and Younger Twin. Soon, however, the monsters who roamed the world in those days began to come to her hogan.

The giant Yeitso came to the hogan and loomed over it like a wall of stone. His skin was all covered with scales of flint, and he was taller than the hills. “Whose tracks are those around your hogan?” Yeitso rumbled. “They look like the tracks made by children at play.”

“No,” Changing Woman said, “I made those tracks myself with my hands. Because I am so lonely, I like to pretend that I have visitors.”

That satisfied the giant and he went on his way. But other monsters continued to come and ask if there were children to be eaten. Finally, to discourage them and to keep her twin boys safe, Changing Woman grew cactus around the hogan. To this day, there is still cactus all over the lands where the Diné live.

As the boys grew up, they asked their mother one question again and again: “Who is our father?”

But she would never answer.

One day, when the boys were out together hunting for deer, Older Twin saw a tiny hold in the ground. Smoke was rising from it.

“Brother,” he said, “look.”

Younger Twin leaned over and touched the hole. As soon as he did so, a voice came from within.

“Grandchildren,” it said, “come inside.” Then the hole grew larger, and the twins went down into it on a ladder of thread that reached to the bottom. There, at the bottom of the hole, was an old lady. It was Spider Woman. She was the oldest of any beings on the earth, and those who respected her called her Grandmother. The walls of her cave were covered with beautiful feathers from all of the birds.

“Where are you going, grandchildren?” Spider Woman said.

“We are out hunting,” Older Twin said.

“We want to find our father,” said Younger Twin. “There are many monsters in the world, and they are troubling everyone. If we find our father, he may be able to help us destroy them.”

“Your father is Johonaa’ei, the Sun,” Spider Woman said. “I will help you find him.”

Then Spider Woman gave each of the boys an eagle feather. “Keep these feathers,” she said. “They will protect you. Now you must travel very far. Your journey will be hard, but my messenger Wind will go with you and show the way.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.