Diné Bahaneʼ - Religion-wiki
Diné Bahaneʼ ("Story of the People"), the
Navajo creation story, describes the prehistoric emergence of the Navajos
The
First World was small and centered on an island floating in a the middle of four seas. The inhabitants of the first world were Diyin Dineʼé,
Coyote, mist beings and various insect people. The supernatural beings First Woman and First Man came into existence here and met for the first time after seeing each other's fire. The various beings started fighting with one another and departed by flying out an opening in the east.
They journeyed to the
Second World, Niʼ Hodootłʼizh, which was inhabited by various blue-gray furred mammals and various birds, including blue swallows. The beings from the First World offended Swallow Chief, Tʼash Jíshi, and they were asked to leave. First Man created a wand of jet and other materials to allow the people to walk upon it up into the next world through an opening in the south.
In the
Third World, Niʼ Hałtsooí, there were two rivers that formed a cross and the Sacred Mountains but there was still no sun. More animal people lived here too. This time it was not discord among the people that drove them away but a
great flood caused by Tééhoołtsódii when Coyote stole her child.
Turquoise Boy came bearing the great Male Reed, and First Man planted it in the top of the mountain. All the people began to blow on the reed, and it began to grow and grow until it reached the canopy of the sky. Woodpecker hollowed out a passage inside the reed, and the people and Turquoise Boy and the four Holy People all began to climb up until they came out in the Fourth World
When the people arrived in The
Fourth World, Niʼ Hodisxǫs, it was covered in water and there were monsters (naayééʼ

living here. The Sacred Mountains were re-formed from soil taken from the original mountains in the Second World. First Man, First Woman, and the Holy People created the sun, moon, seasons, and stars.
It was here that true death came into existence via Coyote tossing a stone into a lake and declaring that if it sank then the dead would go back to the previous world.
The first human born in the Fourth World is Asdzą́ą́ Nádleehé who, in turn, gives birth to the Hero Twins called Naayééʼ Neizghání and Tóbájíshchíní. The twins have many adventures in which they helped to rid the world of various monsters. Multiple batches of modern humans were created a number of times in the Fourth World and the Diyin Dineʼé gave them ceremonies which are still practiced today.
Late in the first day, when Jóhonaaʼéí was finishing his first journey across the sky, one of the hermaphrodite twins, Nádleeh, stopped breathing. Afraid, the people left her alone. In the morning, the Coyote named First Angry and the people went to find the twin, but Nádleeh was gone. One man looked down the reed into the Third World, and there he saw Nádleeh sitting by the side of the river combing her hair. He called to his friend, and he looked and also saw her. The people asked Coyote what to do. He took a black rock, tadzootsé, and threw it into Tódiłhił, the Black Water Lake. He said that if the rock came up and floated, the spirit of the dead person would return to the Fourth World and there would be no death. If the rock sank, the spirit would stay in the world below and there would be death. The rock sank, and the people knew then that the twin was dead, and First Man remembered the agreement they had made with the sun.
[15] Four days later the
two witnesses who had looked down on the dead twin also died. The people learned that it is dangerous to look at the dead.