There are a lot of empowering stories that buzz about. We read, share, and celebrate these messages. The correlations between such legends and myths crisscross and resonate.
For the Navajo people, Changing Woman is central to their way of life. She is a benevolent figure, giving people their abundance and teaching them to live in harmony with all things.
She is part of the initiation ceremony of Navajo women, imbuing young girls with the values of love, hospitality, and generosity.
She teaches that within each woman is the source of food, creation and harmony. Her most important quality is that she can change at will from a baby, to a girl, young woman, and age into an old woman — repeating the cycle, performing roles within the mythic framework as needed.
Changing Woman is part of the Navajo spirit, and lives through them as a nourishing goddess, who teaches the wisdom of nature and the cycles of birth and death. My upbringing was full of such stories of goddesses. Much like the Changing Woman, they colored my life through the voices of my grandmothers.
Worshiping them I gradually accepted that they each had qualities I could identify with — as the woman I was becoming. It is the only way I know how to walk with them — to join in their journey, and learn from their stories. Alina Abidi was on the Nasdaq screen in Times Square,. Any day is a good day to learn about protecting the environment, but this month, especially so. By the end of the ceremony she had made millstones , a whisk broom , pots and stirring sticks.
The songs that were sung for Changing Woman as she ran are sung today for young women at their puberty ceremonies. At Changing Woman's next menstration another puberty ceremony was held, similar to the first.
But at this ceremony other procedures for the future were defined. These decree that no menstruating woman shall be present at any ceremonial. The order of songs at future Blessingway ceremonies was thus determined. After this ceremony Changing Woman would go outside and walk on the trail which had been prepared for her. One day at noon a strange man walked up to her and spoke to her. He said "Prepare yourself for something that is going to happen, after a while I will visit you.
When she turned back, he was gone. She returned home and reported this encounter to First Woman and First Man. It seems that First Man was expecting this occurence, which happened twice again. On the third time Changing Woman was told to fix her bed outside, with her head to the east. When she fell asleep a young man came and lay beside her. White Shell Women did the same thing in a shallow pool, letting the water flow around her. Both the sun's rays and the water are images of intercourse, and therefore, it is not surprising that in four days, the women discovered that they were pregnant.
In four more days they each delivered boys, which were placed in traditional cradleboards by First Man. After Monster Slayer meets his father the Sun, and eventually rids the world of monsters with his help, the Sun asks Changing Woman to move to a special house in the West with him.
Zolbrod recreates this scene, stressing Changing Woman's individuality as she asks for a special house in the West, and Sun asks why he should build it for her. As dissimilar as we are, you and I, we are of equal worth Unlike each other as you and I are, there can be no harmony in the universe as long as there is no harmony between us.
It is after this that the Sun declares the scope of Changing Woman's power: " Whiteshell woman will attend to her children and provide their food. Everywhere I go over the earth she will have charge of female rain.
I myself will control male rain. She will be in charge of vegetation everywhere for the benefit of Earth people" Reichard When Changing Woman goes to the West, she finds four mountains that were identical to the four mountains in Hajiinei , the Emergence place. After dancing on the tops of these mountains, she sits down and rubs an "outer layer of skin from under her left arm with her right hand" Zolbrod Then she rubbed the outer layer of skin from under her right arm with her left hand.
After this, she rubbed an outer layer of her skin from her left breast with her right hand. This changed into two adult males and two females as well, who eventually became T- d'ch''''nii , or the Bitter Water Clan. She again rubbed skin from her breast, this time the right one, with her left hand. She did this two more times, one rubbing skin from between her breasts, thereby forming what would become known as Hashtl'ishnii , or the Mud Clan.
The last time she rubbed skin from between her shoulder blades, forming the Close to Her Body Clan. After she created all of these people, she took them with her to live in the West. It is revealed that, "As the seasons advance, [Changing Woman] becomes old, it is true, but she has the power to reverse the process, becoming young again by degrees, as two children, deifically 'borrowed' from the original cornfield, testified: When we came in, our grandmother lay curled up, nearly killed with old age.
She got up and walked with a cane of whiteshell to a room at the east. She came out again somewhat stronger. Then, supported by a cane of turquoise, she went into the south room. She came back walking unaided. She went next into a room at the west. She came out a young woman. She went into the north room and returned, a young girl so beautiful that we bowed our heads in wonder. Reichard 46 This passage is significant not only because it demonstrates Changing Woman's power of rejuvenation and the cyclical aspect of her nature, but also because it encodes several different layers of symbolism working together.
For example, the two canes she rests on are made of white shell and turquoise, which are intimately identified with her. Furthermore, her progression from old age to youth is marked by her visit to four different rooms, each located in a cardinal direction. She reverses the usual connotations of direction by first visiting the east as an old lady, which is symbolic of birth and spring, and ending in the North as a young girl, which is symbolic of death and winter Aronilth In a traditional Dine progression, she would have ended with the East as a young girl.
Analysis: Throughout all these myths, Changing Woman is identified with both creation and protection. She is described in terms of fertility and reproduction; by creating mankind from her own epidermis, and subsequently sustaining them through Earth's bounty, she is the First, and pre-emanate Mother.
Moreover, she bestowed several things upon mankind, such as certain ceremonies, that would protect humanity from evil forces. Witherspoon asserts, "Through rituals she bestows blessings on them and provides them with immunity from various dangerous things and protection from malevolent beings" Lincoln states that Changing Woman, whose name can be translated to mean "the woman who is transformed time and time again," has a "peculiar life cycle: she grows old and becomes young again with the change of the seasons.
One might thus interpret her as an allegory of the seasons, but she is more, being related to the earth and vegetation. Slim Curly said, "Thereby the earth, when vegetation appears in the spring, becomes as a young woman clothed in new dress, whereas harvest in the fall lets her appear as a declining old woman. White Shell Woman is, in reality, the earth which changes in summer and becomes young again, then relaxes or dies off in winter. Lincoln 25 Here "Happiness" and "Long Life" are other names for Sa'ah naaghai and bik'eh h-zh-.
Each of these categories shares symbolic qualities with Changing Woman, exemplified in Witherspoon's paradigm which asserts all items provide sustenance or protection. For example, Changing Woman gives protection from evil beings; human mothers provide affection and nurturing; mountain soil bundles give protection from danger; sheep herding metaphorically gives security from starvation and poverty, and the corn field stands for the fecundity of motherhood Mothers and the Female Experience: Witherspoon asserts that the mother-child bond is the closest in Navajo kinship: "Mother and child are bound together by the most intense, the most diffuse, and the most enduring solidarity to be found in Navajo culture" This solidarity is formed from the mother's role as provider and sustainer for her child.
As stated before, Changing Woman is the first and model mother. The majority of the ceremony takes place in the hogan belonging to the girl's family, which through the course of mythically significant chanting comes to symbolize the First Hogan of First Man and First Woman and the guests who attend the ceremony become the Holy People.
After she is dressed, older females at the ceremony give her a vigorous massage, which is called "molding" the girl. This is "a practice based upon the belief that at the time of initiation a girl's body becomes soft again, as it was at birth, and thus she is susceptible to being literally re-formed by the efforts of those around her" Lincoln Her running circuit is clockwise, from east to west, and so is a symbolic "pursuit of the sun" Lincoln Aside from running, the girl's main duty is to grind the corn for the huge cake, called an alkaan, that will be eaten on the ceremony's final day.
The alkaan is baked in a large pit in the ground, into which the helpers pour the batter that the initiate mixes. The batter is blessed with cornmeal and covered with husks, "in the center of which the initiand places another corn-husk cross oriented to the cardinal points. Moist earth is shoveled in to cover the batter, a fire is built up on top and kept going all night to bake the batter fully" Lincoln The fourth day is devoted to singing sacred Blessingway and "free" songs.
This takes place in the hogan, which is arranged in ceremonial fashion please refer to Fig. Now on the top of Gobernador Knob, I am here. In the center of my white shell hogan I am here. Right on the white shell spread I am here. Right on the fabric spread I am here. In this way, she represents the power of life, fertility, and changing seasons.
Ceremonies dedicated to Changing Woman are performed to celebrate childbirth, coming of age for girls, and weddings and to bless a new home. Changing Woman lives by herself in a house floating on the western waters, where the Sun visits her every evening.
One day she became lonely and decided to make some companions for herself.
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