Diné (Navajo) Traditionweapon
The Sun's Gifts to the Hero Twins
- lightning arrows that shatter the monsters' armour
- flint armour that turns aside lightning and weapons
The armour of flint and the weapons, among them arrows of lightning, that the Sun gave his sons when he at last acknowledged them, and with which they killed Yéʼiitsoh and the other monsters.
About The Sun's Gifts to the Hero Twins
The father's gifts
When the Sun finally acknowledges the twins as his sons, he asks what they want, and they ask for the means to destroy the monsters. In Matthews's version, the Sun gives them armour of flint and weapons that include arrows of lightning of different kinds. He sends them back to the earth on a path of lightning.
In use
With these weapons the twins kill Yéʼiitsoh, whose own armour of flint is shattered by the lightning arrows, and Monster Slayer goes on to kill Déélgééd and the monster eagles of Shiprock. Yéʼiitsoh's flint scales, in some tellings, are later used by the people.
Why this entry is brief
The Hero Twins' weapons and protections are connected with ceremonies of protection that this site does not describe. This entry records only what appears in the published narrative, not their ceremonial meaning, and it does not depict them.
Origin
Washington Matthews, Navaho Legends (1897): given by the Sun (Tsóhanoai) to the twins at his house.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Washington Matthews, Navaho Legends
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.