Diné (Navajo) TraditionCreature
Tsé Nináhálééh
- seize people in their talons
- drop victims from great heights
The monster eagles who nested on Tsé Bitʼaʼí (Shiprock) and carried people off to feed their young; Monster Slayer killed the adults and turned their young into the eagle and the owl.
About Tsé Nináhálééh
The rock with wings
Tsé Bitʼaʼí, "rock with wings", is the Diné name for Shiprock, the volcanic peak in northwest New Mexico. In the Hero Twins' story it is the nesting place of the Tsé Nináhálééh (Matthews's Tsenahále), monstrous birds that carry people off to feed to their young.
Monster Slayer's trick
In Matthews's version Monster Slayer allows the male bird to seize him and drop him into the nest, protected from the fall by the feather Spider Woman gave him. When the adult birds return, he kills them with his lightning arrows.
The young spared
Monster Slayer spares the young birds, turning one into the eagle, whose feathers would be used by the people, and the other into the owl. The feathers of the monster birds are scattered and become the many small birds of the world. As so often in this story, what was destructive is transformed into something that has a place in the world. Many Diné families teach that this part of the origin story is told in winter.
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.
The danger rating is an editorial shorthand for how the myths portray the creature, not a claim made by the sources.