Monster Slayer (Naayééʼ Neizghání)

The elder twin

Naayééʼ Neizghání, Monster Slayer, and his brother Tóbájíshchíní, Born for Water, are the Hero Twins of Diné tradition. Monster Slayer is the son of Changing Woman and the Sun, Jóhonaaʼéí. The twins grow up hidden from the naayééʼ, the monsters that are killing the people, and in time set out to find their father.

To the Sun and back

Helped by Spider Woman, who gives them protection and words to pacify the guardians along the way, the twins pass through dangerous places and reach the Sun's house. The Sun tests them severely before he accepts them as his sons, and then gives them armour of flint and weapons, among them arrows of lightning. They return to the earth, and their first victim is Yéʼiitsoh, the Big Monster, killed near Tsoodził (Mount Taylor).

The monsters, and those spared

After Yéʼiitsoh, Monster Slayer goes on to destroy many other monsters, among them the horned Déélgééd and the monster eagles of Tsé Bitʼaʼí (Shiprock). But in Matthews's 1897 version he spares Old Age, Cold, Poverty, and Hunger when each explains why the people need it: without old age there would be no new generations; without cold, no snow and water; without poverty, no new things made; without hunger, no pleasure in food. The story ends not with a world cleansed of every difficulty but with a world in balance.

After the killing

In several tellings the twins must undergo ceremonies to be restored after so much killing, which are the origin of ceremonies still practised; this site does not describe them.