Diné (Navajo) TraditionMountain
Tsoodził (Mount Taylor)
The sacred mountain of the south, in New Mexico, associated with turquoise; near it the Hero Twins killed Yéʼiitsoh, whose blood is said to have become the lava flows of the region.
About Tsoodził (Mount Taylor)
The southern boundary
Tsoodził, known in English as Mount Taylor, is the sacred mountain of the south, a volcanic peak rising to about 3,445 metres near Grants, New Mexico. It is associated with the south and with turquoise, and it is sacred to several peoples of the region, including the Acoma and Laguna Pueblos, Zuni, and Hopi as well as the Diné.
Yéʼiitsoh
In the Hero Twins' story, the giant Yéʼiitsoh lived near Tsoodził, and the twins killed him at a lake nearby. Widely told accounts say his blood became the black lava flows, the malpais, near the mountain, and his head became Cabezon Peak to the east.
Protection
In 2008 and 2009 the State of New Mexico listed Mount Taylor as a Traditional Cultural Property at the request of Native nations, including the Navajo Nation, amid concern over proposed uranium mining; the listing was upheld by the New Mexico Supreme Court in 2014.
On the map
Tsoodził (Mount Taylor) among other places of the Diné (Navajo) Tradition.
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.
Coordinates mark where the myths place a site, or where the tradition locates it today. Mythic realms are left off the map or marked as symbolic placements.