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| In
the beginning, there was only Endles Space. Nothing stirred because
there were no winds. No shadows fell because there was no light. Only
Tawa. the Sun Spirit, existed, and he was unhappy because all was so
barren. He gathered the elements of Endless Space and put some of his
own substance into them. And in this way, he created the First World.
There were no people then, only insect creatures, who |
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| Tawa called his messenger, Spider Woman, and told her to go down and prepare the living creatures for a change. | |||
| Spider Woman went down and she said, "Tawa the Sun Spirit, who made you, is unhappy because you do not understand the meaning of life. Therefore, you must prepare to leave this place and enter the Second World." | |||
| Spider
Woman led them on their journey, taking them to another cave that lay
far above the first one. The journey was long, and between the time they
began and the time they finished, Tawa changed them into other forms of
living things. When at last they emerged into the Second World, they were
quite different. That's when animals began eating one another. Tawa saw that they still did not understand the meaning of life, and so he sent Spider Woman to lead them on another journey. |
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| While Spider Woman and the animals traveled, Tawa created the Third World, and the animals discovered that their bodies had changed. Their fur, their webbed fingers and tails had disappeared. | |||
| Spider
Woman said to them, "Now, you are no longer merely creatures. You
are people. Tawa has given you this place so that you may live in harmony
with one another and forget all evil. Do not injure one another and try
to understand the meaning of things." Then Spider Woman left them. |
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| At first, living in the Third World was good. The people built kivas and planted corn. But gradually things began to change. Some of the people began to do evil things. The cornstalks in the fields withered. The rivers moved more slowly and clouds did not release their rain. Tawa saw what was happening to the world he had made. He called Spider Woman and sent her to the people with a message. | |||
| Spider Woman entered a Kiva where the people were gathered. Shesaid, "Tawa the Sun Spirit is displeased with what he has created. You have forgotten what you should have remembered. Therefore, all people of good heart shall go away and leave the evil ones behind. In the next world you must try to live in harmony and discover the meaning of life." | |||
| The Spider Woman made a tall hollow plant grow up to the sky and go through an opening in the sky. This is the way the people departed from the lower world to the Fourth World, by climbing up the plant through the Sipapuni, the Doorway-in-the-Sky. | |||
| As
the climbers stepped up into the Fourth World, Yawpa the Mockingbird stood
at Spider Woman's side and sorted them out. "You shall be Hopi and speak the Hopi language," he said to one. "And you shall be a Navajo and speak the Navajo language," he said to another. He assigned every person to a tribe and a language, and to each tribe he gave a direction to go in its migration. |
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| When
all had reached the Fourth World, Spider Woman spoke once again. "Now
you will go on your journeys. Tawa the Sun Spirit will watch over you.
Let the blue corn be your guide. If you reach a certain place and corn
does not grow, you will know that you have gone too far. Return the
way you came, build another village and start again. In time, you will
find the land that is meant for a purpose. Remember to live in harmony
with one another. When you build your kivas, place a small Sipapuni
in the floor to remind you of the Doorway-in-the-Sky. Only those who
forget why they came to this world will lose their way.. |
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|
Roger
Fernandez and Cathy Ross |
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| Return to Programs Page |
