Diné Bahane': The Navajo Creation Story

by Paul G. Zolbrod

Book Overview

This is the most complete version of the Navajo creation story to appear in English since Washington Matthews' Navajo Legends of 1847. Zolbrod's new translation renders the power and delicacy of the oral storytelling performance on the page through a poetic idiom appropriate to the Navajo oral tradition. Zolbrod's book offers the general reader a vivid introduction to Navajo culture. For students of literature this book proposes a new way of looking...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0826310435
• ISBN13: 9780826310439
• Release Date: December 1987
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Navajo Myths and Legends

Definately a good book and amazing resource. The author has traveled far and wide to obtain the stories written here.

Navajo Creation Story

This is a book that is easy to read. It beautifully explains many of the Navajo stories of their creation. There is humor, pathos and much wisdom. If you read it, you will see parallels to other stories of creation. A lovely book to read any time, but especially if you are planning to visit the American southwest. You will appreciate New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado in a heightened way, seeing sacred spots to the Navajo and understanding why they are to be respected.

History - Past and Present

There are several versions of the Navajo Creation Story known but Paul Zolbrod has captured the most plausible and accepted rendition in print. Most Navajos that I know accept this text as adequate and feel that the author's treatment of the subject matter is fair and sensitive to a very vital element of Dine' culture. Many Navajos, especially elders will say that the material printed in this book used to be reserved for the sweat hooghan and special times between family members but understand that now things have changed and accept the publication of very special and sensitive aspects of a great peoples' religion, as long as it is done under the auspices of the Navajo Nation. Perhaps in time others will publish material more to the needs of Navajo scholars but to this day this book is the literary standard of the creation stories.

Excellent scholarly work

Paul Zolbrod does a fine job of collating his own transcriptions of Navajo oral traditions with the records of other scholars from decades past to create a seamless narration of the Navajo story of creation. This is a valuable contribution to a deeper understanding of a specific native American culture.

Are you wondering how we evolved? Emerge into a new book.

This book is about the creation of life. How human beings evolved in a world that had kaos. This tale includes many different worlds, in which life was discovered. Many gods have created human life to bring forth to what we arrived to today, but the only thing to destroy us is kaos. Hatred among both sexes causes the seperation which leads to longing for one another. Among the humans, anxiety was brought to the world and the gods who created the world, got angey. So the gods took action and destroyed the world by pushing all forms of life out almost killing everyone, but the humans were the smartest and emerged into the next world which is known today