Mina Witteman – author | editor | teacher of creative writing

Posts tagged “Diné

Arizonan View: Tsé Bit’Aí

Posted on July 3, 2010

This was the first view at that magnificent monolith the Diné call Tsé Bit’Aí, or the Rock with Wings. Hiking high up in the Chuska Mountains I could see why legend tells these are the petrified remains of a giant bird. It is said that this is the bird that brought the Diné from the north to the Dinetah, their current homeland. It crashed here, in the middle of a rock desert in Four Corners and turned to stone. Getting closer to Tsé Bit’Aí I encountered some of the more gruesome sides of this beautiful land. Bones, bleached by the unrelenting sun, and left on red earth reminded me that life and death were ever so close to each other. The bones also reminded…

Arizonan View: Spider Woman

Posted on June 30, 2010

Some time ago I took my writer’s residence to the Dinetah. The Dinetah is the homeland of the Diné, the People, a.k.a. the Navajo. It lies between the four sacred mountains: Tsisnaasjini’ – Dawn or White Shell Mountain in the East (Blanca Peak, Colorado), Tsoodzil – Blue Bead or Turquoise Mountain in the South (Mount Taylor, New Mexico), Doko’oosliid – Abalone Shell Mountain in the West (San Francisco Peaks, Arizona) and Dibé Nitsaa – Big Mountain Sheep or Obsidian Mountain in the North (Hesperus Mountain, Colorado). At first sight the Dinetah seems a callous rock desert where the living is harsh, but if you look closely you will find myths and legends in every nook and cranny of this strikingly red land. One hot…