The Second World
First Man, First Woman, the Great-Coyote-Who-Was-Formed-in-the-Water, and the Coyote called First Angry, followed by all the others, climbed up from the World of Darkness to the Second or Blue World.
They found a number of people already living there: blue birds, blue hawks, blue jays, blue herons, and all the blue-feathered beings. The powerful swallow people lived there also. They lived in blue houses, scattered across a broad, blue plain. The swallow people said to the Air-Spirit People, "You are welcome here among us." And for twenty-three days they all lived together in harmony. But on the night of the twenty-fourth day, one of the Air-Spirit People approached the wife of the swallow chief and wished to sleep with her.
The next morning the Swallow Chief, Táshchozhii, said to the newcomers, "We welcomed you here among us. We treated you as kin. Yet this is how you return our kindness. Now you must leave this world."
The Air-Spirit people wandered upward looking for a way into the next world. Niłchʼi, The Wind, called to them from the South. They followed him and found a slit in the sky. First Man created a wand of jet and the Air-Spirit people flew or walked upon it up into the next world. One by one they passed through to the other side.
Read more about this topic: Navajo Mythology
Famous quotes containing the words the second and/or world:
“Behind every individual closes organization; before him opens liberty,—the Better, the Best. The first and worse races are dead. The second and imperfect races are dying out, or remain for the maturing of the higher. In the latest race, in man, every generosity, every new perception, the love and praise he extorts from his fellows, are certificates of advance out of fate into freedom.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The dupe of friendship, and the fool of love; have I not reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)