The Coming of Death
In Navajo mythology, death came into being when one of the hermaphrodite twins (Nádleeh) stopped breathing after the first day of the Sun's journey. The people abandoned the body in fear, and the next day it was gone — a man looked down through the reed to the Third World and saw the twin sitting by the river. Coyote First Angry proposed a test: he threw a black rock into Black Water Lake, declaring that if it floated, spirits would return and there would be no death; if it sank, death would be permanent. The rock sank. The people learned that looking at the dead is dangerous when the two witn