Medicine bundles are usually inauspicious deerskin bags filled with a seeming hodgepodge of ingredients. However, they are so vital to Dine' culture that a medicine man declared, "That dzil leezh is the most sacred thing a Navajo family can have; it's our life, everything that you care about for yourself, your relatives, your flock" (Frisbie 69).

Creation of Medicine Bundles

The creation of medicine bundles differs from each teller of the creation story. Aileen O'Bryan, who recorded Sandoval, Hastin Tlo'tsi hee (Old Man Buffalo Grass)'s version, states:

When First Man learned of the coming of the water he sent word to all the people, and he told them to come to the mountain called Sis na'jin. He told them to bring with them all of the seeds of the plants used for food. All living beings were to gather on the top of Sis na'jin. He told them to bring with them all the seeds of the plants used for food. All living beings were to gather on the top of Sis na'jin. First Man traveled to the six sacred mountains, and, gathering earth from them , he put it in his medicine bag.

The water rose steadily.

When all the people were halfway up Sis na'jin, First Man discovered that he had forgotten his medicine bag. Now this bag contained not only the earth from the six sacred mountains, but his magic, the medicine he used to call the rain down upon the earth and to make things grow. He could not live without his medicine bag, and he wished to jump into the rising water; but the others begged him not to do this. they went to the kingfisher and asked him to dive into the water and recover the bag. This the bird did. When First Man had his medicine bag again in his possession he breathed on it four times and thanked his people" (9).

Contents:

"within itself four more puches. In each of these four pouches are soils from each of the hour sacred mountains of the Navajo--each pouch represents a sacred mountain....The stone in the middle of the four pouches is representative of the inside of the sacred mountains. Tied around the pouch is a string of turquoise--for the sacredness of the mountain soil deserves only the turquoise. Every medicine man has a pouch like this. this allows us to have within reach the soil of the four sacred mountains wherever we may be. This is important to us for the well-being of ourselves and to our medicine.' (Fulton qtd. in Frisbie 57).

Without the four sacred mountains there would be no medicine bundle; without the medicine bundle, there would be no Blessingway, a vital component of the ritual system.

Role and Importance in Blessingway

Continue to consideration of the medicine bundle in Changing Woman: Myth, Metaphor, and Pragamatics.

Return to Ceremonies

Return Home