Legends & Stories

Turquoise: 

To the Navajo tribe, the color turquoise represents happiness, luck, and health.Turquoise is perhaps the oldest stone in man’s history, the talisman of kings, shamans, and warriors. It is a stone of protection, strong and opaque, yet soothing to the touch, healing to the eye, as if carved from an azure heaven and slipped to earth. Its unique shade of blue, often blue-green, lends it name, Turquoise, to all things of this tranquil hue. The delicate veining or mottled webbing in cream or brown is inherent to the stone and serves to enhance its character. 

Turquoise is a most efficient healer, providing solace for the spirit and well-being for the body. It benefits the overall mood and emotion by balancing and inducing a sense of serenity and peace. Holding or wearing Turquoise helps restore depleted vitality and lifts sagging spirits. It relieves stress and brings focus back to the center heart. It is empathetic and balancing, helping one to recognize the causes of happiness and unhappiness, and to master them. Turquoise is a stone for finding wholeness and truth, and communicating and manifesting those qualities. In traditional thought, Turquoise unites the earth and sky, bringing together male and female energies. Turquoise stimulates the initiation of romantic love, and promotes spontaneity in romantic issues. It is believed to change color to warn of impending danger or to indicate infidelity in thought or action. I LOVE THIS!!!

As a stone of purification, Turquoise dispels negative energy and clears electromagnetic smog from the environment. It promotes self-realization and aids in creative problem-solving, thus calming the nerves when speaking in public. It helps stabilize mood swings, and dissolves a martyred attitude of self-sabotage. It is also empowering if you feel bullied or suffer prejudice. Because it soothes the mind, Turquoise is good for jet lag and fears of flying.

As a crystal for travel, Turquoise protects you and your possessions against theft, loss or attack, helps prevent accidents, especially falls, and even guards your pet. 

Turquoise is a strengthening stone, good for exhaustion, depression, or panic attacks. It enhances physical and psychic immune systems, supporting the assimilation of nutrients, alleviating pollution and viral infections. It is anti-inflammatory and detoxifying.

Turquoise assists in problems of the brain, eyes, ears, neck and throat, especially cataracts, migraines and headaches, and problems with balance.

Turquoise is a stone of “earth-grounding” and is valuable in preventing one from losing touch with the conscious mind during deep meditations. It provides strength and protection during vision quests and astral travel, and due to its high spirituality, acts to improve meditation and to further peace of mind.

Turquoise is also the most common component of Native American Jewelry. The Navajo were talented in molding turquoise into beads, and making Heishi necklaces. Heishi necklaces were smooth necklaces with stitched beads.

In the mid to late nineteenth century, the Navajos had learned silversmithing from the Spanish and pueblos. After learning how to silversmith, the Navajos began to combine silver with the Navajo turquoise. The Navajo turquoise jewelry was only used for ceremonies and religious rituals before tourists took interest into the Navajo art.

Squash blossom necklaces and Navajo turquoise inlay rings were the two most famous styles of jewelry produced. The Squash blossom necklaces are made from silver and turquoise.

The Navajo used coarse and rough tools for manufacturing jewelry before they were given tools from traders and other cultures, playing an important role in turquoise history. They make hammers and anvils out of railroad metal scrap.

Because of the tourists needs and wants, The Navajo have produced many styles unlike their traditional turquoise jewelry. The traditional Navajo turquoise jewelry usually contained more turquoise beads than silver

 

The Dreamcatcher:

According to legend, dreamcatchers should be hung from a bedroom window and have the power of catching all dreams.

Bad dreams caught in the web until dawn would end up burnt by the first rays of the rising sun. Good dreams would find their way up to the center of the web to be filtered down towards the feathers, to be dreamed again another night.

The dream catcher reminds us how important the dream world has been to people throughout time. Dreams have provided medicine men, shamans and prophets a portal to another realm. Even though today most of us tend to focus on the physiology of the dream state, we can still appreciate the power of our nightly visits to that other world.

 

The Feather: 

Feathers mean a lot to Native American Tribes.  A feather isn’t just something that falls out of a bird, it means much more.  The feather symbolizes trust, honor, strength, wisdom, power, freedom and many more things. To be given one of these is to be hand picked out of the rest of the men in the tribe - it’s like getting a gift from a high official.

If any Indian is given Golden or Bald Eagle feathers it is one of the most rewarding items they can ever be handed. The Indians believe that eagles have a special connection with the heavens since they fly so close. Many Indians believe that if they are given this feather, it is a symbol from above. They believe that the eagle is the leader of all birds, because it flies as high as it does and sees better than all the birds. 

Once an Indian receives a feather he must take care of it, and many will hang it up in their homes. It is disrespectful to hide it away in a drawer or a closet. An Indian will be given a feather to hold on to or to wear, and if they hold it they must put it out for everyone to see. This will be a constant reminder of how to behave. An eagle feather is a lot like the American flag, it must be handled with care and can never be dropped on the ground.

The only way an Indian can actually get one of these feathers is by doing a brave deed, like fighting off a bear or going up against the enemy. They were never allowed to wear the feather until they went in front of their tribal court and retold the story of their victory. It was at this time that they were allowed to put it in their headpiece. Only chieftains, warriors, and braves have ever been awarded this special gift.  The next time you see eagle feathers in a headdress, think about how they were earned.

 

The Eagle:

The meaning of the Eagle symbol was to signify courage, wisdom and strength and its purpose was as the messenger to the Creator. The eagle was believed to carry prayers to the Great Spirit in the Spirit World. 

As well as its ties with the powerful energies of the sky, Eagle holds a deeper meaning. From eagle we learn that life looks different from an aerial perspective. We need to take a new view on the challenges in our lives. If we don’t readily find solutions it may be because our vision is too limited to see the solutions that are so glaringly obvious. 

Tying in with this thread of thought, one of the lessons to be learned from eagle is not to depend exclusively on intellectual solutions. Through its connection to the air element, eagle is connected to intelligence, but also to Spirit, the knowing that goes far beyond intellect.

 

Navajo: 

According to scientists who study different cultures, the first Navajo lived in western Canada some one thousand years ago. They belonged to an American Indian group called the Athapaskans and they called themselves "Dine" or "The People".

As the Navajo population grew, they started migrating to other places in the southwest. Some migrated westward to Arizona, while others headed south to Mount Taylor in New Mexico. Still some migrated northward into Colorado and Utah. By the year 1700, Navajos were living in northern Arizona, New Mexico, southern Colorado, and Utah surrounded by the four sacred mountains of the Navajo people mentioned earlier.

In the meantime, the Spaniards had already colonized New Mexico. A number of small towns cropped up along the Rio Grande River. Santa Fe was founded in 1610 and became the most important town in the New Mexican colony. Contact between the Navajos and Spaniards grew. Of all the things the Navajos learned from the Spaniards, riding horses became the most valuable. In no time, Navajos became better horsemen than the Spanish soldiers.

The Navajo Nation now extends into the states of Utah , Arizona and New Mexico , covering over 27,000 square miles of unparalleled beauty. Diné Bikéyah, or Navajoland, is larger than 10 of the 50 states in America.