Editing Diné Bahaneʼ (section)

==== The Coming of Death ====
Late in the first day, when {{spell-nv|Jóhonaaʼéí}} was finishing his first journey across the sky, one of the hermaphrodite twins, {{spell-nv|Nádleeh}}, stopped breathing.  Afraid, the people left her alone.  In the morning, the Coyote named First Angry and the people went to find the twin, but {{spell-nv|Nádleeh}} was gone.  One man looked down the reed into the Third World, and there he saw {{spell-nv|Nádleeh}} sitting by the side of the river combing her hair.  He called to his friend, and he looked and also saw her.  The people asked Coyote what to do.  He took a black rock, {{spell-nv|tadzootsé}}, and threw it into {{spell-nv|Tódiłhił}}, the Black Water Lake.  He said that if the rock came up and floated, the spirit of the dead person would return to the Fourth World and there would be no death.  If the rock sank, the spirit would stay in the world below and there would be death. The rock sank, and the people knew then that the twin was dead, and First Man remembered the agreement they had made with the sun.<ref>This version draws upon Yazzie (1971), Zolbrod (1984, pp. 84–85), and Hastiin Tlo'tsi Hee, pp. 30–32.</ref>  Four days later the two witnesses who had looked down on the dead twin also died.  The people learned that it is dangerous to look at the dead. The people were all angry with Coyote for this and gathered around to beat him. Coyote said they could beat him, but first he had something to say. "I threw the rock in the water knowing that it would sink." The people darkly muttered about this to one another, the whole of them deciding that Coyote really did deserve a good beating. But quick thinking Coyote finished his explanation. "Without death the world would soon be overpopulated. The elders would never die and would stay stuck in their infirm bodies. There would be no room for new children. We would run out of food and shelter with so many people to feed and care for." The gathered group was silent for a bit while all of them contemplated Coyote's rationale and found him to be wise and intelligent.