In Bedonie’s class, Jakins said, they learned about the “importance of the four levels of creation, or the four worlds” which are represented by sacred colors: Blue, yellow, white and black.

Finally, the Diné, the term the Navajo use to describe themselves and their language, settled in the canyon — between the four sacred mountains of their creation story.

Belin’s cover illustration depicts the four sacred colors and mountains of the Diné (Navajo), and those readers aware of her culture will expect to find a rich and fascinating treasure inside.

In Navajo culture, the hogan is not just a traditional home, but a metaphor for the ordered universe. Corner posts represent the four sacred mountains that encompass the Navajo world and hold up ...

But Eskeets said that for the Navajo, it goes in both directions. The four sacred mountains — Blanca Peak and Mount Hesperus in Colorado, Mount Taylor in New Mexico, and the San Francisco Peaks ...

A fertile cradle. Canyon de Chelly (pronounced de SHAY), a national monument since 1931, sprawls fingerlike across roughly 84,000 acres of northeastern Arizona, near the town of Chinle (CHIN-lee ...