The Feather Keeper

by William Blackmon

In Navajo history, the people (known as the Diné), journey through different times and dimensions to come into the Fourth World, the land of light.  The First World is dark and men are no different from animals.  The Diné, especially the trained warriors, have the ability to travel or see back into the worlds.  This spiritual knowledge of what they truly believe is actual physical history gives them great power over things in the fourth world.  Ancient Diné, the heroes and mythic personalities, can be contacted from the fourth world through mystical portals or eternal continuities.   William Blackmon’s The Feather Keeper series has two of its most compelling volumes in The Feather Keeper and The Feather Keeper, The Gifts of Ages.  The former is the first in the series and the latter is the latest installment of Diné history, a “song” (an original form of oral Navajo history) that chronicles the adventures of the Navajo Nation’s continuing history within the United States.