Shiprock

Shiprock holds central importance in Navajo cosmology as the place where the ancestral Navajo arrived in their homeland. The formation features in multiple ceremonial traditions and has been protected from climbing since 1970.

According to Navajo oral tradition, the ancestral Navajo faced extinction in the far north. When their medicine men prayed for deliverance, the ground beneath them became a great bird that carried the people south to the Four Corners region. At sunset, the bird descended, folded its wings, and as the Navajo dismounted, the bird transformed into stone. The formation's English name, Shiprock, comes from 19th-century observers who thought it resembled a sailing ship; the Navajo name Tse Bit'ai, 'rock with wings,' preserves the original meaning. A second tradition tells of Bird Monsters who nested on the peak and preyed on humans until Monster Slayer killed them, transforming the young ones into eagle and owl.