Article
Also spelled chʼįį́dii in Navajo, a “chindi” is the spirit of a dead person. Navajos are taught to avoid contact with the dead or enclosed places, like a hogan, where someone has passed to avoid coming into contact with chindi and contracting ghost sickness. Navajos believe that when a person dies, everything that is bad or out of harmony with the person will be left behind as a kind of malevolent spirit that has power to harm the living. For this reason, any hogan or structure inside which a person has died potentially contains chindi and must be abandoned. If a Navajo contracts ghost sickness by coming into contact with a site to which a chindi is still attached, the proper ceremonies must be performed in order to restore balance to the living.
Manuscripts
A06 People of Darkness (03-06) p. 21
A06 People of Darkness (03-06) p. 254
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A08 The Ghostway (05-03) p. 31
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References
Navajo WOTD
N.d. Ch’į́įdii. Navajo Word of the Day. https://navajowotd.com/word/chiidii/, accessed
April 6, 2015.
Steiger, Brad
1999 The Chindi. The Werewolf Book: The Encyclopedia of Shape-Shifting Beings. Detroit:
Visible Ink Press.