Hozho and the Navajo Concept of Right Order

First Woman's association with establishing correct order connects directly to hozho, one of the most important concepts in Navajo religious thought, usually translated as beauty, harmony, balance or the state of a world and a life properly and correctly ordered, and understood as the goal both individual Navajo religious practice and the tradition's ceremonial system as a whole are oriented toward achieving and restoring when disrupted.

James Kale McNeley's study of holy wind in Navajo philosophy situates figures such as First Woman within this broader philosophical framework, in which the emergence narrative's account of the world being properly organised at its founding provides the template that later ceremonial practice, particularly the many chantway healing ceremonies conducted by Navajo medicine people, works to restore whenever illness, disorder or misfortune indicates that hozho has been disturbed for a particular person or community. Understood this way, First Woman's role at the beginning of the tradition is not simply historical or mythological but the origin point of an ongoing, actively maintained religious project that continues in Navajo ceremonial practice today.