Navajo Lands I
We are driving through the Navajo reservation, through Window Rock, the capital city. Just before Gallup, NM a long band of red rocks appears on the north side of the road. They are big and bulge in and out, and are cut by water and wind into sinuous vertical shapes. We first saw them after our day in El Malpais, coming up to I 40 as the sun was going down and they were practically glowing. They are still a presence in the morning.
They are not fire engine red, of course, in the language of paint colors they are burnt sienna or red oxide, but there are enough yellow and white touches to make the red shimmer. My experience with the concept of rock is pretty limited to gray, which is the color of the elderly granite of the NE mountains, with some quartz white. The rocks of the north Atlantic sometimes have a brown color to them, or even black when they are wet, and only rarely tan streaks. The limestone rocks in MT and WY and even in TX range from pure white through various tans, and khakis and beige’s to pale yellows. So brick red rocks are pretty exciting.
We are in Hillerman country. Tony Hillerman writes a wonderful series of murder mysteries set here, so when I pass through Window Rock and Gallup and see Standing Rock and Tuba City on the map, it feels like I am in his books.
We climb up onto the pine trees and parklands of the Defiance plateau, and then back down to the sagebrush flats and deep arroyos.
In Ganado we stop at the Hubbell Trading post. This post was founded in 1876, Mr. Hubbell and his sons had a string of trading posts over the Southwest. This one has been restored and includes his home. They are all adobe buildings, and the store is still a real trading post. Here you can buy the beautiful Navajo rugs which can take years to make and their prices are accordingly high, and a good selection of jewelry (I have to have a ring…). They also sell some modern supplies and groceries.
Mr. Hubbell’s home was an outpost of semi civilization and anyone who was anyone stayed here, including a lot of artists whose work hangs in the house. He was here when the Navajo people were released from their confinement in Fort Sumner, NM in.1868, and sent to their reservation and told to stay put and out of trouble. Among others, Mr. Hubbell encouraged the weaving of wool rugs, and helped market both the rugs and the wool from the Navajo sheep. A number of Navajo men had learned silver and iron working from Mexican metalworkers while in the fort, and Hubbell helped to develop this art and to market it.
We continue along the Ganado plateau. There are a lot of horses everywhere in the Navajo Reservation. Some are out on the endless pastures making a romantic sight, and some are in small corrals in the villages. Many more horses than cattle. Nearly every ranch has a hogan, the 6 sided small building that is the ceremonial home of the Navajo. Out in the range, they are an older style, logs with a packed earth roof. The town version looks as though it comes as a kit. The door always faces east, and properly is never closed.
To the east below us is the Beautiful Valley, and it is. Wide and flat with soft mountains beyond it. I can see fields, going all green, and strips of dried grass and then more green. Up against the distant hills it is purple and pink.
Chinle, pronounced chin leh with almost no breath or accent on the last syllable, means the opening, for this is the outlet of Canyon De Chelly. (De Shay)
The canyon is actually three canyons, each at least 25 miles long. The walls vary from 100 to 1000 feet high, all of sandstone that varies from pale tan to brick, but not the astonishing red. The depth of cut is from the creeks that run through it, but the swirling rounded shapes, and lines are from the wind, blowing the sand against the walls. Manganese and gypsum streak the sides where water falls from above, and in places the minerals and some micro-fauna form what is called varnish. This is very black and often has a blue reflection in it, like a raku glaze on pottery.
Because we are still on the Navajo reservation we cannot go into the canyon without a guide and a 4wheel drive. I had heard that this was a big old army truck with wooden bench seats in the back, but ours had cushioned seats and a sort of greenhouse over the top which we needed as it was cold and windy. The truck is a 1952 Korean War vintage Army 6X6, that’s three axles. It runs on CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) now because they are unable to get parts for the carburetor. Fortunately, the engine still growls in a convincing manner. Our Navajo guide has a Masters in Archeology and has been driving these tours for 15 years.
The floor of the canyon is lush and grassy and has been cultivated for thousands of years. There are ancient cliff dwellings where the residents spent the winter, warmed by the sloping sun rays and up off the canyon floor. Then in spring they came down and lived on the canyon floor for the summer. Today, the canyon floor is still farmed and used as pasture, although they live outside the canyon and use their canyon place as a weekend retreat.
The soft green of the new leaves, the new grass and the blossoms on the many fruit trees are an amazing contrast with the high rock walls and the dry sage plains outside of the canyon. The next day we do the south rim drive and look down on spring in the canyon which looks just as much a Garden of Eden from above.
The actual trip in is better than a carnival ride. The road has sand, mud, rocks and water, which we charge through in our mighty truck. Sometimes we drive right up the bed of the stream, which thanks to a thunderstorm yesterday is full of water. The truck lurches and growls and splashes its way along, which would be fun even without the spectacular views that keep unfolding as we go. We stop at various points to look at ruins and petroglyphs and for a bag lunch while our driver explains well and with humor what we are seeing.
The woman who sat behind me said she came from MT, and as I have spent much time there, I asked where in MT. We traded locations and finally she said “What is the name of your friend that lives near Hardin? “ when I said Ellen, she told me she was the sister of one of Ellen’s oldest friends. We then embarked on a 3 hour reminiscence of who what where when. My summer trips out in WY and MT were a very happy time for me, sparking a life long love affair with the west, and it was wonderful to relive it. I think the other people on the tour thought we were nuts, but we enjoyed every moment of it. I confess that I missed a lot of the tour, but had a splendid time visiting.
Canyon De Chelly is a remarkable place. There are plenty of spectacular canyons around here, and lots of places to see wilder rocks that you could imagine. There are also a number of places that you can see the ruins of cliff dwellings, and petroglyphs (meaning arved images)and pictographs (meaning painted images). At Mesa Verde, you can walk through the ruins. But at Canyon De Chelly the presence on the canyon floor of folks farming and living, and their animals there makes the whole story much more alive. At Bandelier, we had to imagine the crops on the valley floor, but here they are real. There is a visitor center with lots of good NPS information on every aspect of the canyon, but inside the canyon itself no signs at all.
The canyon is also the scene of yet another act of treachery against the Native Americans. Here, in 1863 Col. Kit Carson trapped the remains of the Navajo nation, destroyed all the hogans, livestock and fruit trees and took the surviving people prisoner. He forced them to walk 300 miles to Fort Sumner NM, The Long Walk, and many died. They were held prisoner for four years in very poor conditions, and finally sent home with nothing. I’m glad they had the canyon to come home to at least, and glad they still have control over it. Well, mostly. The road into the south leg of the canyon was washed out last August too badly even for the mighty trucks. We are told that the National Park Service Superintendent of the canyon is off somewhere and no one is allowed to fix it until he returns. A disappointment for the tourists, but how are the folks who have farms up there supposed to get in? And whose canyon is it anyway?
They are not fire engine red, of course, in the language of paint colors they are burnt sienna or red oxide, but there are enough yellow and white touches to make the red shimmer. My experience with the concept of rock is pretty limited to gray, which is the color of the elderly granite of the NE mountains, with some quartz white. The rocks of the north Atlantic sometimes have a brown color to them, or even black when they are wet, and only rarely tan streaks. The limestone rocks in MT and WY and even in TX range from pure white through various tans, and khakis and beige’s to pale yellows. So brick red rocks are pretty exciting.
We are in Hillerman country. Tony Hillerman writes a wonderful series of murder mysteries set here, so when I pass through Window Rock and Gallup and see Standing Rock and Tuba City on the map, it feels like I am in his books.
We climb up onto the pine trees and parklands of the Defiance plateau, and then back down to the sagebrush flats and deep arroyos.
In Ganado we stop at the Hubbell Trading post. This post was founded in 1876, Mr. Hubbell and his sons had a string of trading posts over the Southwest. This one has been restored and includes his home. They are all adobe buildings, and the store is still a real trading post. Here you can buy the beautiful Navajo rugs which can take years to make and their prices are accordingly high, and a good selection of jewelry (I have to have a ring…). They also sell some modern supplies and groceries.
Mr. Hubbell’s home was an outpost of semi civilization and anyone who was anyone stayed here, including a lot of artists whose work hangs in the house. He was here when the Navajo people were released from their confinement in Fort Sumner, NM in.1868, and sent to their reservation and told to stay put and out of trouble. Among others, Mr. Hubbell encouraged the weaving of wool rugs, and helped market both the rugs and the wool from the Navajo sheep. A number of Navajo men had learned silver and iron working from Mexican metalworkers while in the fort, and Hubbell helped to develop this art and to market it.
We continue along the Ganado plateau. There are a lot of horses everywhere in the Navajo Reservation. Some are out on the endless pastures making a romantic sight, and some are in small corrals in the villages. Many more horses than cattle. Nearly every ranch has a hogan, the 6 sided small building that is the ceremonial home of the Navajo. Out in the range, they are an older style, logs with a packed earth roof. The town version looks as though it comes as a kit. The door always faces east, and properly is never closed.
To the east below us is the Beautiful Valley, and it is. Wide and flat with soft mountains beyond it. I can see fields, going all green, and strips of dried grass and then more green. Up against the distant hills it is purple and pink.
Chinle, pronounced chin leh with almost no breath or accent on the last syllable, means the opening, for this is the outlet of Canyon De Chelly. (De Shay)
The canyon is actually three canyons, each at least 25 miles long. The walls vary from 100 to 1000 feet high, all of sandstone that varies from pale tan to brick, but not the astonishing red. The depth of cut is from the creeks that run through it, but the swirling rounded shapes, and lines are from the wind, blowing the sand against the walls. Manganese and gypsum streak the sides where water falls from above, and in places the minerals and some micro-fauna form what is called varnish. This is very black and often has a blue reflection in it, like a raku glaze on pottery.
Because we are still on the Navajo reservation we cannot go into the canyon without a guide and a 4wheel drive. I had heard that this was a big old army truck with wooden bench seats in the back, but ours had cushioned seats and a sort of greenhouse over the top which we needed as it was cold and windy. The truck is a 1952 Korean War vintage Army 6X6, that’s three axles. It runs on CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) now because they are unable to get parts for the carburetor. Fortunately, the engine still growls in a convincing manner. Our Navajo guide has a Masters in Archeology and has been driving these tours for 15 years.
The floor of the canyon is lush and grassy and has been cultivated for thousands of years. There are ancient cliff dwellings where the residents spent the winter, warmed by the sloping sun rays and up off the canyon floor. Then in spring they came down and lived on the canyon floor for the summer. Today, the canyon floor is still farmed and used as pasture, although they live outside the canyon and use their canyon place as a weekend retreat.
The soft green of the new leaves, the new grass and the blossoms on the many fruit trees are an amazing contrast with the high rock walls and the dry sage plains outside of the canyon. The next day we do the south rim drive and look down on spring in the canyon which looks just as much a Garden of Eden from above.
The actual trip in is better than a carnival ride. The road has sand, mud, rocks and water, which we charge through in our mighty truck. Sometimes we drive right up the bed of the stream, which thanks to a thunderstorm yesterday is full of water. The truck lurches and growls and splashes its way along, which would be fun even without the spectacular views that keep unfolding as we go. We stop at various points to look at ruins and petroglyphs and for a bag lunch while our driver explains well and with humor what we are seeing.
The woman who sat behind me said she came from MT, and as I have spent much time there, I asked where in MT. We traded locations and finally she said “What is the name of your friend that lives near Hardin? “ when I said Ellen, she told me she was the sister of one of Ellen’s oldest friends. We then embarked on a 3 hour reminiscence of who what where when. My summer trips out in WY and MT were a very happy time for me, sparking a life long love affair with the west, and it was wonderful to relive it. I think the other people on the tour thought we were nuts, but we enjoyed every moment of it. I confess that I missed a lot of the tour, but had a splendid time visiting.
Canyon De Chelly is a remarkable place. There are plenty of spectacular canyons around here, and lots of places to see wilder rocks that you could imagine. There are also a number of places that you can see the ruins of cliff dwellings, and petroglyphs (meaning arved images)and pictographs (meaning painted images). At Mesa Verde, you can walk through the ruins. But at Canyon De Chelly the presence on the canyon floor of folks farming and living, and their animals there makes the whole story much more alive. At Bandelier, we had to imagine the crops on the valley floor, but here they are real. There is a visitor center with lots of good NPS information on every aspect of the canyon, but inside the canyon itself no signs at all.
The canyon is also the scene of yet another act of treachery against the Native Americans. Here, in 1863 Col. Kit Carson trapped the remains of the Navajo nation, destroyed all the hogans, livestock and fruit trees and took the surviving people prisoner. He forced them to walk 300 miles to Fort Sumner NM, The Long Walk, and many died. They were held prisoner for four years in very poor conditions, and finally sent home with nothing. I’m glad they had the canyon to come home to at least, and glad they still have control over it. Well, mostly. The road into the south leg of the canyon was washed out last August too badly even for the mighty trucks. We are told that the National Park Service Superintendent of the canyon is off somewhere and no one is allowed to fix it until he returns. A disappointment for the tourists, but how are the folks who have farms up there supposed to get in? And whose canyon is it anyway?
posted by Thistledown24 at 5:45 PM
2 Comments:
Interesting, too bad the link to Curtis doesn't work.
Ed.
Did a little looking:
http://www.amazon.com/Indian-Picture-Opera-Vanishing-Race/dp/B000JUBF0K
will get you the DVD, but you should look Edward S. Curtis up on Wikipedia, or wherever, as he seems to be doing the "Noble Savage" take on Native Americans. The last thing we need.
Post a Comment
<< Home