Day 15 Monday May 20: Canyon de Chelly AZ

Part 1: Into the Canyon

This was a day we learned a lot and saw wondrous things. Our visit to this place was prompted by an account by a dear friend, Joanne Warner, a few years ago. Leading a team of student nurses, she came here to help with native Navajo health care. She spoke of how, one morning, she walked through this canyon and heard bells from a nearby monastery and how special this place was to her: more on this later.

A traditional Navajo dwelling or hogan is recreated at the National Park Visitors Center. The door always faces east to greet the morning sun each day:

While this is a National Park and there are roads that travel on both sides of the canyon rim, the land in the canyon is owned by the Navajo Nation and many families live and farm there. The only way you can visit the canyon interior is with a Navajo guide. Having booked a Jeep tour through Leon Skyhorse, we arrived at the park Visitors Center and met our guide Irene, a Navajo woman about our age who had grown up in the canyon:

She proved to be most knowledgeable and throughout our 3+ hour tour told stories about the history of the pictographs, Ancient Pueblo cliff dwellings and the Spanish and later American occupations. The area itself in divided into two canyons: Canyon del Muerto (Canyon of Death, named when remains of mummies were discovered in the 1880’s) and Canyon de Chelly (pronounced Shay), a mispronunciation of the Navajo name Tseyi (say gi) meaning “in the rock”.

Our first stop was to see the rock art. There are two types, petroglyphs which means carved into the stone and pictographs which are painted onto the rock surface. Pictographs are the most common here. The first artists were probably the Basketmaker (200 BC–750AD) then came the Ancient Pueblo people (750–1300) the Hopi (1300-1600) with the Navajo arriving @ 1700.

Horse paintings generally indicate Navajo with this scene showing an antelope hunt:

The original meanings are lost to time, but the images continue to inspire visitors and strengthen cultural values:

The canyon walls and rocks rise up, stark against the blue sky:

We passed a homestead where Irene spent a lot of time as a child, the home of her tribal Grandmother. She spoke of happy years here in the canyon, tending sheep and exploring canyon walls. Tire swings and a shade screen are all that remain:

Ruins from an earlier time - Ancient Pueblo cliff dwellings. Wide view for perspective: How did they build this? Why? Once again, as in Mesa Verde, I am totally in awe of the peoples:

 

Close up; notice the stone steps:

Two of the more famous cliff dwellings

Antelope House:

With its colored antelope paintings:

And White House. This site may have had up to eighty rooms and least four kivas, but due to erosion about forty rooms are left:

Irene also told of the plants found in the canyon and some of their uses. Both large and small leaf cottonwood trees grow here and were used for ladder poles and support for shade structures. The smaller coyote willow was used to make turkey pens and woven into sleeping mats.

The narrow leaf yucca was a very valuable plant. The Basketmaker people broke down the leaves to weave their baskets and the fruit had been baked and eaten for centuries. A soap is made from the roots as well as a shampoo which is used in Navajo cleaning rituals. Irene said her Granny used to wash her hair with it; it made her scalp itch as she never used it again!

Wild spinach or Rocky Mountain Bee plant was used to treat a variety of ailments including headaches and nausea; the Ancestral Pueblo people would boil it until pasty, form it into a bar and use it to paint their pottery in shades of black and grey:

This lovely bloom is the Deadly Nightshade. It is hallucinogenic and should not be ingested!

Plant Problems: The Russian Olive bush was introduced to the canyon in the 1950’s to help with erosion, but, like in Indiana, have become very invasive. Likewise the Tamarisk, also known as salt tree, which has a lovely feathery pink bloom, but adds alkali to the soil killing more desirable plants.  Efforts are underway to eradicate both of these species, although the Russian Olive does add a nice grey-green tone to the landscape:

 

We also passed a modern version of the traditional Hogan. While families continue to farm the canyon, a long-term drought has severely lowered the water table thus changing the lifestyle where the majority of Navajo no longer live off the land. Tourism is now the main income source here:

As we completed our tour and were driving back to the Visitors Center, Irene spoke of her concern about the future of the Navajo and how she feels they are losing their identity. Many of the ceremonies are not practiced anymore, nor are they being taught to the present generation; the Navajo language is only taught as an elective in school. The traditional sheep herds are vanishing as is the craft of weaving the lovely Navajo blankets. A long matriarchal society, the Navajo Nation is ruled by men Elders; women may attend meetings, but have no vote.

She also spoke of apathy, alcohol and drug issues, mentioning that her own mother had been an alcoholic, a condition that caused her much older brother to be raised in an orphanage; she did not know of his existence until he came back home at age 18. Irene tries to be a positive influence to her granddaughters and hopes they will come to appreciate their heritage and learn some of the ancient traditions.

A note on the bells: Remember when I mentioned Joann walking the canyon and hearing the monastery bells? When I asked Irene, she looked at me funny and said there is no monastery near here and there are no bells. She went on to say that people have been known to hear and experience strange things here in this mystical canyon. What did Joanne hear in these spaces between the canyon walls?