November 5

Click on thumbnails to see full photographs.

The valley is farmland, and a number of Navajo still live there. The National Monument is actually located on the Navajo Reservation, and was created in 1931 as a cooperative agreement between the Federal Government and the Navajo Tribe. Part of the agreement allows Navajo to live within the Monument boundary (about 70 families do so), and precludes visitors from entering the canyon floor (without Navajo escort) with just one exception.

That one exception is the White House Trail, which winds its way to the canyon floor, across the stream and to the base of the opposite wall where there is a viewpoint for the White House, one of several cliff dwellings in the Monument. The Anasazi built these dwellings around AD 1200, the same time frame as those at Mesa Verde.

Click on thumbnails to see full photographs.

Click on thumbnails to see full photographs.

The other highlight of the South Rim Drive is Spider Rock Overlook at the end of the paved road. At that point, the canyon walls are about 1000 feet above the floor, and it’s almost looking awesome. In fact, Spider Rock is pretty darn awesome. It’s a freestanding monolith that rises 800 feet above the canyon floor, and is a sacred place to the Navajo, who call it Tse Na ashjee ii. I found these words of great meaning to the Navajo at the overlook: "There is purity and strength here. And places sacred to the People. Places strong in the oneness of earth and sky and of all things."

Canyon De Chelly (pronounced "De Shay," by the way) has been occupied for nearly 5000 years. The first inhabitants lived in seasonal campsites and were hunter-gatherer people. About 2500 years ago, a group of people now known as Basketmaker moved in to the canyon and began the arduous process of learning how to farm. They built communities of dispersed houses, and left behind rock paintings revealing glimpses of their lives. Later, about AD 750, the people began to live in villages, and became known as Pueblo people. As with Mesa Verde, their place of living changed over time from the canyon floor to cliff dwellings in the canyon walls (about AD 1200). Then about AD 1300, the Pueblo people abandoned Canyon De Chelly, moved south and became part of the developing Hopi and Zuni tribes.

For the next 400 years, there were no permanent inhabitants of the canyon, although the Hopi and other tribes made seasonal farming or ritual pilgrimages there. Then about 1700, the Navajo arrived, having gradually moved south from northwestern Canada. They brought domestic animals and a good knowledge of farming, and settled into the canyon in small villages of hogans. I suspect, other than the car tracks I could see, that the view from the canyon rim looks much the same in 1999 as it did in 1750.

Today, this canyon known as Canyon De Chelly to the outside world, is called Tsegi by the Navajo people, and is both a physical and spiritual home to them. When the boundary lines for the Navajo Reservation were first drawn around 1868, Tsegi was intentionally at the center.

G.A.S.P.

(Great Adventures to Scenic Places)