2013 Fall

The flute-playing Anasazi spirit Kokopelli assured success in hunting, farming and conception.

for more information Canyon de Chelly National Monument nps.gov/cach Canyon de Chelly is located off U.S. Route 191 near Chinle, Arizona, in the Navajo Nation. It’s about three and a half hours northeast of Flagstaff, Ari- zona, four hours northwest of Albuquer- que, New Mexico, and two and a half hours northwest of Gallup, New Mexico. Permits, Fees and Tours Entrance fees aren’t charged at Can- yon de Chelly. Backcountry permits are available free of charge at the national monument visitor center. Accessing the overlooks on the park’s South and North Rim Drives and hiking the White House Trail don’t require an authorized guide or backcountry permit; visits to the backcountry canyons require both. RV and Tent Camping Near the visitor center, the Navajo Nation’s Cottonwood Campground has 93 RV campsites available for $14 per night. The privately owned Spider Rock Campground has more than 30 RV and tenting sites for $15 per night. Arizona has one Coast Premier Resort, three Coast Deluxe Resorts, eight Coast Classic Resorts, 30 Good Neighbor Parks and 140 Good Sam Parks.

The walls, like other late-Pueblo struc- tures, were plastered. “Archaeologists believe that the ruin had up to 40 rooms,” says Irene. “The site was probably used as a trading place. Ex- cavations have uncovered abalone shells, parrot feathers and pottery shards.” place of refuge Puebloan life ended here about 700 years ago. A disastrous drought (A.D. 1275– 1300), disease, conflict and possibly the allure of ideas elsewhere sparked an exo- dus of the Anasazi people. Over the next three centuries, the Hopi reentered the canyons to engage in seasonal farming and make pilgrimages. Tranquillity ended in the late 1700s as raiding and reprisals erupted between the Navajo, Utes and Spaniards over land, livestock and slaves. The Navajo used Tséyi' as a place of refuge, hiding in the more remote canyons before and after raiding their enemies. The violence is vividly recorded in rock art on the walls of Canyon del Muerto. One Navajo pictograph near the Standing Cow Ruin shows a column of Spanish cavalry armed with lances enter- ing Navajo territory, most likely in pur- suit of Navajo raiders or to capture slaves. “The Spanish, when they came into the canyons, they stole young Navajo girls herding sheep and sold them into slav-

ery,” Irene tells Richard and me. Another Navajo pictograph depicts a scene of Ute warriors on horses carrying shields and Spanish raiders attacking Navajos on foot armed with bows and arrows. After the tour, we walk back to the parking area near the ruin. Against a backdrop of golden-brown cottonwoods veiled in the afternoon’s fading winter light, Irene sings a Navajo creation story in the native tongue and then English about White Shell Woman saying good- bye to her younger sister, the goddess Changing Woman. Part of it goes like this: “More than any- thing else, I want to go back to Dibe’ Nit- saa in the San Juan Mountains. I want to dwell in the place where our people come from,” says White Shell Woman. “But you will be lonely there,” says Changing Woman. White Shell Woman listens but decides in the end that she must return to her ancestral homeland. Ultimately, she wanders over many distant lands in the West, never finding Dibe’ Nitsaa. Irene’s gentle voice, her words rising in the gray silence, was profoundly mov- ing and revealing. The history of the Ana- sazi and later the Hopi and the Navajo who sought refuge in these canyons is a tale about migration and adapting, about North America and our connections to place and community in the face of re- curring struggle.

fall 2013 COAST TO COAST 19

richard miller

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