MONUMENT VALLEY NAVAJO TRIBAL PARK 36°56’18.6”N 110°05’29.8”W
As we move out of camp, we cross a desert plain following Effie and her brother Kee. They talk, laugh, and sing; their horses are an extension of them as their heads hang low, relaxed, tails flicking to the conversations heard overhead. The sun at our backs illuminates the mesas and buttes in the distance and their deep crimson hues. Their vibrant beauty and abundance reflect the reverence and resiliency of the land and its people working together in harmony. Effie points out plants in Navajo along with their uses. Hazeiyiltsee’í (yarrow) for cuts and sores, ts’ah (sagebrush) for poison ivy, and Tsa’aszi’ts’ooz (yucca) for its roots as soap. She dyes her wool with plants she forages in the area, like Ch’ildiilyesii (snakeweed), Chitsoi Deni’n Benezi’ (holly berries), Chiil’chin (sumac), and Waa’ (purple bee plant). “In the desert, you have everything you need; you just have to know where to look,” chimes Effie. The landscape changes again. Towering sandstone buttes burst out of the Earth in unique shapes and sizes, and we enter what seems to be a labyrinth made by Mother Earth herself. The land opens itself up again soon after to a flat clay plain. The ground looks thirsty and dried out; its deep cracks and traces of horses and off-road vehicles tell us that this land hasn’t seen any water since the monsoon season. “This is Dry Lake, and my mom used to tell me that when it would rain, she and my people would use the clay to make pottery, like cups and bowls for drinking and eating and toys for us to play with. But now the lake doesn’t get as much water because the rainfall isn’t as great.” She then tells us that trickster spirits live on the walls of the mesas enshrouding the lake and screams, “Hello?” Her voice reverberates from the walls and bounces back, “Hello?” She goes back and forth with her echo, having roundabout conversations that receive the same answers since she was a child. We continue our ride west, following rock walls that have Anastasi (the first peoples of the land) petroglyphs carved on their sides. We enter a grove of mature juniper trees whose berries are the size of marbles. Water is close, and we are not far from a naturally occurring spring that originates high in the rocks. Lichens and moss follow water runoff on their rock faces. Amongst the juniper trees were bushes, some with tiny wildflowers or great thorns. “Just behind this butte was where my grandfather used to live,” she said, “When I was about six, I would ride like the wind to visit him. We would go lookin’ for water, and he would have me climb on top of this rock, where there was a pool of water. He would send me up with a bucket, and I would collect water and pass it back down. And in the winter, we would go to the sand dunes, collect the snow, and warm it up on the stove.” We spend time under the shade of the juniper to give the horses a rest from the sun. We all feel like the earth from Dry Lake, warm and parched.
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MOTHER VOLUME FOUR
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