Canyon De Chelly National Park.. The Heart of the Navajo People

Day #3 Canyon De Chelly National Park (Chinle) (Thursday)

Cliff Houses

 

We leave Utah for Arizona and after a 4 hour drive we arrive on the Navajo Reservation staying at Thunderbird Hotel owned and operated by Navajo people.  We take a 4-hour sunset tour of Canyon de Chelly National Monument entirely owned by the Navajo people but established as a National Monument in 1931 and now operated by the National Park Service. Our Navajo guide, Fernando, took us in a 4x4 open air truck. He tells us that “Chelly” is actually derived from the Navajo word tseg, which means “rock canyon”. 

The canyon is situated at a height of over 6,000 feet and is surrounded by red cliffs and covers 83,840 acres. Unfortunately, it is freezing cold as the temperature dropped to below freezing but despite the cold and my real cold we persist because this protected site contains the remains of 5,000 years of Native American inhabitation ~ longer than anyone has lived uninterruptedly elsewhere in the Colorado Plateau. This park preserves the ruins, rock art and essentially the heart of the indigenous Navajo people that have lived here since 1100.  This is John’s favorite part of the Southwest and even he, the scientist, considers it a spiritual place. 

We learn that c. 700 CE the Anasazi (a Navajo word for ancient ones) who were considered predecessors of the Pueblo and Hopi Indians began to build cliff dwellings with adobe brick blocks in Canyon de Chelly. The abandonment of the Anasazi structures and people c 1300 CE remains a mystery. There is debate whether this loss was due to drought, infectious disease, food shortage or warfare. Since the Navajo arrived around 1100 it seems Anasazi and Navajo co-existed for awhile. About 700 years ago most people moved away but a few Navajo remained. 

Check out cliff house in middle of cliff 

I remember being amazed by the cliff dwellings, which are high up the sheer canyon walls on ledges, when we brought our children here 24 years ago. At the time Anna and Seth seemed really entranced by them although I wonder if they remember them now. We stopped by many dwellings including the White House Ruin which is said to have housed 100 people and the Antelope House.Our guide points out to us the pictographs above the cliff dwellings of deer, antelope, hands, sheep and people. Some are carved and some are painted.  

White House Ruin

We stop at the place where in 1863 Kit Carson sent troops through the canyon, brutally killing Indians, seizing sheep and destroying orchards, crops and hogans.  As a result, eventually the Navajos surrendered and were removed by the traumatic 300 miles “long walk” to internment at Fort Summer in New Mexico. Many more died due to hunger, fatigue and disease.  An American ethnic cleansing it was.  In 1868 the US government finally allowed the Navajo to return.  Currently 40- 60 Navajo families still live in the canyon. We see they have cornfields and small orchards. Our guide talks about how the Navajo people are connected to the landscape and how their natural surroundings give them meaning, culture and spirituality and is intrinsic to their daily life and well being. Canyon de Chelly is surely the heart of Navajo land.  Unlike many other tribes who have been moved to other locations, the the Navajo Reservation is on the historical land.

View from South Rim down on area where we trucked for 4 hours