The Navajo Indians

Monument Valley is now a Navajo Tribal Park, part of the Navajo reservations that extend across Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. The Navajo is the equal largest tribe, the other being the Cherokee, but the Navajo hold the greatest reservation area, 27,000 square miles, larger than each of the 10 smallest States.

We take the Monument Valley tour with a Navajo guide, who is keen to point out the cultural aspects of their homeland as well as to flesh out the film making history.

Just after we set off, she points out a hogan. This is a traditional Navajo dwelling used these days for ceremonial purposes only. We know it’s not a current home as there’s no satellite dish on the roof.

 The Valley contains many sacred Indian sites. This is the Totem Pole, the really tall one.

We passed several stacks of wood, some distant, some near the track, looking like bonfire preparations. The guide explained that these were traditional burial sites.

The Navajo have a great weaving tradition, particularly rugs, and these became a marketable product from 100 years or so ago. So the Gouldings tapped into a demand that was already in existence. This is a photo of a Navajo weaving trading post in 1913.

This is an example of an individual rug.

As our rickety vehicle rattled around Monument Valley, the guide explained that, in their folk tales, the tribe had migrated into North America via the Bering Strait when it was frozen over some 10,000 plus years ago. Part of the tribe stayed in Canada, but the others settled in the Utah, Arizona, New Mexico area. This is borne out by current research into historical migration patterns.

The guide said that they may originally have been a Japanese people as they have some words in common with the Japanese language. This is ironic as the Navajos were used in the World War 2 as “code talkers” in the Pacific theatre fighting the Japanese. Because their language is so complicated and spoken only by the tribe itself, the Navajo “code talkers” sent and received classified military messages much more quickly than using code machines. It was highly successful and the language was never unscrambled. Clearly there weren’t that many words in common with Japanese.

But back to the tour bus, a modern day version of the bone-jarring covered wagon. Our guide is the short lady at the rear of the bus. This was taken at one of several trinket stops, but we weren’t tempted.

There were some dramatic views interspersed with the Navajo commentary. You can see why these two buttes are called the left and right mittens.

Final stop, final photo, this time of us against the full scenic panorama. She sang us a Navajo lullaby on the return journey to the campsite. Wouldn’t want to risk it it personally, it might set the kids on the warpath.

Just two most interesting days in Monument Valley, and now on to Cortez in Colorado.