Navajo Nation

What’s most striking about the landscapes you breeze by on the smooth highways of the reservation is how quickly and how dramatically they can change. On one stretch, winter green sage bush rolls by seemingly forever, until monolithic slabs of foreboding black rock, shot with shocks of red, break through.

We drive on. After winding around low mountain ranges of yellow orange and white, and through tall pine forests, we come alongside a massive sheer cliff wall dominating the eastern horizon. We turn west, away from the cliff, but it’s not long before George decides we have to pull over and take it all in. In the distance, the fortress-like cliff wall smoulders a warm red in the setting sun, while ahead, a new range of brooding mountains rises up darkly.

There’s little in the way of words to be shared when you find yourself amid such epic surroundings. After a few headshakes of disbelief and “wow,” and “unbelievable,” we get back into the car and drive on in silence.

No doubt similar moments took hold of legendary western director John Ford. He first came to these parts to shoot Stagecoach in 1938 and returned with John Wayne in tow time and time again to capture the mythical profundity that the landscapes in Navajo Nation exude.

Perhaps no place, as Ford well knew, epitomized that profundity more than Monument Valley, which takes its name from the lonely, orangey-red cliffs scattered across its plains like hulking machines from another planet.

The great slabs were formed when pressure deep in the earth’s crust pushed up, causing bulges and cracks. Erosion further chiselled away softer rocks, leaving the sandstone to stand, weathered but tall.

Flying in the face of our guidebook, we take our little vehicle—decidedly not a four-wheeler—plummeting down the shock- wrecking, tire-busting dirt road that twists toward Dineh Trails. Run by Jamieson and Lorraine Black, the lonely outpost offers horseback rides through Monument Valley for those who want to feel a little like John Wayne themselves.

Tyrone Black, Jamieson and Lorraine’s nephew who will be our guide, wears a white cowboy hat, but isn’t remotely interested in evoking the spirit of the Duke. This has been his people’s land since long before Hollywood came calling. And as can be seen by the look of childish anticipation that comes over him when he describes where we’ll be riding, it’s a land that has not lost its power over the Navajo.

Black grew up here, but like many young and ambitious Navajos, he left for Phoenix as soon as he was old enough. An electrician by trade, his stint in the big city mirrors that of many of native youth across North America. It’s a trend that raises concerns about cultural preservation. How can Aboriginal languages and customs be preserved when youth bee-line for the money of the city? Black, for one, though, returned to his home some six years ago.

Unlike their neighbours, the more reclusive Hopi tribe, the Navajo place a high value on adaptability. As Pueblos—or town-residing people who relied on agriculture as opposed to nomadic hunter and gatherer tribes—the Hopi have lived in the same area and with the same traditions since long before the United States was even a notion. The Navajo, meanwhile, were nomads who likely arrived in the area from Canada in the 1300s. They learned from the Pueblos, and altered their ways from the north so that they could thrive in the dry lands of the southwest. That spirit of adaptability continues to play out as the Navajo look for ways to preserve their culture within, and alongside, the modern western economic system.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 20th, 2007 at 8:50 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site. Add to del.icio.us.