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Published: August 20th 2006
It took a while for me to work out what destination to pick out of the myriad of things you can do in the South West Corner of the States. I decided to go to Monument Valley, a must I suppose if you are in the vicinity of Utah, and as a last stop, Canyon de Chelly, a much less known site in Arizona. In fact, there was hardly anyone, which was a welcome change from Grand Canyon and Monument Valley. The name Canyon de Chelly is derived from the language of the Diné, the local Indian tribe in this area, “tsegi”, meaning gorge. The Canyon was declared National Monument in 1931 and belongs to the Navajo-Reservation. It’s the biggest Indian Reservation in the States, measuring 55,900 km². It was given to the Diné-Indians in 1868 by General Sherman.
Size wise, Canyon de Chelly doesn’t even get close to Grand Canyons dimensions, but the atmosphere is even more intriguing. Maybe it is its past; or is it simply the natural beauty of this read sandstone gorge, that gets me? There is hardly a soul out here, and the ones that I do see seem to be local Indians. I spend
a wonderful day out here, hiking down to the “white house”, which is believed to be more than 1000 years old, built by the Diné-Indians. All that’s left over now is a ruin. I take a long break down in the canyon by the white house and enjoy the energy of this place. Beautyful!
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Monument Valley
Stephen Paul
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Navajo Sandstone is Hypnotic...
The Navajo Nation Indian Reservation is larger than most states in the US. Archaeologically it is known that the ruins of the four corners region belong to the Anasazi and other groups now long gone, the Navajo arrived after the dissappearance of these groups after 1300 AD. This is based on liguistic evidence, although most of the Dine(Navajo) think this is nonsense and claim direct links to these ancient people. The Navajo and Apache languages are part of the Athabaskan group, which originated in the Pacific Northwest and spread out after 1500 AD. Did you make it to Zion?!? Look forward to more posts!!