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American Journeys: Visiting the Navajo Nation
Friday, June 12, 2009
Filed Under: National


"According to Navajo creation stories, the first holy people passed through three worlds — Black, Blue and Yellow — before settling here, in the White, or Glittering, World. They emerged through a giant reed and, shortly after, established the four sacred mountains that mark the boundaries of the Navajo homeland, an area that extends far beyond the present-day Navajo Nation.

Driving on Route 12, just south of Window Rock, Ariz., the capital city of the Navajo Nation, I felt as if I was passing from one world into another. The Green World — a landscape carpeted with shimmering sage bushes and dotted with plump piñon and juniper trees — gave way to a Red World dominated by ruddy, sandy soil. The setting sun inflamed the rust-colored rock to a spellbinding intensity. A glittering world indeed.

The Navajo Nation covers 27,000 square miles (about the size of West Virginia) over a large chunk of Arizona, part of New Mexico and a swath of Utah. More than 250,000 Navajos, or Diné (the people), as they call themselves, live in Diné Bikéya, or Navajo Land. For anyone seeking to learn more about this country’s largest native population, there are ample opportunities to spend time with the Navajo.

On a spring evening I relished just such a chance. I had made arrangements to spend the night at Mae Wallace’s family hogan, about seven miles east of the tiny town of Granada, Ariz. While most Navajos live in more modern dwellings, many also maintain a hogan, a traditional eight-sided log home.

I arrived late in the afternoon and before dinner I took a walk around the sprawling property with Mrs. Wallace’s daughter-in-law Joanne George, 48. We walked past gaping caves set in sandstone cliffs before reaching a tiny cluster of ancient ruins. When we finished, we strolled over to a small house to meet members of the family."

Get the Story:
Where Navajo Tales, and Rugs, Are Woven (The New York Times 6/12)

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