Archive All Issues July 1942

Drums Sound at Sundown

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the smoki people of prescott present their annual ceremonials

Featured in the July 1942 Issue of Arizona Highways

"The Painted Desert"
"The Painted Desert"

AT SUNDOWN

The history of this unusual group goes back through two decades. The first Smoki Ceremonials were a part of a day's celebration staged under the name of "Way Out West," and were presented with very little seriousness. This casual performance impressed several of the more artistically minded participants with the fact that these Indian rites are rich with a colorful symbolism and a deep significance that most white men fail to appreciate. Believing that this picturesque lore of an ancient race should be preserved, these men banded together for the purpose of studying these dances in detail and, in reverence, dramatizing them for the inspiration of the white man. From this beginning grew the Smoki People who, each year for 20 years, have presented the Smoki Ceremonials, re-enacting, with amazing fidelity to the original, the symbolic rites of an ancient people. New members come old members move away, but the unique organization holds together. These men and women give unstintingly of themselves spending arduous weeks in study and preparation each year, to preserve these colorful, age-old rites.

So seriously do the Smoki People enter into the ceremonial that the ancient lore becomes almost a reality to them a part of their very being. And something of this reality is imparted to the spectators, who come to feel they are witnessing something that, but for the effort of the Smoki People, might be forever lost to the world.

The exotic dances of the red man. This unique ritual is held early in August each year.

Travel has shown greater gains in Arizona during the past decade than it has any place else in the country. You have followed the roads and good roads have followed you. Judicious planning on the part of the Arizona highway commission and the construction, renovation and maintenance of a wide-spread system of modern and improved highways by the Arizona highway department have added to your traveling pleasure. America has grown Arizona conscious.

If you don't feel that you can drive your car this summer, don't forget that the railway and bus companies serve Arizona adequately, and for you, economically. You can even hire, and quite reasonably, transportation in the very heart of the Navajo country.

And then, too, there are all sorts of accommodations at your command. You'll find inns and lodges and ranches in every nook of northern Arizona and in the higher elevations of southern Arizona available.

We urge you to conserve tires and gasoline. Use the established transportation facilities for your vacation in Arizona.

In the meantime ARIZONA HIGHWAYS will come calling each month. If you cannot come out West this year we'll try to bring you a few pages of the West every now and then. We'll keep reminding you of our land. When the fuss is over, you can travel to your heart's content.

Of Canyons ond Irrigation Canals

This, the July issue of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS, offers you a varied pic-ture of our land. We start off with an attractive study of the NorthRim of the Grand Canyon by Hubert A. Lowman, a newcomer to thisfamily circle. We give you a pictorial essay not only on the NorthRim, featuring the pictures of Mr. Lowman, but we also give you astudy of the South Rim of the Canyon, showing it in all its moods andwhimsies. No photograph, no painting, no poem, no essay can do jus-tice to the Canyon, but at least we can hint around at some of the beautyand some of the mystery you will find there. Then we abruptly drop you right into the middle of the first partof a three part story on irrigation in the Salt River Valley, by a chapwell qualified to speak of it-Stephen Shadegg of Phoenix. It has beenan adventure to get these stories ready for publication, and we hopethey will be an adventure to you in reading them. Stephen startsaway back when--away back when there were four or five canal com-panies competing for the precious little water running down the Salt,long before the great dams of the project were even being dreamedof. He discusses the pioneers who had the vision to foresee greaterthings for their fertile but thirsty valley and he goes into considerabledetail about the why's and wherefore's of water law and about whatwe know as the Salt River Valley irrigation project in its humble be-ginnings. In the article appearing in this issue of ARIZONA HIGHWAYSand in subsequent articles we'll get all the drama, all the romance,all the disappointments and all the triumphs that have been written inconnection with the greatest irrigation project ever conceived byhumble man. This is good and inspiring reading for Americans thesedays. We can crow too, you know.

The artist visiting our family circle this week is a man in Tucsonby the name of Jack Van Ryder. He is not only a great artist, butone of the most interesting people we know. Horse wrangler, cow-puncher, freighter, movie extra, rodeo bronc rider-Jack has beenall these things. He's genuine. And when you know all about himyou marvel the more at his ability to handle paints and water-colorsand etching acids and to translate these mediums into the beauty andthe mystery he finds in the West. He'll never explain it for you.To him it's a God-given gift that he tries to treat reverently and withawe. In his spare time he conducts a column in the Brewery GulchGazette, which is by no means an unimportant assignment. We thinkyou'll like Jack Van Ryder and his works very much. And in passingwe'd like to pay homage to Mrs. Jack Van Ryder, a charming personwho has contributed no little to the success of her husband. And Jackwill not deny it. Whenever we are looking for something dealing with the greatout-of-doors, we always call our good friend, Charles Niehuis in Pres-cott. He's with us again this month, this time with an article aboutfishing, of which he is about as well informed as any person in thisstate. If you're fishing-minded pause for a few minutes with Niehuis.He'll give you the dope.

Picking up the interesting thread of our national monuments inArizona, we give you this month Sunset Crater, near Flagstaff. Ourguide on a visit to this interesting monument is Dale S. King, archaeologist for the Southwest National Monuments, with headquartersat Coolidge. He gives you a picture of what happened hundreds ofyears ago when the crater erupted. He takes you for a trip throughthe monument, where there are more evidences of volcanic actionthan any place in the country. It's all very interesting but why can'tthings happen today rather than in the 800's A. D. Nothing everhappens to us. Our contribution this month by the Arizona Writers' Project dealswith the city of Yuma, down there in the southwestern part of thestate where the Colorado picks up the Gila and escorts it down to thesea. The article is called: "Yuma the City of Destiny." The story ofYuma of yesterday has been dug out of old files and compared to thestory of Yuma of today. Whether you know it or not, Yuma has apromising future, and what the next fifty years will bring to it onlytime, of course, will tell. But we predict that every year will be ayear of expansion and growth. Yuma will lead the growth and progressof this state.

We wish you health and happiness as ever. And if you can't getout this year to drive along our highways into this Land of the Sun wehope you'll let us drop in again soon and take you westward throughthe pages of our little book. So long! R.C.

Arizona Highways

the friendly journal of life and travel in the old west Published monthly by the Arizona Highway Department in the interestof good roads and for the promotion of tourist travel over highways ofArizona. Communications should be addressed to Arizona Highways,Arizona Highway Department, Phoenix, Arizona. Subscription rates:One Dollar per year, Ten Cents per copy. Printed in the U. S. A."Entered as second-class matter Nov. 5, 1941, at the post officeat Phoenix, Arizona, under the act of March 3, 1879."

for july, nineteen and forty-two arizona highways the friendly journal of life and travel in the old west presents for your reading pleasure:

all of which we hope has been reading pleasure to you and has been an armchair journey along the high-ways and byways of the west