Canyon de Chelly

Peace has come now to the canyon, but here before the Navajos were subdued there were death and violence. Here between these walls Kit Carson bottled up insurgent Indians and from here they were sent on their long walk to captivity. These walls, mute testimony of the agelessness of their land, speak to the Navajos of countless winds, the strength of the sun and elements, the utter imperishability of their land. But long before the Navajos came to claim this canyon as their own, there lived here a race of people who have gone leaving only a few scratches on the hard rock, a few ruined dwellings clinging to the side of a cliff to tell the world that once they existed but exist no longer. The centuries whisper from these cliffs, and it may be, as the Navajos say, that the unhappy spirits of their own people dwell here and can be heard when the night is dark and the wind blows hard... R. C.