RESERVATION ROUTE 3

Like a rapidly rising flood the Twentieth Century is inundating Arizona's Indian Country. One of the few remaining islands of the past, this farflung, lonely land of color-splashed desert plateaus, buttes and canyons is at last succumbing to modern civilization. Oldtimers may sigh for the bygone days when the Navajo and Hopi reservations were an alluring and mysterious realm entered only by the initiated. But the change has brought one enormous benefit. It means that the average traveler behind a steering wheel can now visit this fascinating remnant of original America in ease and comfort.

What finally shattered the age-long seclusion of the Indian Country was the completion in 1960 of a 195-mile paved highway which completely crosses it from east to west. This has suddenly transformed a long and arduous trek into a pleasant drive of a few hours' duration. Only seventy miles longer than U.S. 66 between Gallup, New Mexico, and Flagstaff, Arizona, the new highway can be used as a detour and combined with a visit to the Grand Canyon. The route is relatively cool in summer, too, as much of it is above six thousand feet elevation. There is an excellent motel at Window Rock, owned by the Navajos, and another is planned for Tuba City. Overnight accommodations and meals are also available at Ganado, Keams Canyon and New Oraibi, while gasoline and limited supplies can be had at the trading posts along the way.

However, settlements are few and far between, and motorists should keep in mind that they are not on a main traveled route. Dirt side roads should not be taken without first making local inquiry, and never attempted except with extra supplies of food, water and gasoline. For there are still parts arts of the Indian Country where the Twentieth Century is only a vague rumor, and deep sand and flash floods are as much a menace as ever.In fact, the modern innovations are more apparent than real. Although the Navajos and Hopis have taken on many of the White Man's ways, they have not forsaken their own. Today they live much as their ancestors did -occupying the same kind of communities, worshipping the same gods, and observing the same customs. And this is still exclusively their land. It is a part of the nation that we imported Americans have never made our own and where we are forever strangers. So driving Reservation Route 3 is a unique experience. No billboards, drive-ins or roadside zoos line the way-just the grand sweep of desert, mountains, cliffs and canyons inhabited by a wise and understanding race that lives in partnership with nature.

In the east, the new highway leaves U.S. 66, eight miles north of Gallup and heads westward across brightly tinted piñonand juniper-covered hills. These are the southern spurs of the dark, forested Chuska Mountains which rise to altitudes of over 8,000 feet. At sixteen miles the Arizona line is crossed and, just beyond, is a paved road leading north to Window Rock, one mile, and Fort Defiance, six miles farther.

The former is the capital of Navajoland. Situated on the east side of wide Black Creek Valley, the buildings of the Navajo Central Agency nestle among round-topped pink sandstone buttes, called the Haystacks. Behind is a cliff pierced by a large wind-eroded opening, which gives the place its name. Indian Service and tribal buildings are of native stone, blending well with their surroundings, and particularly striking is the octagonal Navajo Council House, seat of the Indians' self-government. In spite of its size and masonry construction, the architectural inspiration is the hogan, the tribe's traditional dwelling. However, recently built structures and housing for government employees are stucco in various pastel shades, with sloping shingle roofs a style more suitable to an urban subdivision than to the Southwestern Indian Country.

Largest in the United States, the Navajo Reservation occupies the entire northeast corner of Arizona and spills over into New Mexico and Utah. Covering more than "ALONG RESERVATION ROUTE 3" BY HUBERT A. LOWMAN. 4x5 Brand-17 view camera; Ektachrome E-3; f.14 at 1/100th sec.; 8" Ektar lens; July; bright sunlight in afternoon; 400 Weston meter reading; ASA rating 50. Reservation Route 3, traversing the Navajo and Hopi reservations in northeastern Arizona is hard surfaced throughout. The only photographic problem here was to "stop" the car in the picture. At some little distance away and moving toward the camera 1/100th second was sufficient even though the car was moving rather fast.

25,000 square miles, it is bigger than the state of West Virginia. The reservation was established in 1868, after two decades during which the proud and resolute Navajos stubbornly defended their homeland against the intruding Whites. Although eventually defeated, they have since thrived and now number nearly 90,000-more than any other Indian tribe.

In recent years the Navajos have acquired sudden wealth due to oil and gas leases in the Four Corners area, as well as through improved agriculture and stock raising, and a stepped-up lumber production. With affluence has come an increased sense of tribal unity and importance, together with a desire for complete autonomy. Today the Navajos govern, police, and conduct the business of the reservation with less and less guidance from the Indian Service. Their friends are watching their sudden emergence into the Twentieth Century with great interest and some concern. For the transformation has brought problems as well as benefits to the Indians.

"WINDOW ROCK-NAVAJO RESERVATION" BY HUBERT A. LOWMAN. 4x5 Brand-17 view camera; Ektachrome E-3; f.16 at 1/50th sec.; 8" Ektar lens; July; bright sunlight in mid-afternoon; 268 Weston meter reading; ASA rating 50. Towering above the foreground junipers is Window Rock, famous old landmark in the Arizona Red Rock Country of northeastern Arizona. Window Rock, Arizona, Navajo Reservation Capitol, was named after this formation. The photographer says: "Given pretty clouds in the sky by the Great Manitou all you do with a shot like this is walk up to it and take it. There were no problems of any kind involved and just the standard set-up regarding light and exposure."

Fort Defiance is a Navajo cultural and business center named after the first military post in what is now Arizona. This remote station of the United States Army was established in 1851 in an attempt to subdue the Indians, but it was not until twelve years later that they were finally vanquished in a brilliant campaign led by Colonel Kit Carson. No sign of the post now remains, but its site is marked by a bronze plaque set in a boulder near the center of the present community. From 1868 to 1936 Fort Defiance was administrative headquarters of the Navajo Agency, and a large hospital and boarding school are located there. At the east edge of town is the Episcopal Good Shepherd Mission. Its beautiful Davis Chapel, with tall, graceful bell tower, is well worth visiting.

"DEFIANCE PLATEAU-NAVAJO RESERVATION" BY HUBERT A. LOWMAN. 4x5 Brand-17 view camera; Ektachrome E-3; f.16 at 1/50th sec.; 5" Ektar lens; July; bright sunlight, midafternoon; 268 Weston meter reading; ASA rating 50. Beautifully pine-wooded Defiance Plateau is in the Navajo Indian Reservation, just west of Window Rock, Navajo capitol. This area is crossed by Reservation Route 3.

Fort Defiance is also headquarters of the new Navajo Police Department. In 1959 the tribe assumed financial responsibility for law enforcement on the reservation and, under the capable direction of several experienced white officers, formed a model organization adapted to "IN STEAMBOAT CANYON-HOPI RESERVATION" BY HUBERT A. LOWMAN. 4x5 Brand-17 view camera; Ektachrome E-3; f.16 at 1/50th sec.; 5" Ektar lens; July; bright sunlight, midmorning; 268 Weston meter reading; ASA rating 50. This huge, tawny rock formation at the mouth of Steamboat Canyon, beside Hopi-Navajo Reservation Route #3 in Arizona, resembles the bow of a great ship and thus inspired the canyon name.

Scattered here and there in the vast landscape are isolated groups of hogans. Roughly circular or octagonal, these dome-shaped dwellings are generally built of logs, with roofs of sod or dried mud, and the doorways invariably face cast. Families occupy several hogans during the year as they move their flocks from place to place, and they always burn a hogan in which there has been a death. In summer the women in their characteristic full velvet skirts perform the household duties in temporary brush arbors, surrounded by an indiscriminate confusion of children, dogs and goats. But something new in the Indian Country are the neat little one-room log structures which stand beside the highway at sideroad junctions. They were built to shelter youngsters from the cold blasts of winter while waiting for school buses.

The Navajos are fine horsemen, and riders can often be seen silhouetted against a blood-red butte or outlined against the sky. However, the rickety, two-horse wagons of former days have virtually disappeared and standard transportation today is by brightly colored pickup trucks. Almost every family has one, and these blue, green, yellow and red vehicles are an incongruous sight parked among a group of hogans, and perhaps even more so in the ancient Hopi villages farther on.

The route next crosses a breezy plateau, then follows down shallow, cliff-lined Steamboat Canyon, named for a nautical-looking rock formation rising from the floor. Near Jadito Trading Post another paved road comes in from Holbrook on U.S. 66, sixty miles south. The highway is now within the Hopi Indian Reservation, whichit traverses for eighty miles. Covering some 3,800 square miles, the reservation is completely surrounded by that of the Navajos, and the two neighboring tribes are as different from each other as Spaniards are from Norwegians.

Keams Canyon, eighty miles from Window Rock, is headquarters of the Hopi Agency. Here are administration buildings, school, hospital and trading post. Calling themselves "The Peaceful People," the Hopis are the westernmost of the pueblo, or village-dwelling, Indians. They number about three thousand and live in a dozen permanent communities, nine of them perched atop three dun-colored mesas separated by wide desert valleys. Their clustered stone and adobe houses, sometimes rising two and three stories, resemble terraced apartments. During the summer the Hopi men are farmers, while in winter they become weavers and silversmiths. They also carve and decorate the famed kachina dolls, which represent masked gods who bring rain and other blessings. The women, in addition to domestic duties, tend vegetable gardens, and make pottery and baskers. Undoubtedly the Hopis produce a greater variety of crafts than any other Indian tribe in the country.

But they are most widely known for their religious ceremonies performed with magical rites and striking symbolism. The most famous is the Snake Dance, during which the priests hold live rattlers between their teeth. Most of these prolonged ceremonies, lasting as long as nine days, are held in underground kivas. White visitors, however, may see some of the kachina dances in spring or early summer, and the last day of the Snake ceremony in August.

Thirteen miles beyond Keams Canyon is Polacca, a Hopi "shopping center" at the foot of the First Mesa. High on the skyline can be seen the villages of Hano, Sichimovi, and Walpi. These ancient communities date from 1680. They may be reached by a rather steep, rough, mile-and-a-half road. The last, set precariously on the point of the cliff-guarded mesa, is the most picturesque and photogenic of all the Hopi towns. A few miles farther on the Second Mesa villages of Mishongnovi, Shipolovi and Shongopovi may also be reached by short dirt side roads.

Oraibi, at the east base of the Third Mesa, is the modern metropolis of the Hopi country, and is often called New Oraibi to distinguish it from the pueblo of the same name on the mesa above. Those interested in Indian jewelry should visit the silversmiths' guild, located in a Quonset hut on the school grounds. There Hopi craftsmen work with silver and turquoise jewelry, from drawing the original designs to finished articles.

Contrary to general belief, silversmithing is not an ancient native art. Its American origin was Mexican, and the Navajos did not learn the craft until the middle of the Nineteenth Century, while the first Hopi work in silver dates from 1898. However, the Indian squash blossom necklaces, bracelets, concha belts and buckles are so distinctive as to be a true expression of the Southwestern Red Man. A particular specialty of modern Hopi silversmiths is the creation of handsome and unusual bow-guards for bolo ties.

Westward, the highway loops to the top of Third Mesa, and in two miles passes the pueblo of Oraibi, which can be seen a half mile to the south. With Acoma, New Mexico, it shares the honor of being one of the two oldest continuously inhabited towns in the United States. No one knows the exact date of its establishment, but pottery sherds indicate the occupancy of Oraibi ar least since 1350 A.D.

The road continues along the mesa top and in four miles passes between Hotevilla, west, and Bacobi, to the east. These are the two newest Hopi towns. The former was settled in 1906 by a conservative group from Oraibi after they had lost a tug-of-war with the liberals. Such would seem to be a more civilized way of settling disputes than with hydrogen bombs and intercontinental missiles. Dominated by a high water tank, Hotevilla has electric power, and washing machines and refrigerators are in evidence on the covered porches of the one-story adobe dwellings. In fact, a Hotevilla squaw swears she will be first to own an electric piki stone, upon which to make her wafer-thin Hopi corn bread.

The highway drops off Third Mesa and re-enters the Navajo Reservation in the middle of the wide desert valley of Dinnebito Wash. Beyond, is another short rise to the barren Moenkopi Plateau, which is traversed for seventeen miles. Far to the north rises the blue, rounded hump of Navajo Mountain, over the line in Urah, and sixty miles southwest soar the lofty, snow-streaked San Francisco Peaks, sacred sky realm of the Hopi gods. At one point a dirt road leads a mile north to a coal mine on the rim of Coal Canyon, with a spectacular panorama over odd varicolored rock formations. Bright-tinted Coal Canyon sands are used by Navajo medicine men in religious sandpaintings, Farther along, pink and yellow dunes threaten to bury the highway, and fences have been built to halt their movement.

Forty-seven miles from Hotevilla is the Hopi village of Moenkopi, situated in a pleasant valley among irrigated fields and orchards. The highway passes close and gives a good view over the flat, clustered roofs and crooked, narrow streets. Far from its sister communities on the mesas to the east, Moenkopi was founded in the 1870's by Tuba, an Oraibi chief. Named for him is Tuba City, two miles north, established by the Mormons in 1878. Subsequently it was made headquarters of the Western Navajo Agency and has a large school and hospital. The huge trees arching over the streets are a heritage from the Mormon days. Just south of town is the new Tuba City Community Center, with an unadorned modernistic severity typical of an urban airport building. It makes one wonder if in a few years Arizona's unique Indian Country will be robbed of its individuality by the nation-wide mania for glass walls and black-top parking areas.The last ten miles of the highway descends the green agricultural strip of Moenkopi Wash, then crosses colorbanded desert badlands to north-south U.S. 89. The junction is fourteen miles north of Cameron and fifty miles from the East Entrance of Grand Canyon National Park.

Thus, Reservation Route 3 provides an exciting crosssection of an ancient land that no longer stands still. Perhaps a new civilization is in the making there-one in which the contributions or red Americans and white combine to produce a better life for both.

Hopi Village of Moencopi

YOURS SINCERELY THE SEASONS AT NORTH RIM:

In your May issue you printed a letter, “Longer Season at North Rim.” If you should happen to be caught on the North Rim during one of the early fall snow-storms such as our crews experienced last year, you would think the season was long enough. Of course, this type of a storm is not common, but the North Rim, being at an elevation of over 8,000 feet, can expect snow during the fall while it is raining on the desert or down in the Canyon.Grand Canyon Lodge closes for the sea-son after breakfast the day following Labor Day. This date was established some time ago with the approval of the National Park Service. This does not mean that the North Rim closes on this date, for there are still comfortable cabins and cafeteria meal service available at North Rim Inn. The Inn re-mains open until after breakfast on the second Sunday in October, weather per-mitting. A number of cabins are available in the Lodge area during this period, again weather permitting.

During our summer season we employ about 90% college students; they start re-turning to their schools shortly after Labor Day. It is almost impossible to find replacements for such a short period. The North Rim is located too far distant from a labor pool to draw emergency help.

We also think that the fall foliage and coloring is beautiful, but when one of the early storms hit, the foliage is gone almost the next day.

I might add that our North Rim Inn opens for the summer season on the second Saturday in May, and Grand Lodge opens one month later. I hope this will clarify the impressions that various people have had about the North Rim closing too soon.

T. E. Murray, Manager Utah Parks Company Cedar City, Utah

LITTERBUGS:

On a recent trip through your state I was disturbed to see the havoc wrought along the roads by litterbugs. Is anything being done about them?

A. R. Sallander Santa Monica, California

MORE ABOUT THE CAMELS:

As I noted with a great deal of interest your article in the May issue of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS on Hi Jolly and the Beale Camel Expedition. An interesting sidelight to this story is the fact that three camels were seen near the Chace's, fourteen miles southwest of Ajo, in 1924. This sighting has been con-firmed by several reliable people, still living today. One of the local ranchers supposedly killed one camel near this same spot in either 1928 or 1929; however, this cannot be confirmed due to the “Camel Law” on the Statutes of the State of Arizona forbid-ding such shooting. (The rancher had be-come greatly perturbed over the fact that his cows would not go to the water hole be-cause, as he put it; “The damn camels stunk too much!!!”) In 1934 a group of local prospectors reported seeing camel tracks near the old ghost town of Growler, how-ever this report is questionable. It would seem that at least a male and female camel had survived the Beale expedition in this area. Numerous reports of camel sightings were made in this vicinity in the late 1800's and early 1900's. It would seem that several offspring were the result of this survival and that at one time the camel population in this area was as high as seven or eight.

David I. Rees Ajo, Arizona

UPPER-“NAVAJO CHILDREN AND BURRO” BY JOSEF MUENCH. 4x5 Speed Graphic camera; Kodachrome; f.8 at 1/50th sec.; 6” Ektar lens; August. Photograph taken along the Echo Cliffs near U.S. 89 on the Navajo Indian Reservation. The three friendly youngsters seemed to want the photographer to take their picture-perhaps to make a break in their rather lonely job of herding sheep.

LOWER-“INTERIOR-NAVAJO WINTER HOGAN” BY JOSEF MUENCH. 4x5 Linhof camera; Ektachrome; f.11 at 1/50th sec.; with blue flash; 6” Xenar lens; June. Photograph was taken in a Navajo hogan in the Monument Valley section of the Navajo Indian Reservation. The photographer says: “Since I do not speak Navajo and so couldn't ask permission to go into this hogan and take the picture, Maurice Knee of Goulding's Post at Monument Valley, acted as my interpreter. The hogan was light and airy-a splendid work-shop as well as pleasant living quarters.” “NAVAJO SHEEPHERDERS” BY CHUCK ABBOTT. 5x7 Deardorff View camera; Ektachrome; f.11 at 1/25th sec.; Commercial Ektar lens; late November; early morning sun; Weston 200 meter reading; ASA rating 12. Photograph was taken on the Navajo Indian Reservation, in New Mexico very close to the Arizona line and about forty miles north of Window Rock. “Chief difficulty encountered in taking this picture,” explains the photographer, “was distance and lack of communication. We wanted Indians and sheep in front of the monolith. We were staying in Window Rock at the tribal motel but had to travel forty miles over dirt road to get to the location and/or nearby Indians. No phones, of course, so while it took us about three days to get ready for this shot, it involved driving the forty-mile trip several times per day trying to catch the Indians or make a date with them to be there at a definite time. Day after this photograph was taken, the country was snowed in!” August Unbinds her hair And flings her high-heeled shoes Aside, to squish soft dust between Her toes.

The big round moon Is a gold doubloon In a Gypsy purse Of sky: Silver stars Are sixpence, Coaxing night violins To cry.

Let no man think he owns a tree In any leaf or limb, Or that the flowers he plants will grow In beauty, just for him, Because all gardens, large or small, Or somewhere in between, Belong to all who look with eyes Of love on living green.

Snatched from a field In carefree bliss, The instant beauty Has come to this: Snared in a vase By domestic hand, Captured, they wilt In frail reprimand.

A jukebox scarred with years of time Plays Hopi dances for a dime: The basket dance, The dance for corn, Beat through the post On floors well worn. Drum and chant with a long repeat Measure the tread of Hopi feet. The feather dance, The dance for rain, Katchina dances once again Come from the juke in rhythmical rhyme: Hopi dances for a dime.

Three sister yuccas, Like virgins in white surplices, In slender poise standing Upon a vestal hill, While the priest of night With opulent grace Pours the radiance Of silver light around them, Setting aglow The candles of the Lord.