Tag: Navajo

The Legacy of Nasja Begay: Paiute Guide — By Harvey Leake (ZX#102 )

From early times, a tiny community of Paiute Indians made their homes at the bottom of a remote canyon that transects the Arizona/Utah border. Early in 1909, two of them—a father and son—rode eastward on a rocky, fifty-mile-long trail toward Monument Valley in order to patronize a trading post at a place known as Oljato. The father’s name was Mupuutz, which means “Owl” in the Paiute language, although he was better known by the Navajo translation of his name, Nasja (Nd’dshjaa’), or the name the census takers used for him, Ruben Owl. His son was called Nasja Begay (Nd’dshjaa’ Biye’), i.e., Owl’s Son. Nasja was in his early seventies, and Nasja Begay was about eighteen.

The pioneer trading post at Oljato had been established a few years earlier by John and Louisa Wetherill, my great-grandparents, and Clyde Colville, their trading partner. They were quite fluent with the Navajo language and were learning some Paiute as well.

1906 —THE WETHERILL & COLVILLE TRADING POST: Establishing a Home on the Desert …by Harvey Leake (ZX#97)

The wisdom of such a move was not evident to the folks back in Mancos. The costs of desert life were loneliness, hardships, and isolation from the security of civilization. Provisions were limited to those that could be hauled in over rough wagon roads from distant supply points, and the many niceties of society were no longer close at hand. Nevertheless, the Wetherills came to relish the change. John was no stranger to the desert, and he had developed a profound appreciation for it. Louisa was getting to know her Navajo neighbors, and the two children—Ben, who was nearly four and Sister, a year younger—were hardy and adaptable.

For Louisa, the experience became transformative.

LOUISA WADE WETHERILL: “The Slim Woman” of Kayenta — Harvey Leake (ZX#83)

“The person who seems to be influencing the life of Navajos most is Mrs. John Wetherill of the Kayenta trading post, Arizona. This cultured woman wields more power among them than any chief, or ‘head man’. She is a white woman adopted into the tribe and is a real leader among them, holding her position as a recognition by the Indians of her sympathetic interest in their life. A queen could hardly be more loved by her subjects. She is at once the judge, physician, interpreter, adviser and best friend of her devoted wards.”

Joseph F. Anderson, Archaeology student of University of Utah Professor Byron Cummings

A 1910 Expedition to Rainbow Natural Bridge —By Harvey Leake (ZX#75)

Despite her remarkable fortitude in the face of previous ordeals and hardships, 32-year-old Nelka de Smirnoff nearly reached her limit during her 1910 horseback ride to Rainbow Natural Bridge. The daughter of Count Theodor de Smirnoff, a Russian nobleman, and Nellie Blow, a wealthy St. Louis socialite, she had experienced the best of both American and European culture while growing up. When she was 25, she volunteered to serve with the French Red Cross as a nurse to soldiers wounded in the war between Russia and Japan. A year later she joined the Russian Red Cross and dealt with the horrific effects of war to the injured men she treated. But the stamina she gained through those trying situations was barely sufficient for the challenges that confronted her on the Rainbow Bridge trail…

JANUARY 1931: THE STRENUOUS LIFE — by Harvey Leake (ZX#71)

On January 6, 1931, as darkness fell over northern Arizona, veteran explorer John Wetherill and his young companion, Henry Martin “Pat” Flattum, huddled by their campfire in the depths of Glen Canyon of the Colorado River. They had taken refuge from the biting wind in an alcove eroded into the base of a high sandstone cliff. The only sounds were the crackling of the fire, their soft conversation, and the “sh-sh-shush” of the drifting ice floes as they rubbed against the shore ice.

…Wetherill, who was sixty-four years old, seemed unperturbed by their difficulties. “Signs of many beaver on the river but no other animals until tonight, when we camped in a cave, where the Ringtail cat seems to have made its home. The canyon walls are getting lower,” he wrote.

THE MYTH of ‘PROGRESS’— Revealed by Traditional Navajo Wisdom … by Harvey Leake (ZX#60)

The position of these men (like John Wesley Powell) and many others in the Federal Government was that Native Americans were stuck in the barbaric stage and needed to be civilized. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, since their inception in 1849, implemented a number of unsuccessful strategies to bring the Indians “up” to modern intellectual and moral standards, while failing to acknowledge that the divide was fundamentally a philosophic one. William Henry Holmes, who had responded to B. K. Wetherill’s first letter, later expressed the violent aspect of the government approach. He believed that the dominant culture was destined predominate and that “the complete absorption or blotting out of the red race will be quickly accomplished. If peaceful amalgamation fails, extinction of the weaker by less gentle means will do the work.

Powell elaborated on Morgan’s theory in two articles: “From Savagery to Barbarism” and “From Barbarism to Civilization”. He maintained that civilized society is not only technologically and intellectually superior, but morally superior as well. “In savagery, the beasts are gods; in barbarism, the gods are men; in civilization, men are as gods, knowing good from evil,” he wrote.

UNSUNG VIDEOGRAPHERS of CANYON COUNTRY: 1949 —Ray & Virginia Garner (ZX#43)

But my photo collections are still images. Trying to locate movie film, especially going back to the 1940s and 1950s has been almost impossible. Sometimes the best I could hope for were John Ford Westerns and one of George Stevens’ last films, “The Greatest Story Ever Told.” All the exterior scenes were shot in Glen Canyon, as the dam was being built. 

But recently, and sheerly by accident, I found the film in its entirety on the internet. It had been donated to the National Archives and though the film quality still pales by today’s standards, it is the history in these films and images that I love, more than the film quality itself. Ray and Virginia Garner started making films in the late 1930s. Ray’s first known project was a film about ascending the Grand Teton with a group of Boy Scouts in 1936. Sadly the film has been lost. But it was the beginning of an independent filmmaker career and soon, a wonderful collaboration with his new wife Virginia. Though the title of the film I’m offering here gives credit to Ray, Virginia, or “Jinny” as she was known to everyone, was not only his equal in the filming, production and presentation of what were often silent films, she was certainly more photogenic and appears often in them.  That’s’ what gives these 16mm movies such a personal feel. As I understand the story, they toured the country with their movies and at various gatherings, they would narrate the film in person as it was being shown.

Encounters with the Sublime: Quentin Roosevelt’s Western Adventures —By Harvey Leake (ZX#35)

“The man should have youth and strength who seeks adventure in the wide, waste spaces of the earth […]. The grandest scenery of the world is his to look at if he chooses; and he can witness the strange ways of tribes who have survived into an alien age from an immemorial past […]. The joy of living is his who has the heart to demand it.”

—Theodore Roosevelt, 1916

On July 13, 1913, fifteen-year-old Quentin Roosevelt peered into the depths of the Grand Canyon for his first time. He and his compatriots had just arrived by train at the South Rim, and they lost no time making their way to the edge to gaze into the awesome chasm. Leading the group was Quentin’s father, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, who called the view “the most wonderful scenery in the world.” Also on the team were Quentin’s older brother, Archie, his second cousin, Nicholas Roosevelt, and a skilled outdoorsman named Jesse Cummins from Mesa, Arizona, who would serve as the head cook, packer, and horse wrangler for the long excursion they were starting.

‘NAVAJOLAND’–The Way It Was (1963-1968) w/Edna Fridley (ZX#26)

The Zephyr has been posting the remarkable photographs of Edna Fridley for many years. As some of you might recall, Edna’s daughter Marti gave Edna’s entire collection of color slides and journals to The Zephyr in the late 1990s. Her images cover the entire Colorado Plateau, including trips down Glen Canyon before it was flooded by Lake Powell. She became a close friend of legendary river runners, Harry Aleson and Ken Sleight.

But Edna wandered everywhere and she was especially fond of visiting the Navajo Nation. Year after year she took journeys from her home in Brigham City, Utah to iconic landmarks like Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly. She loved to attend the Navajo Rodeo at Coal Canyon and often attended the Inter Tribal Celebrations that are still held every summer in Gallup, New Mexico. I have many images of those experiences as well, but will save those photos for another time.

Here are some of Edna’s best Kodachrome transparencies of Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly. Enjoy a ride back in time with Edna Fridley…