-----Left: our Navajo guide sitting on top of the open-air jeep, which holds about 20 people, explaining about the small petro-glyphs on the canyon wall. Click on the photo to enlarge - these are older etchings. On the Right: dwellings both on the ground and up on the canyon wall.
-----After the "Basketmakers", the next inhabitants of the canyon were the Pueblo Indians (750 to 1300 A.D.), who lived in villages. It is not certain why - perhaps the rock-sheltered households became too crowded, or perhaps they needed to band together to defend themselves against enemies. There were advantages and disadvantages to this new way of life. Villages offered opportunities for social interaction, trade and ceremony. However, they also provided a breeding ground for internal conflict, disease and the overuse of intensely farmed fields. But for the next five centuries, the Puebloan people experimented with the village system. Isn't it amazing that the pueblo "condos" are exactly like those we saw at the Grand Canyon, Tuzigoot and Wupatki. I'm sure we'll see more as we travel the west and southwest.
-----Puebloan life ended abruptly about 1300 A.D. - prolonged drought, disease, conflict, and possibly the allure of religious ideas from the south led them to abandon Canyon de Chelly and the surrounding areas. Searching for a constant water supply, they moved south and west.
-----In time, people of these villages became the Hopi Indians, who are still around --- their reservation is right in the middle of the Navajo reservation. We were told by a park ranger that the U.S. government managed that arrangement. Our Navajo guide told us that they don't always get along, but that there are lots of marriages between the two tribes, as well as between Navajo and the Chinese-Americans, decendents of the original Chinese immigrants in the area.
-----The Hopi lived in Canyon de Chelly from 1300-1600 A.D. Their traditional histories describe this migratory cycle, supported by archeological remains, and these histories chronicle seasonal farming, ritual pilgrimages, and occasionally lengthly stays in the canyon. This pattern continued until the Hopi encountered the Navajo in the Canyon in the late 1600's or early 1700's.
