There is some doubt as to the earliest inscription on the Rock. One questionable writing, unsigned, appears to be 1580. Next in point of antiquity is the undoubted record of Oñate, cut across an earlier Indian petrograph, and reads literatim: “Paso por aqi el adelantado don jua de oñate del descubrimiento de la mar del sur a 16 del abril del 1606.” (That is: Passed by here the provincial chief Don Juan de Oñate from the discovery of the South Sea on 16th of April, 1606.) The discovery he records as of the South Sea (i.e., Pacific Ocean) was really of the Gulf of California, for Oñate doubtless believed as most of the world did in his day that California was an island. Oddly enough, though, he made a mistake in the date, which documentary evidence proves to have been 1605 not 1606.
The inscription of De Vargas, the reconqueror, following the Pueblo rebellion of 1680, reads: “Aqui estaba el Genl Dn. Do de Vargas quien conquisto a nuestra santa fe y la real corona todo el nuevo Mexico a su costa año de 1692.” (Here was the General Don Diego de Vargas who conquered to our holy faith and the royal crown all New Mexico, at his own expense, year of 1692.)
Records of especial interest, too, are two of 1629, telling of the passing by of Governor Silva Nieto. One is in rhymed verse[43] and refers to Nieto as the “bearer of the Faith to Zuñi;” that is, he had acted as escort of the first Christian missionaries to pagan Zuñi. A tragic sequel to that inscription is a short one that is so abbreviated that scholars have had a hard tussle with it. The puzzle has been solved, however. You will know this petroglyph by the signature Lujan, a soldier, and the date 1632; and it reads, Englished: “They passed on 23 March 1632 to the avenging of Padre Letrado’s death.” Zuñi did not take kindly to its missionaries and killed them periodically. This Padre Letrado was one of the martyrs—shot to death as he preached, holding out his crucifix to his murderers.[44]
In delicate, almost feminine, characters is a modest inscription that reads, translated: “I am from the hand of Felipe de Avellano, 16 September, soldier.” There is something touching, I think, about that personified periphrase, and I am glad that, in spite of the omission of the year, historians have identified the writer. He was a common soldier of the garrison at Zuñi after the reconquest, and met death there in 1700.
It is unfortunate that this noble and unique monument should be left exposed as it is to vandals. Almost every white visitor thinks it is his duty to scratch his name up alongside the historic ones and there is no guardian to forbid—only an unregarded sign of the Department of the Interior tacked on a nearby tree. A year ago the Department, in response to private representation, promised to put up a fence of protection, and perhaps this has been done; but a fence is a perfectly inadequate measure. If the East possessed one such autograph in stone (of Joliet, or La Salle, or Cartier), as El Morro bears by the half dozen, I wonder if the few hundred a year necessary to support a local guardian would not be forthcoming? When will our nation take seriously the colonial history of the Southwest as just as much its own as that of the Atlantic side of the Continental Divide?
At the shortest, it is a matter of two days to achieve a visit to El Morro from the railway. Gallup is the best stop-off. There an automobile may be hired, and the night spent at Ramah, where accommodations may be had at the trader’s unless you prefer to camp at the Rock itself, which, if you like such adventure and are prepared, is a joyous thing to do.
CHAPTER VIII
THE STORIED LAND OF THE NAVAJO
The Navajos are the Bedouins of our Southwest, and there are about 22,000 of them—a fine, independent tribe of Indians occupying a semi-desert, mountainous reservation in northwestern New Mexico, northeastern Arizona and a small corner of Utah. Indeed they occupy somewhat more, for they are confirmed rovers and are frequently found setting up their hogans, shepherding their sheep, and weaving their blankets, well across their government-fixed borders. One is sure to see some of them in Gallup, where they come to trade—the men generally in dark velveteen shirts worn loose outside the trousers, their long, black, uncut hair filleted about with red bandas and caught up behind in a club or knot. Both men and women are expert riders, sitting their ponies as firmly as centaurs; and both are extravagantly fond of silver jewelry, of which they often wear small fortunes in necklaces, belts, bracelets, rings and buttons hammered by their own silversmiths from coin of Mexico. If you see them wearing blankets, as you will when the weather requires it, these will be the gaudy products of Yankee looms, which they buy for less than the price they receive for their own famous weave. So, thrifty traders that they are, they let the white folk have the latter and content themselves with the cheaper machine-made article bought from an American merchant.
It is part of the fun of a visit to the Hopi towns that you must cross a section of the Navajo Reservation and thus get a glimpse of life in the latter; but there is a special trip which I would like to recommend from Gallup as a starting point, that brings one more intimately into touch with the tribe. That is to Chin Lee and the Cañon de Chelly,[45] about 100 miles northwest of Gallup. There is a choice of roads, so that the going and returning may be by different routes. The trip may be done by time economists in an automobile in two or three days, but a more enjoyable plan for easy-going folk is to take eight or ten days to it by horseback or wagon, camping by the way. And do it preferably in September or early October, for then the mid-year rains are usually over, the air clear and sparkling, and feed for horses sufficiently abundant. The elements that enter into the landscape are primarily those that go to the making of the grandeur of the Grand Cañon region, but scattered and distant, not concentrated. There is a similar sculpturing of the land into pinnacles and terraces, cones perfect or truncated, battlemented castles and airy spires, appearing, when afar, mistily in an atmosphere of amethyst and mauve and indefinite tones of yellow and pink. Now the road threads open, sunny forests of pine and oak, the latter in autumnal dress of crimson and gold and surprising you with acorns as sweet as chinquapins. Again, it traverses broad, unwatered, semi-desert plains dotted with fragrant sage-brush and riotous sunflowers, the only animated things in sight being prairie dogs and jackrabbits, or an occasional band of Navajo ponies. As the morning advances, cumulus clouds rise in stately squadrons above the horizon and move across the sky dropping drifting shadows; at noon over a fire of sage stumps you heat up your beans and brew your coffee in the grateful shade of your wagon; night finds you at some hospitable trader’s post, or enjoying your blankets at the sign of La belle étoile. Only at long intervals will you come upon sign of human life. At Fort Defiance, 30 miles north of Gallup, is a Government Reservation school for the Navajos, and a mile from it an Episcopal medical mission—a living monument to the loving interest of Miss Eliza Thackara in these Indians. Eight miles south of Fort Defiance is the Franciscan Mission of St. Michael’s to the Navajo, where, if you are interested, the hospitable Brothers can show you what sort of a job it is to transform an ungroomed savage into Christian semblance. At Ganado, Arizona, 45 miles from Gallup, is the trading post of Mr. J. L. Hubbell, whose name for a generation has in that part of the world been a synonym for hospitality.[46]
Nevertheless, there is more life than you see, for the native hogan, or one-roomed dwelling of logs covered with earth, is so inconspicuous that you may pass within a few rods of one and never detect it. The Navajos do not congregate in villages but each family wants a lot—miles, indeed—of elbow room.