Quotation from The Professor’s House, 1925, by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, New York.
The righthand section of Mummy Cave Ruin as it was photographed by Ben Wittick in 1882 during the James Stevenson Survey for the Smithsonian Institution.
Discovery of the Ruins
Canyon de Chelly National Monument is located in the red rock country of northeastern Arizona’s high plateau, near the center of the Navajo Indian Reservation. Included in its 131 square miles are three spectacular canyons—Canyon de Chelly, Canyon del Muerto, and Monument Canyon—and many ruins of long-deserted villages. Perched in alcoves and on high ledges along the sheer-walled canyons, these villages are evidence of man’s ability to adjust to a difficult environment, using bare hands, simple stone age tools, and his own ingenuity. They stand as enduring monuments to the culture of the ancestors of the present-day Pueblo Indians of the southwestern United States.
The ancestors of the Navajo Indians who now live in the shadows of these deep canyons came here long after the earlier peoples had left. Originally the Navajos did not live in the canyon, but only passed through it on their yearly migrations. Today some live here permanently, and their hogans are scattered along the sandy canyon floor, almost hidden by the thick growth of willows and cottonwoods and detectable only by a column of smoke slowly rising from a cook fire or by the barking of dogs. Occasionally one may catch a glimpse of a brightly dressed woman working around the hogan or of black-hatted men trotting their horses between the nearby trading post, cornfields, or peach orchards. A reserved and dignified people, they still live in the tradition of their fathers.
The main canyon’s name, de Chelly, stems from the Navajo word “Tsegi” (pronounced tsay-yih or tsay-yhi and meaning “Rock Canyon”), the name by which they know the canyon network. Two centuries of Spanish and English usage have corrupted both the form and pronunciation. Most people now pronounce it “dah-SHAY” or “d’SHAY.”
The first Europeans to see the extensive ruins in Canyon de Chelly are unknown. A Spanish map of 1776 indicates its location, and other documents reveal that Spanish military expeditions sometimes passed through the neighborhood. In 1805, Spanish troops entered the canyon while trying to suppress Navajo raids. During the period of Mexican rule (1821-46), a number of military expeditions against the Navajo invaded the Canyon de Chelly region. Though the ruins had not been described in writing, the area was fairly well known, and by 1846, when the “Army of the West” brought the region under United States control, there were many tall tales and rumors about the wonderful cities built in the cliffs.
Archeological excavations in Canyon del Muerto, 1929.