Shaman Days

The vast and haunting landscape of the Four Corners region -- where Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado meet -- touches places in my soul I scarcely knew existed. After my first visit nearly 20 years ago, the place nagged at me until I returned.

I imagined, on that first visit, understanding how the Native Americans feel about this land. I learned, on a recent return, how naive I can be.

This is the land of the Navajo, the Diné, "the people," chosen as their reservation when forced by the inexorable tide of Manifest Destiny. Anglos were content to let them keep this land. "As far as the Anglos were concerned, there was really not much going on out there, just lots of sand and rocks," says Robert S. McPherson, PhD, author of Sacred Land, Sacred View: Navajo Perceptions of the Four Corners Region (Signature Books).

The Navajo feel differently.

The 25,000-square-mile reservation lies within four mountains considered sacred by the tribe: Blanca Peak, Colo. (Sisnaajinii to the Navajo); Mount Taylor, Ariz. (Tsoodzil); San Francisco Peak (Dook'o'oostiid), Ariz.; and Hesperus Peak, Colo. (Dibé Ntsaa). In his book, McPherson compares the area's landforms to the stained glass windows of cathedrals built in Middle Ages, which helped depict and act as mnemonic devices for the tenets of Christianity. "If you understand Navajo thinking, every place has a name, every place tells a story," says McPherson, who also teaches sociology and Native American philosophy and literature at the College of Eastern Utah.

A friend and I -- tourists, not scholars -- recently visited Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park with the intention of hiring a guide to share those stories with us.

Monument Valley, with its extraordinary red rock monoliths rising hundreds of feet from the desert floor, is one of the area's most compelling landscapes. Visitors may tour a 17-mile self-drive loop, but all other access must be with a Navajo guide. Hiking, jeep and horseback tours, from 90 minutes to overnight, are available. Some companies specialize in photography tours, guides are available for the magic moments of sunrise and sunset, and many accommodate special requests.

But my inquiries about tours focusing on Navajo legends garnered mostly blank stares. "What do you mean?" I was asked more than once.

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