"LEGEND OF SPIDER WOMAN"
Spider Rock Canyon de Chelly NM
The "Grand Circle" is a gateway not only to Navajo country but also well-known national parks and monuments. After leaving Durango Airport in Colorado, I drove on U.S. Highway 160 to Four Corners where Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico intersect. No other place in the United States has an intersection bringing together four states. Highway 160 continues from Four Corners to what is known as the Grand Circle, a system of roads leading to national parks such as Mesa Verde and Grand Canyon as well as the Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly national monuments.
By the early 1700s Navajo Indians were arriving to escape Spanish oppression in the Rio Grand Valley. They settled around Canyon de Chelly, a twenty-seven-miles-long gorge bounded by red sandstone cliffs. The Anasazi or "ancient people" were the first known settlers in this region, descending from Asians who had crossed the Bering Straits to North America thousands of years ago. Besides building multi-storied wooden and masonry houses to form pueblos or villages, they also used recesses or alcoves in cliffs for housing. Their purpose was to retain the bottomland for raising squash, beans, and other crops. These settlers further distinguished themselves by weaving fine baskets and cotton cloth and decorating cliff walls with pictographs. The Anasazi had a flourishing civilization that lasted at least 1,500 years before it mysteriously disappeared in the early 1500s perhaps because of drought or population pressure. Until the arrival of Navajos, Hopi Indians and others settled in the canyon.
After leaving the Durango airport, however, I thought that I might never reach the land of the Navajos and their ancient ancestors. Heavy snowflakes started to fall, darkening the sky. The snow gradually made it hard to see the road. The highway also became slippery. I stopped my car on the roadside, deciding to wait until the snowfall ended. About one hour later the storm subsided and the temperature rose sufficiently to form a fog cover. The snow served as white facial make-up for the red sandstone cliffs.
The storm gave me occasion to rest briefly at Four Corners where I had my first encounter with Navajos. The entrance to the intersection was lined with Navajo gift shops though no tourists were shopping. One Navajo woman sat in a chair as she had no admission fees to collect. After visiting the marker at the intersection of the four states, I resumed driving.
Canyon de Chelly is located fifty miles away from Four Corners. It has a Navajo village with the same name as the canyon and seems left outside the rest of American society in quiet isolation. The rock walls of the gorge rising on either side of the village accentuate this isolation. Even today a small stream flows through the gorge where the annual rainfall averages about ten inches per year. The view from the top of the gorge is magnificent. Today about twenty Navajo families live in the gorge surrounded by evidences of the ancient people such as the cliff dwellings.
I entered the main gorge of the canyon to see massive sandstone cliffs on either side of the stream. Then, suddenly, a cliff dwelling of twenty-one rooms stood out in a band of white color above the ruins of a sixty-apartment pueblo building. This complex is known as the White House. Its earliest parts date to the year 1060. En route to the gorge a Navajo souvenir seller be friended me and proudly talked of his son who was attending high school in Phoenix. My new friend said that he was last person living in the locality and that he would not tried to persuade his children to remain.
On the way back to the top of the gorge, he gave me a ride in his truck on the South Rim Drive. There one could look down in the gorge to see the"spider rock." This sandstone formation consists of two slender columns, one of which is about eight hundred feet tall. My friend recounted an old Navajo legend about the rock. According to his story, local Navajos believe that the spider woman is a living God who intervenes in human matters. Parents, he said, warn misbehaving children who did "a bad thing, the spider women will come and carry you away to eat on the rock." Everyone is raised to respect her. He explained further: "The spider woman can cure the sick. She can create many other gods to help Navajo families. For she is the creator of the earth, sun, moon, star, and rain as well as all other living things. The Navajo people respect her even though all do not remember their customs and traditions."
The snow stopped. The sun peeked enough through a low cloud, to cast a blaze of light around the spider rock. It seemed as if the spider woman was following the rainbow from rock to the rock. Indeed, she seemed to be reminding Navajos not to forget their ancient roots.
Visitor Center: Canyon de Chelly National Monument
P.O.Box 588 Chinle, AZ 86503-0588
Phone: 520-674-5500