Canyons
of the Heart
Part 4: Pinyon pine nuts
The
dust storm grew darker and more intense and then was punctuated by rain as we
approached Tuba City, where we found shelter for the night. Tuba City probably
gets its name from the Navaho name for this place, Tonanesdizi, meaning tangled
waters. Appropriately enough, the evening brought a change from dust storm to
rainstorm. The next morning the storm had changed again, and we drove through
falling snow to the south rim of the Grand Canyon.
At
the Grand Canyon, there are over 4000 archeological sites. The people who lived
here were superb artisans in pottery and weaving and working flint, crafts essential
to their way of life. As we walked around the Tusayan Pueblo ruin, two Native
American women were in the forest nearby, gathering Pinyon pine nuts, as their
ancestors did.
The ancestors
of these people had intimate relationships with the plants here, for food and
medicine and basket weaving. They wove the fibers of the yucca plant into sandals
and bags. Like the amazing trees that grow seemingly on bare rock and are twisted
by the elements, the people lived in an intimate relationship with their environment,
an environment that seems so forbidding. Yet they prospered here by being much
more connected to and in harmony with their surroundings than are we.
Part
5: The unknown people