28 SACRED PLACES R enowned for their beauty and spectacular rock forma- tions, Monument Valley and the San Juan River lie on the Arizona-Utah state line within the Navajo Nation. Important cultural and spiritual landmarks for the Ute, Paiute, and Navajo peoples, they are also significant icons for Mormon communities, who came to the region to escape religious persecution and viewed the mountains as natural temples of God in their chosen land. Characterized by a cluster of vast sandstone buttes in the Colorado Plateau (the largest reaching one thousand feet above the valley floor), Monument Valley is known to the Navajo as Tse´bii´nidzisgai, or “valley of the rocks.” Some Navajo view all of Monument Valley as a hogan, or house, with various landmarks representing such features as the door and fireplace, signifying in geologic terms a sense of the place as their homeland. Other rock formations in the valley carry deep cultural and spiritual meaning as well; some are viewed as water barrels, critical to people who live in the desert, others as holy people turned to stone. Still others are associated with supernatural powers such as the ability to foretell the future. The Navajo see the rock formations called the Mitten Buttes (or Mittens) as two hands that wait silently for the time when the holy beings return to rule. Comb Ridge, described as one of the four arrowheads used to carve the earth during the Creation, helps to protect Navajo lands. In addition to the four sacred mountains, four sacred rivers bound the traditional homeland of the Navajo: the Rio Grande, San Juan, Colorado, and Little Colorado Rivers. Everything within the boundaries of these rivers is sacred, protected by the holy beings who live inside them and answer prayers. The most important of the sacred rivers, the San Juan, has many names, including Old Age River, Male Water, and Long Body. From its source in southwestern Colorado, it runs along the southern slopes of the San Juan Mountains and to the west of the Continental Divide. The Navajo describe it as a white-haired old man, a flash of lightning, a club to protect the Navajo from invaders, and a huge serpent whose body is coiled at the Goosenecks, a particularly twisted part of the river. Inside the river lives a holy being who serves as a guardian, protecting those who pray to him as they cross the river out of their homeland. Spiritual Landmarks The San Juan River, Comb Ridge, Monument Valley, and the Mitten Buttes
