46 SACRED PLACES T he Spanish borrowed the name Chelly from tséyi´ (literally, “inside the rock”), the Navajo word for canyon. Located in northeastern Arizona, within the boundaries of the Navajo Nation, Canyon de Chelly is one of the oldest continuously inhabited regions of North America. It contains ruins of the indigenous peoples, including the Ancestral Pueblo (also called Anasazi), who built villages in the area between 350 and 1300 CE, and the Navajo, who began settling there in the early 1700s. Canyon de Chelly National Monument covers 83,840 acres and encompasses the floors and rims of the three major canyons: Canyon de Chelly, Canyon del Muerto, and Monument Canyon. Canyon de Chelly, the traditional homeland of the Navajo, holds a bittersweet symbolism of loss and survival. In 1805 a Spanish-led military expedition killed more than one hundred women, children, and elders who had been hiding in what is now known as Massacre Cave, in Canyon del Muerto, or “Canyon of the Dead.” In 1864 Colonel Kit Carson and the US Army burned down hogans, killed sheep, and destroyed orchards. They then forced the Navajo at gunpoint to walk three hundred miles to a squalid camp at Bosque Redondo, New Mexico. Many died during the Long Walk as they traveled by foot up to eighteen miles a day. Those who survived the Ancient Origins Spider Rock and Canyon de Chelly Spider Rock from Spider Rock Overlook • Plate 21 (detail) journey continued to struggle in internment camp conditions until 1868, when the Bosque Redondo Treaty was signed and they were allowed to return to their homeland. Today Canyon de Chelly is famous for its peach trees and other crops, which the Navajo replanted following their return. But the trauma of the experience remains an important component of Navajo identity. Spider Rock, the towering 750-foot sandstone formation that appears to spring from the valley at the junction of Canyon de Chelly and Monument Canyon, is named for Spider Woman, or Spider Grandmother, who is said to live at the top of the rock. The Navajo and other Southwestern Native American peoples, such as the Pueblo and Hopi, believe that Spider Woman possessed supernatu- ral powers at the time of the creation. By spinning a web, lacing it with dew, and throwing it into the sky, she created the stars. Spider Woman became one of the most revered of the deities.
