The NAVAJO NATION , the largest Native American reservation in the US, fills most of the region, lapping over into western New Mexico and stretching to include the majestic sandstone pillars of Monument Valley in southernmost Utah. Although the migrant Navajo have embraced the American Way - driving pickup trucks and wearing baseball caps - you get a very real sense of traveling through a foreign country here. Everyone can speak English, but Navajo, a language so complex that it was used as a secret military code during World War II, is still the lingua franca. Supermarkets mark their prices in Navajo, and the reservation follows its own rules over Daylight Savings; in frontier-style towns like Tuba City, the time on the clock can vary according to whether you're in an American or a Navajo district. Tune into the Navajo Nation radio station , KTNN 740AM, for a sense of the Navajo-American melange.
When white immigrants began to arrive in force during the early nineteenth century, the Navajo - who call themselves Dineh , "The People" - had lived in Arizona for hundreds of years; within a generation, they lost almost everything. When the Yankees took over from the Mexicans, things just got worse, hitting bottom in 1864 when Kit Carson rounded up every Navajo he could find and forced them all to move to Fort Sumner in the desolate plain of eastern New Mexico. A few years later, the Navajo were allowed to return, the US government granting them most of the vast acreage they hold today (lawsuits arising from territorial disputes with the Hopi , their neighbors and predecessors, have dragged on ever since). Most of the 250,000-plus Navajo today work the land as shepherds and farmers on widely scattered smallholdings, though many craftspeople also live by selling their wares from small stands set up along highways and in tourist stops.
Visiting this region can be fascinating and rewarding, but it's important to respect the people and places you encounter. The Ancestral Puebloans, the region's first occupants, have long since vanished, but many of the relics they left behind are on land that is still of spiritual significance to their modern counterparts - Native Americans come here from all over the Southwest and beyond to take pride in their heritage. Similarly, it is offensive to photograph or otherwise intrude upon people's lives without permission; one reason why the Hopi, for example, banned photography was because it was such an interfering nuisance.
On a practical note, don't expect extensive tourist facilities . Most towns exist solely as bureaucratic outposts that only come alive during the annual tribal fairs and rodeos, and have little to offer visitors beyond a handful of places to eat and even fewer hotels and motels. For more information, call the Navajo Nation Tourism Office on 928/871-6436.
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