On Hopi Lands

I'm up before sunrise and it's Easter Sunday in Holbrook, Arizona but I have no plans other than getting to Flagstaff later in the day.  I am at the Wigwam Inn (sleeping in a concrete teepee) on old Route 66 and Flagstaff is also on Route 66, but the old byway has been largely swallowed up by Interstate 40 and I want to explore back roads. My plan is to head north into Hopi reservation land and then to swing west to Tuba City before turning south to 'Flag'. 

Taking my time, I stop along the way for photos, and at one stop a black SUV pulls up to talk. The driver is a young man who notes that I am a photographer and asks if I had ever visited Blue Canyon, but I admit that I had never heard of it. He introduces himself as Alfred Lomahquahu, the Vice Chairman of the Hopi Tribal Council, and that it is a special place and he is glad to show me the way. I admit that I have brief thoughts of 'paid guide scam' and 'ax murderer' but dismiss them quickly because he is so kind and ernest. I follow him to an unmarked turnoff onto a dirt track through miles of ranch land to a spectacular canyon landscape. It is a chasam with soft white spires and fine red banding in the cliff faces. He says it takes on a blue tint at sunset and I suspect that generations of Hopi boys have been coming here with their girls to appreciate the setting sun.

I want to stay a while and as we say our goodbyes he mentions that he is headed to a Hopi Kachina dance ceremony at a nearby village and that I am welcome to visit (but no photographs).  Since the day has no agenda I do visit Moenkopi, just near Tuba City and watch the dancers - maybe over a hundred - along with about a thousand spectators. I look around and note that I am one of maybe three 'off reservation' visitors and, to myself, I thank Alfred for the second special introduction of the day. I catch an apple, an orange and a lemon as the dancers throw treats to the crowd.  As the day ends I still have Hopi chants rattling around my head.