--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Arnold, Frank R. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 29 number: 8 published: 1926-06 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Arnold, Frank R., “Utah Piety on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon,” *Improvement Era* 29, no. 8 (June 1926): 765–771." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2908unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera2908unse start_page: 765 end_page: 771 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1926-06) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2908unse publication_year: 1926 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1926, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Utah Piety on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon UTAH PIETY ON THE NORTH RIM OF THE GRAND CANYON By Frank R. Arnold If any Utahn pushes his way this year, or any year, down to the north rim of the Grand Canyon, piety as well as the Chaucer spirit that loves to go on pilgrimages demand that he should go farther. He should leap, hurdle, fly over or even prosaically ride or walk down into the canyon and up and out again at El Tovar on the south side. Then he should charter an automobile to take him to the Hopi reser- vation where the town of Moenkopi will speak eloquently to him of Jacob Hamblin, the first "Mormon" missionary to the Arizona Laman- ites as well as the pilot who led the first settlers to the Little Colorado valley. You see we use the word "piety" in its ancient Roman sense of love and reverence for the deedsi of one's ancestors as well as in the modern sense of devotion to one's church. Most Utah people, slaves of the automobile and so modern that they know( not the use of their legs, simply ride down through the Kaibab forest to the north rim, gaze at the canyon from their lofty perch, one thousand feet higher than the other side, dismiss it all with some word such as "sublime" or "splendid" and then turn back to St. George fig trees, or Kanab cow buffaloes. Such are not pious Utahns in any sense of the word. They are just material for Sinclair Lewis or Bernard DeVoto to poke fun at. The genuinely pious Utahn, sitting on the rim, will be assailed by an avalanche of historical and religious memories. He will recall that he is in just about the geographical center of the great state of Deseret whose boundaries, far flung by Brigham Young, reached from southern California to Wyoming and from the Rio Grande to the Columbia. He will also recall that the 'first white man after Escalante to cross the Colorado- River at the eastern end of the two hundred- mile gorge of the Grand Canyon was Jacob Hamblin. He started from Santa Clara in 1858, and had to cross it in order to carry the gospel to the Hopi Indians. He got the habit thus and went over nearly every year until his death in 1886, sometimes crossing at the west end of the canyon, but usually at the east end, either at Lee's or the Padres' crossing. He was the pathfinder of northern Arizona, its Daniel Boone or its Peary, and it is thanks to him that Utah settle- ments are now flourishing in Arizona around the head waters of thf Little Colorado and the Gila, as well as in the Salt River Valley. It is also thanks to him that in the 70's men like Ivins, Jones, and Stewart went prospecting in Mexico and Texas and found locations for Mexican colonies. If you sit on the canyon rim and don't think of Jacob Hamblin, you are absolutely without piety. You are as bad as a man who visits Mount Vernon and never gives a thought to Top: Cameron Trading Post, the most fascinating store in Arizona. Center: The northernmost bridge over the Little Colorado river at Cameron Trad- ing Post. Bottom: The Powell monument on the south rim of Grand Canyon, an object of piety to Southern Utah. ON THE NORTH RIM OF GRAND CANYON 767 Washington, or who spends a day at Versailles and does no serious thinking about the vanity and value of kings like Louis XIV. Pious memories of Jacob Hamblin and Utah's share in building up Arizona should push you across the canyon. You do not need to follow the Hamblin path to the east nor take Stone's Ferry at the west. Your most speedy path is to drop right down the Kaibab trail on foot or on horseback as far as the suspension bridge with Phantom Ranch at the south end. This is twenty-one miles and enough for one day. Next day you climb up along the Tonto trail to Indian Gardens, and then up to El Tovar on the south rim. This is only eleven miles, but if you are on foot it will be one of the hardest climbs of your1 life, especially the last few miles. On your way you will pass through the best geological laboratory in the world, for you will climb from the Archean black granite of the river bed to* the light bluff Kaibab lime and sandstones topped by red Moenkopi shales and sandstones. f At El Tovar you will find one of the world's most comfortable and attractive hotels, but piety dwells not in hostelries and will pull you in many directions. First you'd better visit the Hopi house near the hotel. It is an admirable replica of such houses as you will later see at Moenkopi with the entrance from the roof, with huge fire- places inside and with baskets, blankets, piles of corn and all the paraphernalia of a modern Hopi house. It is a store as well as an archaeological museum, the most fascinating store in the southwest, where you may find Navajo jewelry and blankets, Hopi ceremonial trays and blankets, as well as baskets from all the tribes of Arizona. In fact, in this store Arizona seems to spread out all her Lamanite cards on the table and say to you, "Behold and admire and purchase if your pocket book will let you." The salespeople are more obliging than Parisians and will spend hours helping you select conchas of just the right form, or bracelets with the best turquoises. Or, if you are interested in the colors of baskets or blankets, they will tell you how the Navajos and Hopis get their dyes and set them with smoke from smouldering wool, using steeped cedar berries for red, rabbit wood for yellow, blue from the Mexican indigo plant, and black from charcoal or soot. Back of the Hopi house are Navajo hogans where Navajo Indians weave blankets and do silver work to supply the store. After your piety has feasted on Lamanite industrial art you'd better go rambling along the bridle path that leads along the rim to the west. At every moment you have canyon views, each more beautiful than the other for color, light, and vastness, but the main object of your pious expedition should be the Powell monument about two miles from the hotel. It is to the memory of Major Powell, the first man to pass through the Grand Canyon in a boat, as well as the first to descend the whole length of the Colorado from Green River, Wyo- 768 IMPROVEMENT ERA ming, to the mouth of the Virgin. He ranks with the Utah pioneers and is a well beloved character in southern Utah, where he did much exploring in the early 7Q's and made many friends. His first voyage was in the Summer of 1869 and the monument is erected on the place on the rim that corresponds to his most bitter experiences during the trip. On August 28 three of his men deserted, discouraged by the hardships of the canyon and weakened by lack of food. They hoped to reach the "Mormon" settlements to the north but were killed by Indians. Powell, however, kept on, and by September 3 reached the mouth of the Virgin where he found men from St. Thomas waiting for him. The names1 of Powell and his companions are on the monu- ment, but the names of the deserters are wisely omitted. The monu- ment is a simple flight of stone steps leading to a stone platform surrounded by a masonry parapet. You can sit on this parapet, look down at the winding river and think many a long, long thought of the conquest of the Colorado and the intimate relations of the river with Utah. If you wish to follow everywhere in the footsteps of Jacob Hamblin, you will want to push about; 35 miles to the west to Hill Top and then drop down nine miles into Cataract Canyon, the home of the Supai Indians. Hamblin stopped to see them in 1863, when he crossed the Colorado at the west end of the Grand Canyon on his way to the Hopis. The trip is a hard one and) needs a week to do it adequately. At Hill Top there is an Indian warehouse and you can look down into Cataract Canyon with Lee's Canyon entering it. The first half mile down into Lee's is almost straight down. As one traveler says, "Some ride down and call themselves brave, others walk and call themselves sane." There are few places where two horses could pass and to slip on this trail means to fall into eternity. Six miles down you reach Cataract Canyon and see walls covered with pictographs, at least one thousand years old and probably a written page of Supai history that has never been deciphered. Four miles farther you come to Head Spring, the source of the Supai river, and three miles beyond is the Indian Agency. Then you go down to Navajo Falls where John D. Lee took refuge from the law. Although he gave his name to Lee's Ferry, he did not live there very long and found Navajo Falls a better hiding place. Lower down you have first Bridal Veil Falls and then Mooney Falls, the latter higher than Niagara and eight miles from the Colorado. You cannot use a horse beyond Mooney Falls and you must ford the river four times to get down to the Colorado, but the experience is so unique that the few who have done it report it well worth while for the sake of the scenery, rare vegetation, and memories. Best of all the south rim trips is the one to Moenkopi. Best because it takes you eighty miles into the Navajo and Hopi reservations, ON THE NORTH RIM OF GRAND CANYON 769 reveals to you the resources of northwestern Arizona and takes you through Tuba City, the oldest of the "Mormon" colonies in Arizona. The trip can easily be made in a day by automobile if you start early enough. You first go up Long Jim canyon eleven miles to the "site of the old Grand View house, which before railroad days was the canyon tourist center and received visitors by means of the stage from Flagstaff. This canyon gets all the water that falls on the south side of the Grand Canyon and pours it into Cataract Canyon. All around are the same yellow pines and cedars bedecked with mistletoe that you see on the north rim. Your next notable landmark is Waterloo hill which has killed many a Ford engine. Soon you get into the open grazing country of the Navajo reservation, look down into the canyon of the Little Colorado, and after 56 miles riding you get to the trading post of Cameron post office. Here is a bridge over the Little Colorado and from here you can outfit for Lee's Ferry and the Rainbow Bridge in Utah. You are in the heart of the Navajo country and keep meeting Indians with brilliant colored shirts, with turquoise earrings, with sUver necklaces and belts of silver conchas. Most of them have Pendleton blankets for those they weave are all for sale. The trading pn»t is more fascinating than any store on Fifth Avenue. On one side are rings, necklaces, bracelets and baskets. On the other bolts of brilliant velvets and cottons that the Navajos love, with Pendleton blankets hanging on high. On the back wall of the store silver belts and necklaces are hung in pawn, many of them' worth over a hundred dollars apiece and all representing the most superb exhibit of barbaric mediaeval metal work outside Europe. Above these belts and neck- laces are Navajo blankets for sale at the most reasonable, prices since "before the war." Those in natural undyed wools are the most attractive, but they are not numerous as the Navajo woman cannot resist putting a bit of red into her designs any more than Sargent could omit it in his pictures. Here by the river the hotel autos> always send back their first relay of carrier pigeons to give information about the condition of the road and guests on the hotel cars. The birds take the place of telephones , are bred and trained at El Tovar and a visit to their trainer is one of the things to do at the Grand Canyon. The idea of using carrier pigeons instead of telephones was brought back from the war by one of the directors of the Fred Harvey company, and this year is the first they have been used, as the old birds were brought from Chicago a year ago and the new birds have to be trained in the country in which they are to fly. After crossing the Little Colorado you drive your car on through the painted desert, thinking of Leo Crane's book on the Hopi and Navajo country which bears this name, and looking off to the San Francisco mountains to the west and the Lee's Ferry mountains to the north where the Grand Canyon begins. All along the way you see prostrate petrified trees and when you get to the petrified squashes and 7 70 IMPROVEMENT ERA the dinosaur tracks it is noon and time for any lunch you have brought along. A few miles farther! on you get into the Moenkopi wash, full of Navajo hogans, houses and farms and then you climb the hill to Tuba City where there is a Navajo Indian school and agency. The town looks like a typical "Mormon" village dropped down into the desert and, no wonder, for it is the oldest of the "Mormon" settlements in Arizona and has the characteristic poplars, orchards, and the gardens of the Utah village. Here you are on historic ground and should do much thinking about Jacob Hamblin and his yearly missionary visits to the Hopis and Navajos. It is thanks to them that the way was paved for Utah people to come in and possess the land. First came the Horton Haight party in 1873, then the following year John L. Blythe brought in a company from Kanab, but it wasn't until 1875 that a permanent settlement was made in Moenkopi creek, or Moen Copie as it was written then. In 1878 Moen Copi was visited by Erastus Snow who located a new town site at, Musha Springs, nearby, which later took the name of Tuba City, from an Indian whom Hamblin had brought to Utah on, one of his early trips. It was at Tuba City that Lot Smith was killed by the Indians in 1892. In 1900, the town was sold to the government for $45,000 as a site for an Indian agency, and three years later the place was vacated by the Utah settlers as they felt that their work there was purely a missionary one, and they had no right to crowd the Indians off the small amount of arable land available. Nowadays the chief "Mormon" touch is the old homesteads, but even these are overwhelmed by the agency buildings. The trading post has not the glamour of the store you have left behind you by the Little Colorado, but it is not without distinction. Last fall it shipped out a car load of pine nuts. Here is also the best place to buy Navajo moccasins which are far different from the soft soled garden variety to which you are accustomed in your northern Utah blindness. These Navajo mocassins have soft, reddish-brown buckskin legging tops, but heavy raw hide soles, as hard as galvanized iron, with turned up toes to keep the Navajo from stubbing his toe against spiney cacti. You fit the moccasins by standing in them in wet sand and then letting them dry to the shape of your feet. Down a hill, past a pathetic little graveyard with no headstones, nothing but sand humps in the desert, surrounded by a barbed wire fence; then up a hill, and you are in Moenkopi, a mushroom modern town as Hopi pueblos go, for it is only 150 years old. From the kiva place you have a fine view down the wash over peach orchards and corn fields. The kiva is, so to speak, the tabernacle square of the town. Here are held the snake dances and here you can go down by a ladder into the kiva and see in the large underground room, lighted only from above, the paint pots and masks used for making ON THE NORTH RIM OF GRAND CANYON 771 up in the dances. You can easily imagine it full of rattlesnakes just before the dancers emerge with snakes in their hands. Although the pueblo is not ancient and the pueblo roof en- trances are all replaced by modern doors, you will find the village a most alluring place in which to browse. The three or four stores are just so many club houses where the tourist visitor is as good as a vaudeville show to the outwardly stolid but inwardly chuckling Hopis. You can buy Ute baskets from Utah which every Hopi maiden wants on her wedding day; Navajo jewelry made to please Hopi psychology with butterfly or snake motifs, but Hopi blankets are not abundant. They have all been bought up as museum prizes and the supply is well nigh exhausted. Although the Hopi reservation is an enclave in the Navajo, the Hopis are as different from their neighbors as Ken- tuckians are from French people. The Hopis are rather diminutive and built Jwith the short stocky legs and lithe body of a Japanese wrestler. They all, men and women, have bobbed hair and were probably the first Americans to adopt this expeditious style of coiffure. Around the hair and forehead goes a folded silk handkerchief or ribbon which contrasts violently and brilliantly with their black hair and dark skin. About the streets you see naked babies taking their first adventurous steps; dogs which are the result of a long series of chance of illy planned matrimonial alliances; and children roasting corn. This corn is the most remarkable thing in all the Hopi land. You see white, red, or blue black ears piled up, each color by itself along the walls inside the houses, and you will find that the squaws make a hole with a stick in the loose sand ja foot deep for each kernel as they plant it and thus the corn makes the longest plumule in the corn world. It also has very few leaves as the plant seems to have a genetic frenzy to make nothing but ears and wastes no time or moisture on leaves. The corn is very sweet and whether you see its mahogany colored kernels, so like pomegranate seed, in a brass pail, or whether you eat the roasted corn, you are apt to think it one of the finest products of the painted desert, and a greater boon to the Lamanites than the pine nut or Navajo jewelry. And all this is within easy reach of the Grand Canyon, for going to the Grand Canyon is like going to Europe. You can confine your visit to one corner or you can roam indefinitely. You will also find that, like Europe, you will only get as much out of the Grand Can- you as you take to it. To visit the Grand Canyon without a knowledge of geology and botany, or an enthusiasm for "Mormon" pioneers and Indian life, is as bad as to expect to enjoy Europe without any knowledge of history, art, or politics. Even the desert can tell you tales from every canyon and cactus, if you have only ears to hear; and to invade northern Arizona without the seeing eye and the hearing ear is one sign of an incomplete Utahn. Logan, Utah.