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Sheeps is Life

 The largest Indian reservation in the world is in northern Arizona.  If the rest of the nation were called a reservation, it would be the White Reservation, and it would be even larger.  It could not be more beautiful than the Navajo Nation, except for those parts that show how generous the White Reservation has been with its mobile homes.  But for now, let that be.  Just for now.  

 One glance at shelves bursting with what Navajo people see when they look at sheep is enough to cause even a Second Generation Norwegian Immigrant to think twice about the Sami people.  Most of us come from arrogant traditions.  We, here, are a collision of such traditions, such arrogance, and perhaps it requires something absolutely beautiful to awaken us: a Navajo blanket, a Hopi ring, an African mask, an Olmec face, a Sami knife.  

 On the way home, we stopped in Gallup, New Mexico, and at a trading post where hundreds and perhaps thousands of people pawned their turquoise jewelry for cash, the shop owner showed us not just the art of a folk, but its heart.  On the edge of the wood carving there was burned the phrase:  Sheeps is Life.  




My own traditions prodded me:  "Cod!", I thought. "Cods is Life".  Or maybe, "A piece of cod that passes all understanding".  The Navajo and the Hopi do not live by the edge of the sea.  They live 7,000 feet above the sea, and they are nations.  

We had promised ourselves a stop at the Hubbell Trading Post.  It has been there since 1878, and it is a National Historic Site:  food stuffs, blankets with prices so high I could not hope to own one, but which made me hope that the weavers got most of the money--(I am hopelessly hopeful.)--old wagons, tack, and a barn made beautiful by its vented hay loft.  


We drove south, down through the middle of Arizona, winding gorgeously down through the Apache nations, glad it was not night time, brought to our senses by thunderous claps overhead and by rain on the road.  Every other turn was a truck run-out for drivers who knew that bricks without brakes cannot fly.  We followed the thunderstorms almost into Tucson, in early evening, where water is a sometime thing.  

"Can Jao come to our house for a while today?", Mari asked Michael.  

It is nice to be home, too.










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