"The Canyon Chronicles" is HERE!

[Cave Dawg]

HOLIDAZE GREETINGS,

Winter is here and the malls are filled with weary shoppers looking for that perfect gift.

Well now, if you, or someone you know, like reading about the Canyonlands of the Southwest, starting with Grand Canyon, the mother of all canyons, I have just the thing for you.

I worked for fifteen years (1980-1994) on the Kaibab National Forest which wraps around the north and south rims of Grand Canyon. I worked seasonally as an engineering, timber & archaeological surveyor during the Raygun Years, and those were some wild & heady times indeed. Follow me as I unravel the mysteries of life, love & death in a world where time stands still.

Synopsis
While working as a surveyor for the Forest Service on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon during the rape and pillage years of President Ronald Reagan, Steve Carr, a young man from back east learns surreal survival lessons as he journeys into some of America's most phantasmagorical lands and national parks where he encounters greedy loggers, federal land barons drunk on power, brain-dead cowboys, clueless tourists, strange Mormon polygamists, crazed firefighters, amazing Anasazi ruins, mysterious Indians, canyon loonies, lady travelers looking for fun and excitement, environmental terrorists, menacing wild animals, and the outlandish characters who live at the bottom of the earth. Each stand alone story is laced with lurid flashes of forgotten Southwest history and sprinkled with a heavy dose of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll as the reader is transported into a magical world where flash floods, broiling canyons, freak snow storms, hallucinogenic visions, and bone-crushing rapids come alive with all the power and the glory. Each struggle leads Steve closer to a final confrontation with the Forest Service over the future the Kaibab Forest and the essence of the Kachina Way.

You can purchase the book conveniently through my publisher at: https://www.createspace.com/3457636

Cheers!

STEVE
~~~~ /) ~~~~ /) ~~~~

[Jaxx]

phantasmagorical

That is quite the word!

Is it for sale anywhere locally, like a brick store?

[Iceaxe]

Createspace is a print on demand (POD) publisher.... I use a similar service (Cafepress) to publish my Canyoneering Zion and Canyon Tales books. The service actually works very well for niche items, vanity publications, low volume items, company manuals, yada, yada....

POD services cater to authors looking to publish without the traditional publishing houses but don't want the total responsibility of completely self publishing. A POD gives the author far more control and responsibility than traditional publishing, while handling some of the major responsibilities.

There are a lot of POD books on the market, the quality ranges from total crap to exceptional.

[Cave Dawg]

Createspace, the publisher will be the only seller at this point. Amazon next. but the book selling business is an unbeleivable racket these days and getting into Barnes & noble or borders is like dealing with the Mob.

[Iceaxe]

Hey.... how about posting a couple pages out of your book here so we can get a feel for your wrinting style and see if its something we might enjoy?

[ratagonia]

Createspace, the publisher will be the only seller at this point. Amazon next. but the book selling business is an unbeleivable racket these days and getting into Barnes & noble or borders is like dealing with the Mob.

You mean, you were unsuccessful in selling your book to a publisher. There were only 275,000 books published in the USA last year, through 'legitimate forms' - plus who knows how many more POD books. Maybe you need to Italianize your name to get in with the padres. Cave Dawgatoni???

Its not a racket, it is capitalism. Works for me.

I tried to buy your book at the website, and got flushed out after a couple tries without success.

Tom

[Cave Dawg]

Not sure why you got bounced. I just tried the link at createspace and it worked.

Hefre's the link I just used: https://www.createspace.com/3457636

Cheers!

STEVE

[Cave Dawg]

We took Peter up on his offer and right after work that Friday we loaded up the trucks and headed for Second Mesa, about 110 miles southeast of Jacob Lake.
The Hopi took up residence on three 600-foot-tall mesas of yellow sandstone many centuries ago. There are small villages scattered across First, Second, and Third Mesa where underground springs and seeps provide the precious water needed for them to survive in the high desert of Arizona. The Hopi are mostly farmers, practicing dry land farming on small family fields below the mesas where they grow small-eared Hopi red and yellow corn, beans, squash, pumpkins, melons, and cotton. The Mesas themselves have provided the Hopi with an almost impregnable defense from the Spanish, Navajo, and white man. Being peaceable folk, the Hopi have always avoided fights and chosen instead to seek refuge in the battleship-like ramparts of their mesas which have kept their enemies at bay for the most part.
Highway 264 is the main road into Hopiland, running from Tuba City in the north to Window Rock, the capital of the Navajo Nation, to the south. Most of the roads are dirt two-trackers that go to isolated homesteads or mines.
The Hopi are Pueblo Indians who share a common lineage with the Anasazi whose ancestors were the first to inhabit the Southwest. The Navajo, on the other hand, are Athabascan Indians who are fairly new arrivals on the scene, landing in Arizona about the same time the Spanish did, in the 1500s. The white man has always had a hard time figuring out this complex cultural dynamic, and when they signed their broken treaties with the Indians in the 1800s, they gave most of northern Arizona and New Mexico to the Navajo because they appeared to be the biggest tribe around. So they must be in charge. The Navajos had proven themselves to be a formidable enemy, and were rewarded during the subsequent peace process with the largest reservation in America. The Hopi, on the other hand, had hidden atop their mesas and avoided being drawn into the fight with the white man. They were secretive and asked nothing other than to be left alone. This unwillingness to engage the new owners of America ended up working against them because when it came time to carve up the pie, they were pretty much left out of the negotiations. As a result, the Hopi, the first people to occupy the region, and whose original tribal boundaries spread from Bill Williams Mountain in the west, to the Grand Canyon in the North, to central New Mexico in the east, and stretching to the Mogollon Rim in the South – an area almost the size of Oklahoma – were left with nothing more than their three, narrow mesas, surrounded like an island in the sky by Navajo land. The Navajo also got most of the vast coal reserves at Black Mesa and the Hopi got about 70 miles of worthless rock and not much else.
While less than overjoyed by this arrangement, the Hopi have continued to live in peace while engaging a battery of Washington law firms to endlessly argue the unfairness of their plight through the federal courts. They have won a few cases and lost a few while the lawyers have all gotten rich and the Hopi remain poor.
Meanwhile, life goes on out on Hopi very much like it did when they first made it their home. There are trucks and electricity, but a visit to the ancient village of Old Oraibi, the oldest continually inhabited settlement in the United States, is like stepping back in time. It resembles Bethlehem, their tiny stone pueblos stacked together atop the crumbling stone like building blocks, clinging precariously to the rocky walls like bats in a cave. Time stands still.
And the first time you visit a Hopi village up close, it makes you feel slightly uncomfortable, like stopping in a place where you really don’t belong. The large warning signs at the entrance to each village, telling you not to make recordings, take pictures or even draw sketches, helps to hammer home the feeling of voluntary cultural separation. And the people, while not exactly unfriendly, tend to look right through you as if you don’t exist. They are the chosen people, not animals in the zoo for tourists to gawk at. So, don’t expect a warm welcome.
Peter’s family lived in a little green clapboard house right below the Mesa near a small gas station and convenience store off the highway. The area around the house was rocky and devoid of life, other than two small cottonwood trees near the house and the occasional clump of buffalo grass and sage brush. Behind the house there was a small corral with several goats, a few chickens, and a forlorn-looking horse.
The Hopi are a matrilineal society, so the property was owned by Peter’s wife, Sharon. She stood in the doorway with their two children, Benjamin and Leo, as we drove up the dirt road to the house. She waved and the kids made a mad dash for their father’s truck.
The word sparse comes to mind when describing the Suptewa living accommodations. But everything was tidy, other than the dust that covered every surface. Hopi is a windy place and the dust tends to settle on everything. Over the years, people just learn to live with it.
After an hour of pleasantries and some kool-aid and cookies, Peter announced that we were going to the village and visit his mother. She would know what was happening with tomorrow’s dance.
We drove up a winding road that led to the top of the mesa and pulled up in front of a cinder-block pueblo with a tar paper roof.
Shipaulovi is a split-level village and we were on the bottom level. Above us rose an imposing mountain of rock where the older part of the village was located, and where the ceremonial dances took place. It was about a quarter of a mile straight up from Peter’s mom’s house to the mesa top.
Peter’s mother Molly was a short, chubby woman with her long black hair tied in a tight bun atop her head. She smiled incessantly and her hands accentuated her words like an Italian. She greeted us like lost sheep and hugged Peter until he groaned. Then each of us received a similar bear hug and were given seats around the kitchen table.
The inside of the pueblo was dark and it took a few seconds to get oriented. It was essentially one big room, with cotton sheets dividing the bedrooms from the living area. The kitchen took up most of the space. The furniture looked like secondhand Goodwill – nothing matched. There was no bathroom. That was outside. The walls were covered with pictures of heavy metal bands like KISS and Def Leppard. A three-legged dog slept peacefully by a small wood stove.
Molly busied herself at the cook stove and talked a mile a minute, jumping from Hopi to English like a grasshopper. She was so friendly that it hurt.
A few minutes later, Molly began placing steaming bowls of mutton stew before us with a spoon. Peter placed a plate of warm Piki bread in the middle of the table. And then he opened the cooler we had lugged into the house and passed around some cold Budweisers for everyone.
Molly squealed with delight and drained her beer without stopping for air. She wiped her mouth with the front of her long, flowered skirt and accepted a second can from Peter who smiled and put his arm around his mother.
“A toast. To our new bahana friends, may they find what they are looking for.”
Molly pulled a paper grocery bag from a cabinet. “Put the empties in the bag. And don’t drink outside. The BIA cops have been hassling us pretty badly lately.”
Peter saw our look of confusion. “Alcohol is illegal on the Res. And the Bureau of Indian Affairs police can come into anyone’s house whenever they like to look around. If they find liquor, they will confiscate it immediately. And if they don’t like you, or you give them any lip, they will arrest you and take you to jail in Keams Canyon.”
Griz’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. “You mean, they can bust you without a warrant?”
Peter and Molly laughed. “This aint the United States, my friends. This is the Res. The rules are different around here. The BIA cops can do whatever they want. And there is no appeal. The federal judges back them up. And the Tribal Council sees what alcohol has done to our people, so they turn a blind eye to the police harassment. They care more about sobriety than the rule of law.”
“How about herb?” asked Griz.
“Well, the cops don’t really care about marijuana. And lots of us grow a few plants with our corn. But the cops will use it as an excuse if they have a beef with you.”
“Jesus Christ,” moaned Griz. “Sounds like ****ing Russia to me. Pardon my language, Mrs. Suptewa.”
Molly dismissed him with a wave of her hand. “It’s Molly. And the whole bunch at BIA are like vultures. They feed off the Hopi like we were their property. But we are used to it. And we know how to adapt.”
She emptied her beer with a wink.
I thought I might steer the conversation to a happier topic. “This stew is delicious Ms Supt – I mean, Molly – what’s in it?”
Molly beamed with pride. “Its my own special recipe. I use lamb from the sheep’s shoulder – no fat. Then I add some hominy, chicken broth, and strips of green chiles.”
“Mom’s is the best,” replied Peter. “And her Piki bread wins contests all the time.”
“What’s with the heavy metal pictures?” asked Lou.
Molly shook her head in mock anger. “That’s the work of Peter’s boys. They spend a lot of time up here with their grandmother when their Mom is working.”
“So they like KISS?” asked Griz
Peter opened another beer and passed a fresh one to his mom. “They like the costumes. When you see the dance tomorrow, you’ll know what I mean. At every dance, whether it’s religious or social, the dancers wear a certain kind of ornate outfit. Butterfly is probably the one with the wildest masks and the like. But we Hopi really go in for elaborate costumes at our ceremonies. The heavy metal musicians remind us of those costumes. The music is too loud, but their getups are out of this world. And that’s why we dress that way at the dances – to get out of this world.”
We arose well before dawn the next morning and began the breathtaking walk to the top of the mesa for the Home Dance. We could have driven, but decided to walk instead. A faint line of orangy light made the horizon glow to the east and I felt like I was climbing the walls of Jericho. It was Old Testament and then some – nothing like I had ever seen in my life.
Peter led us to a small pueblo with a dirt floor and little else, facing a large plaza. His mother’s family owned this house and had originally lived there. But a few years before, they had built the larger house on the lower level. They only used the mesa top pueblo now when there was a dance. It was like one of the owner’s boxes at a football stadium. The pueblo also featured a flat roof where people could hang out on a warm summer night, or in this case, get a bird’s eye view of the dance. The owners of each pueblo let visitors use their roofs and during a dance every bit of roof space surrounding the open plaza was occupied.
“Let’s check out the roof,” said Griz. He hated being cooped up inside.
Peter led us to the rear of the pueblo and we climbed a wooden ladder to the roof which was still empty because the dance hadn’t begun yet. The first dance would accompany the rising sun.
“So what the hell is this Home Dance all about,” I asked, taking in the adjoining rooftops, and noticing activity on each.
Peter sat down in a rusty lawn chair. “Niman coincides with the summer solstice, which in case you guys didn’t know it, is today. Technically, we call it the Going Home Dance. It is all part of a 16-day ceremony leading up to the big dance. It is also the last dance of the ceremonial year and the most important of our religious dances, like Easter to the white people. The Kachina dancers will do a series of dances all day until sunset. They dance for about an hour and then go back down in the kiva and rest and smoke Hopi tobacco and get ready for the next dance. It’s like a fifteen round fight. They will make offerings of the first green corn at each dance in order to bring rain so the rest of the corn crop will be good. If they do everything right, and the people have followed the true path, then it should rain before the end of today. And when the dance is over, the Kachinas will fly back to their home on the San Francisco Peaks around Flagstaff.”
I noticed a guy on a rooftop across the plaza with what appeared in the darkness to be a very large bird on his arm, maybe a hawk.
Peter followed my gaze. “That’s a golden eagle on Billy’s arm. That is also part of the ceremony. See, we Hopi are animists. We believe that the gods can occupy anything. We believe they come out here to Hopi and keep watch over us to make sure we are living the right way. They reward us for being good, with rain, and punish us when we do harm, by keeping the rains away. Hawks and eagles are their messengers year round. They are also here to watch over the place and keep an eye on things. So, in the late winter, we capture hawks and eagles from the nearby cliffs. Then we take them home and chain them to the roof of the pueblo so they can see what’s happening in the village. We bathe them each day. We feed them. We talk to them and tell them our secrets. They are our family.”
“That’s way cool,” said Griz. “Then what happens?”
Peter smiled. “Well, then we set them free today. When the dancers take their break for lunch, we will have about two hours before the next dance. The people who have been caring for their birds will then take a ceremonial blanket and send them home, setting their spirit free to live eternally with the gods.”
Griz looked like someone had punched him in the gut. “You ****ing kill ‘em?”
Peter frowned. “We do not kill them. We make them immortal.”
“That’s some sick shit, man,” said Griz sadly.
“Yeah, well, so is the blood of Christ,” answered Peter. “To each his own. And it’s what we have been doing since the beginning of time. It’s how we maintain our balance and how we communicate with out gods. If you don’t like it, that’s too bad, brother.”
I didn’t know what to say. I wished I hadn’t noticed the goddamn bird. But I certainly was not prepared to judge.
“The sun is about to rise,” said Lou, no doubt trying to change the subject. “Let’s go downstairs and watch it from inside the pueblo. That’ll make room for others here on the roof.
Five Hopi who Peter knew from the next door village of Mishongnovi arrived on cue. Peter greeted them in Hopi and we nodded in greeting and climbed back down the ladder.
The dances were magnificent. The costumes other-worldly. And the energy was Richter-scale bewitching. Most of the time, I had no idea what the hell was going on. The Kachinas, numbering about thirty, trance-danced around the plaza to the rhythm of native drums and squash rattles while a chorus of mostly old men sang a monotonous song. The repetitiveness of the beat and song was entrancing and sent you into another state of consciousness, not that different than tripping on acid. And as Peter explained it, that was the name of the game. The dancers were called Kachinas because that’s what they became when they danced. Gods!
I knew the real boogety-boo when I saw and heard it. And I kept my mouth shut until the lunch break. And then, the only word I could summon forth was, “Wow!”
Peter explained that we needed to go back down to the house and get his mother who had been cooking all morning. The family would be serving guests all afternoon in the pueblo by the plaza.
When we arrived at Molly’s house, we noticed an ancient old woman, walking turtle-slow in the middle of the road, coming from her village at Mishongnovi and heading toward Shipaulovi. She was undoubtedly going to the dance.
Molly was waiting for us with several large Tupperware bowls filled with stew and Piki bread. “There’s kool-aid in the containers by the sink, and glasses and plates.”
Molly was like a field general, giving orders to her troops. We loaded Lou’s Ford LTD sedan with the food and beverages and then we all squeezed inside for the ride back to the top of the mesa.
When we reached the old woman on the road, Molly told us to stop. “Good morning, Grandmother. Would you like a ride?”
The old woman smiled and nodded. Griz got out and said he would walk to the top, giving her his seat in the front.
Up into the heavens we went.
When we arrived in the small parking area at the top of the mesa, we were greeted by a sour-faced BIA police officer. He looked bored and tired.
As we all hopped out of the car the cop approached shaking his head. “The white ones can’t be here. The elder who is running the dance said, no whites allowed.”
Peter stepped forward to confront the officer. “Listen. We live here. And these men are our guests. They were already up here at the dance all morning. No elder or BIA cop is gonna tell me I can’t bring them to my home.”
The policeman didn’t budge. “I have my orders. No whites. If you want to take it up with the elders, that’s your right. But until I hear different, this is as far as they go.”
We seemed to have reached an impasse. We certainly didn’t want to make a scene.
I had already turned around and was going to walk back down to Molly’s house when the old woman started lecturing the cop in a high-pitched, sing-songy voice, her Hopi words clearly hitting their mark.
The police officer stepped back and made room for us to pass.
Not knowing any Hopi, we had no idea what the old woman had said.
“What the hell just happened?” I asked as we loaded the food from the trunk into our arms.
Molly chuckled loudly. “That chicken cop doesn’t want to mess with Grandmother Numkena. She is Bear Clan. First, she told him she knew he wasn’t Hopi, but Apache. And he didn’t belong here either. He had no right to order Hopi and their friends around. She told him this was Niman, when the Hopi and Kachinas are asking the clouds to come and visit our village. Clouds can come in all forms – even as a Bahana. And when he goes around acting tough, telling people they must leave, he could be chasing away the clouds. Then she told him to get out of the way before she put a curse on him and his whole family.”
“That boy is scared out of his shoes,” chuckled Peter as we all climbed the stone steps to the pueblo.
“You don’t mess with the gods,” said Lou with a wink.
Many people came to sample Molly’s cooking in between each dance that afternoon. Everyone treated us with respect and courtesy. The incident with the BIA cop was long forgotten.
Griz and I went outside to look around and get some fresh air. It was sweltering in the house. Large, cumulus anvil clouds were slowly building to the northwest, around the San Francisco Peaks. But out on Hopi it was hot and dry as a bone. I was amazed the dancers could perform in such heat. It was like running a marathon in the middle of summer.
“It’s definitely raining over in Flagstaff,” said Griz. “But it’s gonna take some kick-ass Kachina power to move those clouds in this direction. They’re heading north, not east.
I walked to the edge of the mesa where I could get a better view. “But those babies are heading this way.” I pointed to a line of storm clouds to the south, down near Winslow.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” whispered Griz in awe.
“No doubt,” I replied.
The dances continued, getting more and more frenetic as the rain clouds slowly tracked north. The heat grew almost intolerable. And the Hopi lining the rooftops began to look to the south and smile.
Lou, Griz and I went up on the roof. Some people gave us the evil eye, but others smiled and nodded their greetings. We were caught up in the moment and no longer cared what other people thought about us. We were bearing witness to the power of the devine from the top of the world.
It was about an hour before sunset and the last dance of the day was underway. The excitement level was beyond description. Dark clouds rolled in like thundering waves and lightning split the sky. The wind was coyote howling and clouds of dust rose in tornado funnels from the desert floor below. The air temperature dropped ten degrees and I felt a chill.
For god only knows how long, the Hopi and their ancient ancestors had been doing their Home Dance on the summer Solstice, praying for the blessed rains from their beloved Kachinas. And this time, it worked. Large rain drops began to fall, first sporadically, but then harder and harder until the sky opened up and the land of the Hopi was rewarded with the life sustaining rain it so desperately needed.
A shiver went up my back and as I stared northward toward the Kachina’s home on the San Francisco Peaks I saw a sight that took my breath away. It was a golden eagle riding the storm as it flew homeward to the sacred mountains.

[denaliguide]

that was good! i liked it.

[ratagonia]

that was good! i liked it.

Outstanding... I'll give it another try.

Tom

[Pelon1]

I think the link is bad but I just copied and pasted the address into the browser and it worked?

[Jaxx]

Bought it! That is some great writing.

[Iceaxe]

FWIW: The original link was bad but I corrected it using my god like mod powers....

[Chungy22]

That was an awesome read!! I will have to look into getting that book! Thanks

[iceman]

Very enjoyable read. Will order soon. Thanks

[Cave Dawg]

Thanks! It was all chemically induced, like some mad concoction that came to me in a dream. And 15 years on the ol' Kaibab helped too. Please spread the word there's a new sheriff in town.

[Jaxx]

OK I only have a couple pages left in the book so I thought I would post a quick little review.

Loved it! Great read. Steve was a crazy hippy that had some funny adventures. It is cool reading his take on the locals and the forest service.