Navajos

As we drove along in Monument valley, we passed a lot of trading posts. These are actually placed exactly like the original trading posts between settlers and Indians. We stopped at one of these and hurried into the shade. This post was a jewelery booth run by a Navajo lady called Shine (in fact it was a lot longer and unpronounceable, but Shine for short). Her son Joe, who was 10 years old and will, I am convinced, be a very hansom young Navajo one day, was stringing necklaces together in the back of their van. They normally lived in Seattle were Shine works as a nurse. The land around us was ... tied ... to her clan, which means the female line for Navajos. The Navajo, like the Sioux think of the whole concept of owning a portion of land as completely absurd, but different areas are tied to different mother-clans, and if someone from another clan tried to settle down, there would be very serious trouble. "It would be war" Shine said, "but it never happens, people know better".

The jewelery was made by Shines mother who lived nearby and Shine was helping her out by watching the booth. I tried to imagine what it would be like to live in a landscape as surreal as monument valley, but it was just too weird.