Read Online Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West by Hampton Sides - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Hampton Sides
Tags: United States, General, History, Biography & Autobiography, Military, Native American, 19th century, Indians of North America, Adventurers & Explorers, Frontier and Pioneer Life, Wars, West (U.S.), West (U.S.) - History; Military - 19th Century, Indians of North America - Wars, Indians of North America - History - 19th Century, Frontier and Pioneer Life - West (U.S.), West (U.S.) - History - 19th Century, Navajo Indians - History - 19th Century, United States - Territorial Expansion, Carson; Kit
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name by which it is more familiarly known today: Shiprock.
But the most conspicuous landmark in Narbona’s part of Navajo country was a large dormant volcano that hung magisterially over the sagebrush high country to the south of his family’s land. The Navajos called this impressive stand-alone mountain Tsoodzil, or Blue Bead Mountain. Marking the southeastern corner of Navajo country, Blue Bead Mountain rose to eleven thousand feet and was cloaked in ponderosa pines and aspen. Its bald peak was packed with snow during the winter months and green with wild meadow grasses in summer, while the mountain’s lower shoulders of piñon and juniper tapered into enormous lava fields of black basalt.
As he grew up, Narbona could look to the south and see this distinctive landmark hovering steadfastly there, a wispy blue mirage. Like all Navajo children, he learned from an early age that Blue Bead Mountain was one of the four sacred mountains that anchored the Navajo country. There was a mountain for each cardinal direction, each one inhabited by different gods, each one figuring prominently in the creation stories. From any place in Navajo country, a person could always see at least one of the four sacred landmarks. Except to make war or go on raids, Navajos were not supposed to venture beyond the borders formed by these great peaks or else they would face sickness or death. For good luck, many Navajos kept prayer bundles in their hogans, little sacks that contained soil taken from each of the four mountains.
The world in which Narbona came of age was one of strict symmetry and balance. The number four held great power. There were four sacred colors, four sacred plants, four sacred gemstones. After a healing ceremony, a patient was not supposed to talk to anyone or engage in sexual relations for four days. Every Navajo was mindful of the four points of the compass. The hogan was always oriented with the doors facing east. Each direction had its own quality and hue—north, for example, was black, and it was considered the direction of death and the supernatural; a Navajo never slept with his head pointing north. Navajo sandpaintings and blankets, for all of their vivid color and originality, adhered to a tight symmetry, the designs usually divided into equal quadrants representing the four directions.
Their ordered world was further divided and defined by gender. Objects, landmarks, even acts of nature could be either “male” or “female.” A female rain was a gentle, steady mist; a male rain was an angry black thunderstorm. There were male hogans and female hogans, each constructed of slightly different materials and used for different purposes. The lower Rio Grande, muddy and slow and quiet, was a female river, while the boulder-choked San Juan River, full of froth and rapids, was decidedly male.
The San Juan River traditionally marked the border between Navajo country and the domain of the Utah Indians. The Utes, a fierce tribe of hunter-gatherers, roamed in the mountains north of this thunderous male river. Throughout Narbona’s boyhood, the Utes were probably the Navajo’s greatest enemy. The two tribes were constantly at war. The Spanish governors in Santa Fe had learned that it was much easier to set the territory’s hostile tribes against one another than to fight them outright. And so, with the Spaniards smiling on the situation from afar and promising to stay neutral, the Utes stepped up their long-simmering war with the Navajos. Throughout the 1770s and 1780s they stormed into Navajo camps, stealing children to sell to the Spanish at the slave market in Taos.
For young Narbona and his family it was a time of bloodshed and nearly constant worry. To the Navajos the word “enemy” really meant only one thing: Ute. Narbona grew up with countless stories of Ute outrages, and he longed to go on retaliatory strikes led by his father and other Navajo warriors. By the time he was a teenager he had grown to a
But the most conspicuous landmark in Narbona’s part of Navajo country was a large dormant volcano that hung magisterially over the sagebrush high country to the south of his family’s land. The Navajos called this impressive stand-alone mountain Tsoodzil, or Blue Bead Mountain. Marking the southeastern corner of Navajo country, Blue Bead Mountain rose to eleven thousand feet and was cloaked in ponderosa pines and aspen. Its bald peak was packed with snow during the winter months and green with wild meadow grasses in summer, while the mountain’s lower shoulders of piñon and juniper tapered into enormous lava fields of black basalt.
As he grew up, Narbona could look to the south and see this distinctive landmark hovering steadfastly there, a wispy blue mirage. Like all Navajo children, he learned from an early age that Blue Bead Mountain was one of the four sacred mountains that anchored the Navajo country. There was a mountain for each cardinal direction, each one inhabited by different gods, each one figuring prominently in the creation stories. From any place in Navajo country, a person could always see at least one of the four sacred landmarks. Except to make war or go on raids, Navajos were not supposed to venture beyond the borders formed by these great peaks or else they would face sickness or death. For good luck, many Navajos kept prayer bundles in their hogans, little sacks that contained soil taken from each of the four mountains.
The world in which Narbona came of age was one of strict symmetry and balance. The number four held great power. There were four sacred colors, four sacred plants, four sacred gemstones. After a healing ceremony, a patient was not supposed to talk to anyone or engage in sexual relations for four days. Every Navajo was mindful of the four points of the compass. The hogan was always oriented with the doors facing east. Each direction had its own quality and hue—north, for example, was black, and it was considered the direction of death and the supernatural; a Navajo never slept with his head pointing north. Navajo sandpaintings and blankets, for all of their vivid color and originality, adhered to a tight symmetry, the designs usually divided into equal quadrants representing the four directions.
Their ordered world was further divided and defined by gender. Objects, landmarks, even acts of nature could be either “male” or “female.” A female rain was a gentle, steady mist; a male rain was an angry black thunderstorm. There were male hogans and female hogans, each constructed of slightly different materials and used for different purposes. The lower Rio Grande, muddy and slow and quiet, was a female river, while the boulder-choked San Juan River, full of froth and rapids, was decidedly male.
The San Juan River traditionally marked the border between Navajo country and the domain of the Utah Indians. The Utes, a fierce tribe of hunter-gatherers, roamed in the mountains north of this thunderous male river. Throughout Narbona’s boyhood, the Utes were probably the Navajo’s greatest enemy. The two tribes were constantly at war. The Spanish governors in Santa Fe had learned that it was much easier to set the territory’s hostile tribes against one another than to fight them outright. And so, with the Spaniards smiling on the situation from afar and promising to stay neutral, the Utes stepped up their long-simmering war with the Navajos. Throughout the 1770s and 1780s they stormed into Navajo camps, stealing children to sell to the Spanish at the slave market in Taos.
For young Narbona and his family it was a time of bloodshed and nearly constant worry. To the Navajos the word “enemy” really meant only one thing: Ute. Narbona grew up with countless stories of Ute outrages, and he longed to go on retaliatory strikes led by his father and other Navajo warriors. By the time he was a teenager he had grown to a
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