THE
SHIPROCK
The legend about this goes that what you see here is the bottom end of
a super enormous, supernatural bird-like creature impaled headfirst into
the Earth. In the Navajo language, it's called 'Tse-bi-tai', but
please
don't hold me to the spelling. In a heroic battle in orbit around the Earth,
it was killed by 'Monster
Slayer',
whereupon it fell into the ground in northwest New Mexico. It was named
'Shiprock' by white men. I don't see a ship in it myself, but once, flying
over it in a jet liner, I could clearly see splashes extending from it
for miles--- splashes like you see from the crater Tycho on the Moon---
it looked for all the world like the butt end of a duck who had crashed-dived
into the Earth. I never would have seen it from the ground perspective.
I first saw the Shiprock from a distance of thirty miles, I was filling
my car with gas in Cortez, Colorado. I could see that it was raining like
hell off in the distance, and the Shiprock stood out under those rainclouds,
ghostly in silouette.
It was a few years later that I drove out here to get this photo. I had
to jump a barbed-wire fence and walk about two hundred yards to get a clear
view, since there were some power lines in the way. I was on
someone's
private land, terrified that they would take exception to this 'biligana'
trespassing on their land.
One
guy in an old Camaro screeched to a stop, throwing up a huge cloud of dust,
and checked me out, but I stared him down and he drove on. He probably
figured I was just crazy.
Looking at this scene, I understand why 'Walk in Beauty' is a Navajo salutation.
All text and photographs
1997,
Randal P. Dean
E-mail me at
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