0805, 1659, 1660, 2169, 2258, 2916 UNITED STATES (Arizona / Utah / New Mexico) - The Navajo

2169 Navajo indians on reservation

Posted on 31.08.2013, 12.06.2015, 30.12.2015, 01.02.2016, 22.12.2016
The Navajo are the largest federally recognized tribe of the United States, with more then 300,000 members, and the Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body, which manages the Navajo Indian reservation (in the Four Corners area), which extends into the states of Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. Diné Bikéyah, or Navajoland, one of the most arid and barren portions of the Great American Desert, is larger than 10 of the 50 states in America. 

1659 Navajo Indian (Saltwater clan)
Medicine Man (1)

Regarding the name, the Spaniards used the term Apachu de Nabajo for the first time in the 1620s to refer to the people in the Chama Valley region, and since 1640s began to use the term "Navajo" to refer to the Diné (meaning "The People"), as prefer they to call themselves. The Navajo are speakers of a Na-Dené Southern Athabaskan languages known as Diné bizaad. The importance of their contribution, as code talkers, at the Japanese defeat in the Pacific in WWII is well known.

1660 Navajo Indian (Saltwater clan)
Medicine Man (2)

It seems that the Athabaskan ancestors of the Navajo and Apache entered the Southwest around 1400 CE, and the oral history indicates a long relationship between Navajo and Pueblo people. Initially, the Navajo were hunters and gatherers, but subsequent they adopted crop farming techniques from the Pueblo, and sheep and goats breeding from Spaniards. In addition, the practice of spinning and weaving wool into blankets and clothing became common and developed into a form of highly valued artistic expression.

0805 An old Navajo woman and his granddaughter

For a long period prior to the acquisition from Mexico of the territory now forming the northern portion of Arizona and New Mexico, the Navajo undertook raids on the New Mexican Indian pueblos and the white settlements along the Rio Grande, for the capture of livestock, although both Indians and Mexicans also were enslaved. The Mexicans lost no opportunity to retaliate. In 1846 the Navajo came into official contact with the United States, which shortly established forts on their territory. Relations have been strained from the beginning, raids reaching a peak in 1860-1861 (period known as Naahondzood, "the fearing time").

2258 A Navajo baby named
Be-Nah Na-Zuhn (Pretty Eyes)

In 1864, after a series of skirmishes and battles, about 8.500 Navajo were forced away from their homelands to the Bosque Redondo, an experimental reservation about 480km away on the plains of eastern New Mexico. This project was a failure, so a new treaty was made in 1868, one of its provisions being the purchase of 15.000 sheep to replenish the exterminated flocks. Thousands of people died along the way, during the four years spent at the reservation, and during the walk home. In July, 7304 Navaho arrived at Fort Wingate, to their old home, where lived in peace since then, even if the abuses upon them continued.

2916 A Navajo woman with a baby

Historically, the structure of the Navajo society is largely a matrilineal system, in which women owned livestock and land. Once married, a man would move to live with his bride in her dwelling and among her mother's people and clan. Daughters (or, if necessary, other female relatives) were traditionally the ones who received the generational property inheritance. The children are "born to" and belong to the mother's clan, and are "born for" the father's clan. As adults, men represent their mother's clan in tribal politics. People must date and marry partners outside their own clans.

0014, 2853 UNITED STATES (Utah) - Salt Lake Temple

0014 Salt Lake Temple in Christmas night

Posted on 22.10.2011, 05.11.2016
Brigham Young and the first band of Mormon pioneers (members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) reached the Salt Lake Valley, back then a Mexican territory, on July 24, 1847. Over the next 22 years, more than 70,000 pioneers crossed the plains and settled in Utah. The arid desert land was deemed by the Mormons as desirable as a place where they could practice their religion without harassment. One may say that they were the founders of the Utah Territory, and then of The State of Utah.

2853 Salt Lake Temple in the time of the night

Even today Utah is the most religiously homogeneous state in the Union (in 2012, 62.2% of Utahns are reported to be members of LDS Church). Home to the headquarters of the LDS Church and Temple Square, Salt Lake City was historically considered a holy city by members of the LDS church; Brigham Young called it a "Kingdom of Heaven on Earth". Today, however, less than half the population of Salt Lake City proper are members of the LDS Church.

2450 UNITED STATES (Utah) - Zion National Park

The prominent feature of the Zion National Park is Zion Canyon, which is 24km long and up to 800m deep, cut through the reddish and tan-colored Navajo Sandstone by the North Fork of the Virgin River. Located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, the park's unique geography and variety of life zones allow for unusual plant and animal diversity. The river was the largest force in cutting the canyon, mostly by flash floods, as the average flow of the river is very light.

2245 UNITED STATES (Utah) - Dead Horse Point State Park

Dead Horse Point State Park covers 2,170ha of high desert at an altitude of 1,800m, featuring a dramatic overlook of the  Colorado River and Canyonlands National Park. Immense vertical cliffs meet with canyons carved by ice, water and wind creating a visual masterpiece. Deposition of sediments by ancient oceans, freshwater lakes, streams and wind blown sand dunes created the rock layers. Igneous activity formed the high mountains that rise like cool blue islands out of the hot, dry desert.

2220 UNITED STATES (Utah) - Great Salt Lake

The Great Salt Lake, located in the northern part of the Utah, is the largest salt water lake in the Western Hemisphere, and the fourth-largest terminal lake in the world. The lake's size fluctuates substantially due to its shallowness. For instance, in 1963 it reached its lowest recorded level at 2,460 km², but in 1988 the surface area was at the historic high of 8,500 km². The lake is the largest remnant of Lake Bonneville, a prehistoric pluvial lake that once covered much of western Utah.

2024 UNITED STATES (Utah / Colorado / New Mexico) - Ute people

Utes (Jim Bush and John Tyler) in full gala dress in 1875

Ute people are part of Indigenous Peoples of the Great Basin, and gave their name (which means "Land of the sun") to the state of Utah. There are three Ute tribal reservations: Uintah-Ouray in northeastern Utah (3,500 members); Southern Ute in Colorado (1,500 members); and Ute Mountain which primarily lies in Colorado, but extends to Utah and New Mexico (2,000 members). Ute language is related to the Southern Paiute language and belong to the the Numic branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family.

2014 UNITED STATES (Utah) - Bryce Canyon National Park

Located in southwestern Utah, Bryce Canyon National Park isn't a canyon, but a collection of giant natural amphitheaters along the eastern side of the Paunsaugunt Plateau. It is distinctive due to geological structures called hoodoos, formed by frost weathering and stream erosion of the river and lake bed sedimentary rocks. The red, orange, and white colors of the rocks provide spectacular views for park visitors. The rim at Bryce varies from 2,400 to 2,700 m, which means a much higher elevation than nearby Zion National Park.

1732-1733 UNITED STATES (Arizona / Utah) - Monument Valley

1732 Monument Valley (1)

Located on the Arizona-Utah state line, within the range of the Navajo Nation Reservation, Monument Valley (Navajo: Tsé Biiʼ Ndzisgaii, meaning valley of the rocks) is a region of the Colorado Plateau characterized by a cluster of vast sandstone buttes, the largest reaching 300m above the valley floor. The elevation of the valley floor ranges from 1,500 to 1,800m above sea level. The valley's vivid red color comes from iron oxide exposed in the weathered siltstone. The darker, blue-gray rocks in the valley get their color from manganese oxide.

1733 Monument Valley (2)

The buttes are clearly stratified, with three principal layers. The lowest layer is the Organ Rock Shale, the middle is de Chelly Sandstone, and the top layer is the Moenkopi Formation capped by Shinarump Conglomerate. The valley includes large stone structures including the famed "Eye of the Sun". Between 1945 and 1967, the southern extent of the Monument Upwarp was mined for uranium. Director John Ford used the location for a number of his best-known films, and thus, in the words of critic Keith Phipps, "its five square miles have defined what decades of moviegoers think of when they imagine the American West."

1585 UNITED STATES (Utah) - The Needles in Canyonlands National Park

Canyonlands National Park is located in southeastern Utah, near the town of Moab, and preserves a colorful landscape eroded into countless canyons, mesas, and buttes by the Colorado River, the Green River, and their respective tributaries. The park is divided into four districts: the Island in the Sky, the Needles, the Maze, and the rivers themselves. While these areas share a primitive desert atmosphere, each retains its own character. Two large river canyons are carved into the Colorado Plateau by the Colorado River and Green River. Author Edward Abbey, a frequent visitor, described the Canyonlands as "the most weird, wonderful, magical place on earth - there is nothing else like it anywhere."

1125, 1272, 1332 UNITED STATES (Utah) - Utah map and flag

Posted on 04.07.2014, 08.10.2014, and 13.11.2014
Bordered by Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Arizona and Nevada (and touching a corner of New Mexico), Utah, one of the Four Corners states, is well known as the most religiously homogeneous state in the Union (its nickname is Beehive State), approximately 62% of Utahns being members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or LDS (Mormons), which greatly influences the state's culture and daily life. The world headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) is located in the state capital, Salt Lake City, founded in 1847 in proximity to the Great Salt Lake. It is a geographically diverse state, located at the convergence of three distinct geological regions: the Rocky Mountains, the Great Basin, and the Colorado Plateau. Utah is known for its natural diversity and is home to features ranging from arid deserts with sand dunes to thriving pine forests in mountain valleys.

 

Thousands of years before the arrival of European explorers, the Anasazi/Ancestral Pueblo and the Fremont tribes lived in what is now Utah. Around the 18th century, the Navajo settled in the region, and then other Uto-Aztecan tribes, including the Goshute, the Paiute, the Shoshone, and the Ute people (who gave the name of the state). Spaniards explored the region in the 16th century, but weren't interested in colonizing. In 1821 it became part of Mexico (Alta California), and in 1824 Jim Bridger became the first white person to sight the Great Salt Lake. In 1847 Brigham Young and the first band of Mormon pioneers came to the Salt Lake Valley, and over the next 22 years, more than 70,000 pioneers crossed the plains and settled in Utah.

The Mormons wanted to establish a State of Deseret, but many of the members of the U.S. government opposed their polygamous practices. Between May 1857 and July 1858 held an armed confrontation between Mormon settlers and the armed forces of the US government (the Utah War), and beginning in 1865 Utah's Black Hawk War developed into the deadliest conflict in the territory's history. In the 1890 Manifesto, the LDS Church banned polygamy, so when Utah applied for statehood again, it was accepted, it becoming the 45th state admitted to the Union on January 4, 1896.

0514 UNITED STATES (Utah) - Union Pacific No. 119 and Central Pacific No. 60

On 10 May will celebrate 144 years since the Union and Central Pacific Railroads joined their rails at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory, completing the First Transcontinental Railroad across the United States (known originally as the Pacific Railroad and later as the Overland Route), and forged the destiny of the American nation. The ceremonial final spike, driven by Leland Stanford, was named Golden Spike, but also the Last Spike, a term used to refer to one driven at the ceremonial completion of any new railroad construction projects, particularly those in which construction is undertaken from two disparate origins towards a meeting point. Now,  the Last Spike, made of 17.6-karat (73%) copper-alloyed gold, lies in the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University. On that day, in anticipation of the ceremony, Union Pacific No. 119 (in the right of the image) and Central Pacific No. 60 (better known as the Jupiter - in the left of the image) locomotives were drawn up face-to-face on Promontory Summit. It is unknown how many people attended the event; estimates run from as low as 500 to as many as 3,000; government and railroad officials and track workers were present to witness the event.

0020 UNITED STATES (Utah) - Valley of the Gods

If the first postcard coming from Utah show something built by man, the second reveals the work of some more skilled hands. Valley of the Gods is the sandstone scenic valley in San Juan County, Southeastern Utah, north of Monument Valley across the San Juan River (Colorado River), and has similar tall, red, isolated pinnacles and cliffs. As with his most famous sister, the proeminent peaks in the Valley of the Gods have received strange names, all precisely marked on the topographic map, including Rudolph and Santa Claus, Setting Hen Butte, Rooster Butte, De Gaulle and His Troops or Lady in the Bathtub. But unlike Monument Valley, entirely located in the Navajo Reservation, within the Valley of the Gods you will not find any indian, just well camouflaged rattlesnakes and a lot of dust. The stunning colors of the sunset (or maybe of the sunrise?) highlight the red silhouettes of towering stone pinnacles that seems ruins of some gigantic cathedrals.