By: Keli Black, Columnist |The Navajo Post, July 9

These Canyon Walls

Photograph by Keli Black

It amazes me how little respect one shows for an ancient culture and its people. These people were absolutely and still very much are beautiful,amazing and strong. To walk into a beautifully preserved canyon full of history and art only to find it slowly being destroyed at the hands of uneducated selfish individuals is unacceptable and needs to be stopped!

How saddening and disturbing to see these beautiful creations of the past that took several hundred of years to create destroyed in only moments.

Along these canyon walls there are literally thousands of tales including; Hardships,Prosperity,Life,Burials,warnings,guides,birth,spirituality,prophecy, pioneers and so much more. This Defacement needs to end the laws of protection in the state of Arizona regarding destruction of Petroglyphs needs to be honored and enforced here.

The protection of these Canyon walls is essential. The public should be aware of what is taking place; they should be educated and learn of the Native American Cultures and how sacred these landmarks truly are.

By destroying these archeological wonders people should also too understand it would be no different than a stranger walking by and spitting in your face or for that matter, burning your family tree causing it to vanish forever without ever the possibly of recreation.

Extreme you may say? NO! Not at all, that is exactly what the people who take away from and destroy a petroglyph, pictograph or any other artifact are doing; they are stripping away a very sacred history of these people and their culture!

I have overheard people make comments such as “These are nothing more than child like scribbles” It is this type of ignorance that simply boils my blood.

I have been documenting the Panels of these Canyon Walls for almost a year now and have watched hopelessly as they are erased from time, Gunshot damage, carving and scraping over the Art, Climbing bolts placed right in the middle of the Petroglphys when there are miles and miles of empty areas these could have been placed.

I have even seen area’s in which rocks have been smashed against the walls causing large plates to scale off thus taking images with it.  I can’t begin to guess or fathom why any individual would commit such a heinous crime.

Some say there is nothing we can do to help. Yes there is, with the support and dedication of volunteers working together to gather as much information and history about this landmark, and the historical riches within its walls can have a huge impact on the preservation of this site. We can bring this to light and get these walls protected as they were meant to be.