A few months ago I posted some images from Colorado National Monument. Today, I wanted to process some images in black and white, and decided to return to Colorado. I can’t think of another place I’ve had such a short visit and captured so many images that I like. It only took a couple hours to drive the 23 mile Rim Rock Road in the Monument, but the conditions for photos were great.
View to Grand Junction, Colorado
In 1854 the Suquamish and Duwamish people who lived around Puget Sound were negotiating a treaty with the Governor of Washington Territory. Chief Seattle’s speech during those negotiations was translated into a trade language and attempts have been made to translate it into English. This version was created by Vi Hilbert in 1985, and is published in When the Light of World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through, Joy Harjo, editor, 2020. Here are some excerpts.
Coke Ovens formation, Colorado National Monument
“Our religion is the tradition of our ancestors, the dreams of our old men, given to them in the solemn hours of the night by the great spirit and the visions of our leaders, and it is written in the hearts of our people.”
La Sal Mountains
“Your dead cease to love you and the land of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb; they wander far away beyond the stars and are soon forgotten and never return. Our dead never forget this beautiful world that gave them being. They always love its winding rivers, its sacred mountains, and its sequestered vales, and they ever yearn in tenderest affection over the lonely hearted living and often return to visit, guide and comfort them.”
“We will ponder your proposition, and when we decide we will tell you. But should we accept it, I here and now make this the first condition that we will not be denied the privilege, without molestation, of visiting at will the graves where we have buried our ancestors, and our friends and our children. Every part of this country is sacred to my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove has been hallowed by some fond memory or some sad experience of my tribe.”
“Even the rocks which seem to lie dumb as they swelter in sun along the silent seashore in solemn grandeur thrill with memories of past events connected with the lives of my people.
And when the last red man shall have perished from the earth and his memory among the white men shall have become a myth, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe; and when your children’s children shall think themselves alone in the fields, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude.”
Independence Rock
“At night when the streets of your cities and villages will be silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with returning hosts that once filled and still love this beautiful land. The white man will never be alone. Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless.
Dead—did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds.”
Chief Seattle, translated by Vi Herbert
