By Michael Lanza
Our guide Edwina, a woman from the Navajo Nation—or as she tells us the people call themselves, the “Diné” (pronounced da-NAY)—leads our two-family group of eight along a zigzagging, sometimes exposed, primitive “trail” dropping several hundred feet into Canyon del Muerto, a wide, river-cut gorge of sheer, red-rock walls, one of the two main chasms of Canyon de Chelly. Descending narrow ledges, tilting slabs, dry water runnels, and manmade steps carved into the rock, we follow her on a storied and occasionally heart-pounding path into the history of ancient and modern civilizations—and in many ways, the history of the United States.
