The Fresno Bee from Fresno, California • K5

SUNDAY K5 THE FRESNO BEE THE FRESNO BEE FRI PRERUN 5 Printed 14:45 Logical Page is THE FRESNO Roger Thomas operates, with his wife, Elaine, the Inn at Halona near the core of the Zuni pueblo. The inn is an eight- room bed-and- breakfast lodging. PHOTOS BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE The Hopi Cultural Center houses a restaurant, motel and museum. Stay- ing in the heart of the reservation allows a closer look at Hopi life. Extended Hopi families sit at the other tables; waitresses dodge toddling children.

The adjoining motel rooms form a stucco maze with outdoor walkways and balconies outside second-f loor rooms, a modernized version of the mesa-top Hopi villages down the road. You can turn on cable TV, but Hopi radio KUYI (Hopi for brings a soundtrack of chanting plaza dancers right into your bedroom (between NPR news, Hopi reggae and world music). Staying here overnight also allows you to cope with the unpredictability of Indian time. When I turned up for the walking tour of Walpi village, the ancient pueblo at the tip of First Mesa, the last tour had just left. If I had not had my room reserved at the cultural center, I would not have been able to return the next morning.

I would have missed guide Loretta stories from her grandparents. I would have missed the chance to walk past willow wands strung with prayer feathers and to pass across the narrow neck of sandstone to the tiny masonry village of Walpi, the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in the United States, where just five Hopi families remain today in homes with no modern amenities. At Hopi, it takes a while to become oriented, and a quick stop on a cross-country drive gives you only a leeting impression. Take some time, and you will find out about HildaBurg- er, the hamburger emporium in Shungopavi where you will meet every kid in the village, or the Asian take-out run by the Korean woman who married a Hopi man. Discover one of the most remarkable petroglyph sites in the Southwest a visit permitted only with a Hopi guide.

One of those guides, Gary Tso, emphasizes the contrast between life at Hopi and the outside: things go so Tso believes that an exciting time to be Hopi. Basic sustenance is no longer a problem, so we can explore new With the recent closure of the Mojave Power Plant on the Colorado River, which used Hopi and Navajo coal and brought millions of dollars in royalties into tribal coffers, has to become a larger part of the he says. Stay long enough at Hopi, and you will penetrate beyond the first row of kachina carvers and potters selling their work at village communi- ty centers. Check out Trading Post in Keams Canyon, choose a favorite potter and ask how to contact the artist. Most potters love to talk about their work, and searching for them gives you an excuse to knock on doors and meet Hopi people.

be surprised, however, by directions that begin, left where the store that burned down used to At the Zuni Reservation, 30 miles south of Gallup, N.M., many people still live close to the core of the pueblo, and the Inn at Halona lies right in the thick of daily village life. The Vander Wagen family came here a century ago as mission- aries and eventually opened a trading post. The current operators (Elaine Thomas, granddaughter of the founders, and her husband, Roger, a warm and talkative Frenchman) have lived here for 30 years. The trading post evolved into a modern market, and in 1998 Roger and Elaine trans- formed the adjoining family homes into bed-and-breakfast lodgings, with help from 25 Zuni people who staff the store, deli and inn. is a natural inclina- tion for Zunis to remain friendly and Roger Thomas says.

people in town are the main so when you walk next door to the market deli to order dinner to be delivered to the inn or walk through the village, Zunis will unfailingly start conversa- tions. is not really a big he says. a lot of predictability. This is very different from tightly controlled cultural His advice? to Zuni, sit there, walk around. Just go there! Visitors come back to the inn at the end of the day and tell Thomas, what He can guess: They met a Zuni silversmith who invited them home to see his work.

A fetish carver generously gave them a serpentine bear with a tiny turquoise arrowhead bound to its back. They made friends with a gaggle of Zuni kids and ended up having lunch at their home. They met the grande dame of Zuni pottery, Jose- phine Nahohai, and came away with a lovely Zuni owl figurine made by one of her extended family. The truly lucky visitors encounter masked dancers emerging from a kiva to circle chanting through the village plaza. Most Zuni ceremonies are unscheduled and remain open to outsiders (though photography of religious activities never is allowed).

The Inn at Halona looks out over the village and sacred Corn Mountain, Dowa Yallane. Its parking area adjoins Halona Plaza Market, ensur- ing a connection to the daily life of the pueblo. Breakfast may include still more blue corn pancakes, along with yeast bread baked in an adobe oven, or horno. Books fill the shelves and Zuni art covers the walls. Indeed, Lila Tsethlikai, the guide at the Zuni Visitor Center, says visitors follow a progression.

They come to the inn and read its collection of books, walk around on their own, then come to her for a tour to deepen the experience. In contrast to these self-con- tained Pueblo villages, the vast Navajo Reservation stretches across three states and remains the homeland for more than 300,000 American Indian people. Towns like Chinle, Window Rock and Shiprock offer motels and franchise food; they feel more suburban by the year. The reservation also harbors remote corners well beyond the grid. An overnight stay at a bed-and-breakfast hogan opens one window into rural Navajo life.

Hogans are traditional Navajo dwellings, an octagonal space with a dirt loor, a doorway to the east and a smoke hole open to the sky through the cribbed log roof. Harold Simpson, of Trailhan- dler Tours in Monument Valley, recently has built a family hogan between the sandstone buttes of Horse Canyon at the western edge of Monument Valley. His father, a medicine man, uses the hogan for ceremonies. In between, visitors use the structure for overnight stays. Monument Valley lies on the Arizona-Utah border, and the state line actually passes through the hogan.

Simpson embodies the sophistication and traditional- ism of the modern Navajo. He spent hours sitting with me under a single bare lightbulb in the hogan, serving lamb stew and fry bread and speaking of the metaphorical significance of the hogan while he stoked the oil-drum woodstove with fragrant juniper. He spoke of how the opening in the roof connects the dirt loor of the structure Mother Earth with Father Sky. And my night would be transformative: born into the world again when you leave this he said. a time for gratitude; a special moment, your mo- He also spoke of travels in Japan and Europe and of his work with the Monument Valley Tour Operators Association, which he founded in 2005.

When he left me for the evening, he said, sure you sleep with your head to the west. The sun is pulling you toward the west: Why resist it? And by the way, we have a wireless network here, so feel free to check your e-mail on your Other Navajo families rent out hogans for bed-and-break- fast stays. Some you encounter until you ask around on the reservation. A few can be contacted ahead, including Trailhan- dler Tours and Clarissa Two White Rocks Hospitality. Hogans have dirt loors swept clean every morning and guests use outhouses, but Navajo innkeepers attend to their needs.

Simpson warned me that his coffee is exceedingly strong to cater to the tastes of his European guests. operation is considerably more remote than but she provides clean linens and towels for the beds in her hogan while still offering sheepskins to those who want to try them. There is no electricity or running water, but she can set up a sun shower. Her attention to amenities and the soothing remoteness of the hogan boosted it onto Travel list of 10 favorite in 2000. extended family welcomes visitors to Two White Rocks Canyon (Tse Li Gah Sinil in Navajo), which lies seven miles off the highway down a dirt road between St.

Michaels and Ganado in the pinyon and juniper forest of Defiance Plateau. want to give a taste of our she says. hogan is a family hogan, with a lot of traditional prayers in it because we use it for ceremoni- al Her mother and aunts may prepare your Navajo taco (chili on fry bread), an uncle might run a sweat lodge ceremony, a younger brother or sister might watch your small children while Williams guides a hike to an Anasazi ruin. Her great-grandmother might come by and tell stories in Navajo, translated by Williams, who is another of the multifaceted 21st-century American Indian people, studying chemical engineering in Salt Lake City during the school year. She values the connections she makes.

share our experiences and make really good Williams says. traditions make me who I am, yet I still have modern ideas, too. We try to keep the hogan as natural as why people come, and what her family offers a connection to a life tied to the land and to centuries of tradition. These overnight visits at reservation preserve the adventure and serendipity of travel in a bygone era and bring you as close to these Southwest Indian cultures as you can penetrate on a brief visit. Roger Thomas, innkeeper at Zuni, understands that the experience Halona offers appeals both to newcomers and to seasoned who have already been to Santa Fe, Acoma, Nepal and the South Here, can walk around without a guide.

We have the chance to look into the life of a community in a relatively truthful Thomas says. it planned? No. Was it good? Stephen Trimble has been traveling, writing and photograph- ing in Southwest Indian Country for 30 years. His books include People: Indians of the American and With the Clay: The Art of Pueblo Continued from Page K3 Rez: Residents reach out to visitors Locations in NORTH FRESNO, WEST FRESNO, VISALIA, MERCED, HANFORD LAWeight Loss makes it possible! TTERING Cherie Andersen lost 77 pounds in 28 Call for your FREE consultation 1.866.595.TRIM or schedule on line at LAfresno.com IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIIIIIII IIIII II I I II I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I BEFORE AFTER on a full service program. Payable in advance.

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