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Ladies of the Canyons

I write this from our cabin in the Sierras at Angora Lakes, 7400 feet above Lake Tahoe, on U.S. Forest Land. Our cabin was built in 1936. We bought it 42 years ago, so this would be my 42nd summer.

I never know quite what I’m going to read up here nestled among the granite, giant Red Firs and Mountain White Pines and Pinemat Manzanita, below Echo and Angora Peaks, but invariably it is something in which I can immerse myself. This summer’s read was Lesley Polling-Kempes’ book entitled Ladies of the Canyons, A League of Extraordinary Women and Their Adventures in the American Southwest, The University of Arizona Press, 2015.

While my husband Larry and I are not denizens of the southwest, we have traveled there enough to know, that if we ever decided to move, that’s where it would be. We planned our last big trip to spend more time in Chaco Canyon, Canyon de Chelly and generally exploring more of the Four Corners Area. But Covid hit, and we were forced to put that trip on hold.
Image of book, Ladies of the Canyon by Leslie Poling-Kemps

So, who were these Ladies of the Canyons, and what did they do differently? Each was in their own unique way extremely well educated, highly gifted musically and intellectually curious, and had the chutzpah to stand up to an unbending patriarchal tradition of old ways and old money.

I picked up Poling-Kempes’s book because the reviewer suggested that anyone planning to visit the Four Corners area encompassing the Navajo, Hopi, Ute and Zuni reservations should read this book. My first reaction to that caveat was to harumph and mutter to myself, “I’ve got a whole section in my own library that covers the archeology, anthropology, pueblo pottery, Navajo rugs, memoirs of early explorers, etc. I know plenty!” We have a modest collection of Navajo rugs, weavings, Puebloan pottery, and sculpture that we’ve collected over the years from our southwest sojourns.
As I read this book, I absorbed myself into the lives of especially four women – Natalie Curtis Burlin, Ellen Klauber, Mary Cabot Wheelright, and Carol Bishop Stanley. Until Polling-Kempes’s thoroughly researched biography with a special focus on these four women, not much was written or known about them.

I’m not interested in writing a review of this book. What I’m interested in is conveying my reactions and feelings as I read these pages. For example, I found myself frequently getting emotional and tearing up as I read and wondering why because many passages were
exhilarating. The narrative was straight-forward using original sources – letters, diaries, photographs, drawings, recordings, lectures, hearsay, and the books or articles these women wrote, especially Natalie Curtis’s books: The Indians’ Book and Negro Folk-Songs: Books I-II, Spirituals; Books III-IV, Work-And Play-Songs.

Here’s what it was. These were all women born in the late 1800’s who came from prominent, variously wealthy families located on the east coast, from the big cities like New York or Boston. In those days, a woman born into such a family had a prescribed role. They could be highly educated, even artistically talented to a professional degree, but once they reached a certain age the choices were two: become an “old maid” and take care of your parents and other family members or marry and raise a family. Any other path for a woman in those days courted shame.
So, who were these Ladies of the Canyons, and what did they do differently? Each was in their own unique way extremely well educated, highly gifted musically and intellectually curious, and had the chutzpah to stand up to an unbending patriarchal tradition of old ways and old money. Mainly for health reasons, they each found their way to the southwest’s land of enchantment.
How these women threw off their social shackles and managed to thrive in a primitive, and yet natural world of incomprehensible wild and arid beauty while reaching out to learn the depth and wisdom of the ways of the Puebloan tribes touched me deeply. They rode horses like cowboys, camped in isolated places, traveled under harsh conditions, lived among the native tribes, made close connections with the tribal chiefs and elders, studied, and recorded the music, chanting, and sacred ways of how these original Americans lived on the land. They built their own adobe homes, based on early tribal architecture, started their own businesses, while managing to convince their east coast friends and families to journey west to experience a completely alien, primitive, but miraculously beautiful and unspoiled world.
I’ve never known women like that. And that’s what made me tear up. They really were and are a bygone era.

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