Piece Pipe

Folks,

I drove out to Johnson Canyon today - it was here that many movies and television series had their exteriors shot.  At this time of the year, you can't drive the full extent of the road which would take you around the southern extremity of Bryce Canyon and then around and on up to Bryce Canyon itself.

It was still an impressive day though - small cells of bad weather combined with brilliant sunshine.  When the snow really picked up I drove south to Arizona and west on 389 to about Pipe Spring for some dramatic skies and a sunset.

Pipe Spring is a combined National Monument to the Mormons and the Kaibab Paiute. When everybody thinks of Utah they think of the Mormons but before the Mormons were the native americans.

The Kaibab Paiute can trace their ancestry back over 10,000 years to the desert culture of this region. 

In 1776, Spanish explorers ventured into Kaibab Paiute lands. The Kaibab Paiute were often sold as slaves to the Spanish by other tribes.

In the early 1860's, Mormon settlers began to move into this area and establish ranches around water sources - one of the largest and most plentiful being Pipe Spring. This resulted in violence and the settlers then built a fort around the spring itself. The Kaibab Paiute were no longer able to get water to irrigate their crops. When the water flow was diverted by the settlers, the plants the Kaibab Paiute used for food died and the animals moved on. The Kaibab Paiute were forced to move to small camps near the Mormon settlements and take small jobs for food - over the next 20 years 90% of the tribe perished.

Pipe Spring became famous in the 1880s and 90s as a refuge for polygamist wives - when again one book was put up against another.  It seems it was OK to dis-enfranchise thousands of native americans and cause 90% of them to perish by taking over the water supply, but you have more than one wife and there is hell to pay (actually, in more ways than one).

I always thought Bill Clinton was made to be a Mormon - laying pipe all day.

To quote verse 29 from the Krome Koan, `We are born naked, wet, and hungry.... then things get worse`. 

Phil