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Excerpts from Abe Peña's  Memories of Cibola

All material used with the kind permission of the author, given to me personally.

from NAVAJOLAND
"The Anasazi, whose name comes from a Navajo word meaning 'Enemy Ancestors,' are also known as the 'Children of Light.' They inhabited northwestern New Mexico about a thousand years ago, in much the same area now inhabited by the Navajos. It is generally believed that the disappearance of the Anasazi coincided with the founding of many of the nineteen Indian Pueblos of New Mexico. This sequence in time gives credence to the belief that the Pueblo Indians are the descendants of the Anasazi.


The Navajos in the early days were nomadic and built hogans and lean-tos, never using the houses left by the Anasazi. Navajoland has an aura of mystery to it. The Navajo Reservation and the checkerboard lands adjacent to it are so vast that you see little life as you drive through or ride a horse across it. Still every mile you drive or ride is generally a handsome landscape of massive sandstone and rainbow color. I like to say, 'From the beautiful Indian country of western New Mexico' when I sign off on voice-mail or when I leave a message on someone's answering machine.


Anthropologists tell us that the Navajos are descended from one of the later Asian groups to cross the Bering Sea to the New World. It is believed that the earlier peoples, who settled the territory from northeastern North America on down to Latin America, such as the ancestors of the Incas, Mayas, and Aztecs, crossed over from Asia starting about twenty thousand years ago, while the ancestors of the Navajos probably crossed sometime in the last ten thousand years. The Navajos themselves probably arrived in northwestern New Mexico some time after the Anasazi left Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde, about seven hundred years ago. So they are relative newcomers.


I was raised close to the Navajos and learned to speak some of their language by mingling and working with them on the Peña Ranch, some three miles from the reservation. I've ridden horseback with them, steam-bathed in miniature hogans, and danced at Yei Bichei ceremonies.


The people you'll meet here are all people I have known. Some of them had impressive credentials, but most of them were simply fine human beings.


Paul Jones rose to prominence by serving his people and serving them well. He was a singleminded individual pursuing the best interest of the tribe, no matter what the consequences.
Paul Jones, a conservative, was elected the first Navajo tribal chairman when the tribal government was reorganized, in the 1940s. He was presiding over the largest Indian tribe and reservation in the United States--and one of the poorest. World War II saw many Navajos go to war and serve their country with distinction. The most famous were the 'code talkers' who were used to confuse the Japanese in the Pacific and the Germans in Europe. The Axis powers simply couldn't decode Navajo. In part our victory in the Pacific, and in Europe, was attributable to these patriotic Americans. They helped shorten the war and save countless casualties on both sides of the conflict. When those soldiers and sailors returned home to the Navajo country, one of the most picturesque in the world, the tribal council, under the direction of Paul Jones, assisted by another great leader, Annie Wanneka, was leasing mineral rights for oil and gas, uranium and coal.


The exploration program, after several false starts, discovered large amounts of minerals and oil and gas. Development and production brought immense royalty wealth to the tribal council. As the fund grew, there was a concerted push by many to divide the wealth and distribute it, in cash, to individual members of the tribe. Paul Jones, their wise leader, proposed a Tribal Development Fund to build factories, roads, schools, and clinics, and probably even more important, to provide scholarships to students who showed promise. He argued that what Navajos needed most were jobs and an education. To his credit he prevailed, and time has proven him right. Today there are qualified professionals in all disciplines taking an interest in what is best for the tribe, rather than what is best for individuals. In the 1970s one of our prestigious national magazines reported that the Navajo tribe was the richest ethnic group in the United States on a per capita basis.


I had the privilege of meeting Mr. Jones when I was a young man managing the Peña Ranch, north of San Mateo. Mr. Enrico (Rico) Menopace introduced us. In 1957 I went to Gallup to buy a pickup at Rico Motor Company, and Rico himself, since everyone else was tied up, assisted me. The chemistry was right, and we enjoyed negotiating for the truck. We concluded our negotiating at noon, and he invited me to lunch at the newest and ritziest place in town, the Shalimar Hotel. We drove to the Shalimar and met Paul Jones there. I was a thirty-year-old, sitting in the company of giants, although neither was more than 5 feet 7 inches tall. They were both in their sixties and sharp as tacks, there to transact business. Jones was negotiating for a fleet of twenty-seven pickups for the tribe, and Rico was carefully weighing a price that both could live with. At one point Rico, in his best Italian dramatics, cried, 'Paul, you're going to break me!' After more skirmishing a deal was concluded, at a good price to the tribe and a fair profit for the dealer.


It would have been so easy for the chairman to pick up a telephone in Window Rock and place an order for twenty-seven pickups, knowing that the Tribal Treasury could easily cover it. His conservative and careful use of tribal funds led him instead to Gallup, to negotiate tooth and nail over a lamb chop--and get a maintenance agreement to boot!
The friendship and respect these two had for each other lasted a lifetime. They are both gone now, but they have both left a legacy. Their spirit lives on. Rico sold GMCs, the most popular pickup in Navajo country for a long time, literally for beans! You could see piles of beans and corn sacks brought in by customers to make a payment for their pickups. And it was not unusual for them to bring in a goat or a sheep, a cow, a sack of wool, or some mohair instead of cash.


Rico put the Navajos on wheels, and Paul Jones built the roads and gave them jobs and a chance at an education to use the pickups wisely. Wherever these two men are now, they are probably negotiating tooth and nail for a 'good kind' of GMC pickup!"