| Show WRITES N 11 1110 SOUNDS IN BANISH I 1 ETTERS moab july 20 1934 dear editor in 1877 1 I still lived at brigham city on the little colorado river pres lot smith was still determined to make a navaho interpreter ot of me in e so I 1 went to fort defiance where I 1 met hasteen chee mr redd in english lie was government in ter preter for col dodge indian abt navaho who at that time numbered 30 mr dodge picked up this orphan boy and gave him fifteen years of schooling hence he talked english as fluently a aa anybody at thia this time he taught me words the most important ones for a beginner to learn I 1 wrote them down in the danish alphabet yo i can spell any indian word with it you get the true sound with the danish alpha bet but not with the english well this friendly indian was call ed henry dodge in bis his school he lie became very rich and had two wives who had 3 head of sheep each and a beautiful american home I 1 shall speak of him hereafter hei eatter in my writings as I 1 met him several times in my travels among his countrymen I 1 come now to a time when pago chiddy visited us he healed the sick raised the dead and proved a great blessing to us but he said he helped to create the earth divide the light from the darkness roll the great water oft off the earth and as a ened them their place we said you are too young a man why we know your mother though we don t know your father this earth was created a long time ago bv heavenly beings he made man and told him what he should not do A wicked man sew s ew his brother an I 1 introduced minder murder amongst the peo pie the first man had a numerous posterity and lived it in peace no we reject your talk as you are to VO young so he got mad confounded their language and made al a 1 these different tribes you see scattered ov er this once happy land and we have been in that condition ever since but we are now looking for delia erance arance sometime soon he got on a streak of lightning and we saw him enter heaven he said he would come again when hen people would receive him tv about 24 miles southeast of bluff Is a beautiful valley called in nav aho nah hoe kok kl KI the valley of supplication where our tore fore fathers met and asked pago chiddy to forgive them tor for he was all he claimed to be he answered I 1 hear you what do you want we want to be restored to oui out former bes b sings 1 I 1 left twelve men in my stead hear them for when they were un cited they bad had the same saine power t to 0 do good works a mong the people for years they dwelt among us and we had no rich nor poor but after many years we ve grew rich and very wicked then the twelve with drew from us three went east three west three north and three never did die we ve aie are looking for their return soon to restore u to nor blessings and we believe this p aiom ise was made in the valley of our supplications nah hoe kok rok ki where tago chiddy left a monument of solid stone so that the navahos will never forget his ills visit and an awer to our forefathers we believe this monument stands where those events took place pago chiddy favored the avalos navahos as he neer nener did confound fur lan ian guage like he did the other people we had books and wise men to lead us we also had many wars and many people were slain and when our eri enemies enties became the most num erous tl tie e good le were destroy ed and our books were gone mr hedd redd or dodge help ed me to get my story from the 12 chiefs of whom r have written I 1 slept with him and we talked about the book of mormon and the anten tion of us being among them mr christensen draws us a plot ure of the arch or monument and says na N navaho passes under this aich without saying we thank the crea tor tor for leaving this monument in memory of the prayers our fore fath ers restore to us our fathers and as you promised send the three who never died soon I 1 have passed un der the arch with them and their devotion and sincerity C L christensen P q I 1 am in my eightieth year excuse poor writing you will note i the story is brief so is their lan ian guage we enjoy the article very much |
