All of this means that every facet of the land is alive and responsive, like the strings of an instrument, to a set of harmonics that include—but also expand far beyond—human needs and hopes and longings. Without exception, each tribe regards the canyon as a place of reverence, a kind of open-air cathedral whose interior is consecrated by memory and stories and the weight of time. For all of these societies, the chasm is hallowed ground, an aboriginal holy land.
