Come, join photographer LeRoy DeJolie on a visual tour of Navajoland, his homeland, an expanse that he sees not only as a ruggedly beautiful territory in the Gour Coners region but also as the cradle of his heritage. And read writer LeRoy DeJolie's accounts of the Navajo way of life and religion, which are intertwined as surely as strands of a rope. As you rembark on this journey, bear in mind a point made by Tony Hillerman in his foreword- that the Navajo photographer focuses on a Holy Land. Hillerman's analogy compares the Navajo Creation Story with the Bible's Book of Genesis. In the coming pages, you will experience Navajoland as a Navajo does and in the way he wants others to experience it- not just as a wondrous landscape but lso as a place with which to spiritually connect. For example, when a visitor to Navajoland sees Spider Rock, he or she sees a tall, sculpted tower rising from floor of Canyon de Chelly. A Navajo sees the monolith as the home how to weave. Some Navajo parents also use the white-capped rock to help teach their children how to act in a harmonious, balanced manner. This book also desplays photographic portfolios centering on each of the Navajos' four sacred mountains. Each portfolio is preceded by a vignette and its significance in Navajo mythology. Indeed, Navajoland, a native son shares his legacy. Oddly enough, LeRoy DeJolie reports, his inspiration for creating this book evolved from the work of a white man from Washington County, Pennsylvania. In the book With a Camera in Old Navajoland, photographer Earl R. Forrest related his experiences as a young adventurer in the summer of 1902. With his Poco 4-by-5 inch camera, he documented the life and times of Navajos living along the banks of the San Juan River near present-day Shiprock, New Mexico. Forest's photographs and narrative from a century ago continue to inspire DeJolie as he roams the Navajo landscapre with his cumbersome equipment pursuing the sweet light of dawn and dusk. A century from now, DeJolie sometimes wonders, will the same subjects that he hand Forrest photographed be recoreded by another Navajo using equipment not imaginable today? Expressing concern that the damands, lure, and pace of societies surrounding the Navajos are sapping the vibrancy from their culture, DeJolie writes, "The high point of any culture is when the younger generation places high value on learning it. It thrills me when Navajos and non-Navajos come to know the sacred associations of Old Navajoland".