Tourists Encounter Diné Women, Children and Sheep Herders in Monument Valley (1950s)

Wide panning shot of Monument Valley (Tsé Biiʼ Ndzisgaii) from a slight elevation; a white man in a hat with a camera stands hear a Diné boy on horseback and woman (or girl?) posing for another man’s camera; various shots of a group of tourists — adults and children (áłchíní) — mill about with their cameras near three multi-passenger vehicles marked “Monument Valley Tours” on a dusty desert road; various shots (including close-ups of their faces and jewelry) of a seated Diné woman carding (scraping raw wool between to wooden paddles with metal protrusions) and spinning wool while a toddler girls sits beside; the toddler girl skips out the front door of a hogan, a white dog is nearby, and runs over to a woman who is combing another woman’s hair with a bundle of stiff, dry, grass (be’ezo or bé’ézhóó’) while seated next to a loom, close-up of her hands working and her jewelry; various shots of Diné herder (naʼniłkaadí) in a cowboy hat on a white horse posing and galloping through the Monument Valley landscape behind, some close-ups; he then herds sheep; a tourist standing next to the green Monument Valley Tours bus; back to the trio of vehicles parked in the shade (one tourist seems to be chopping wood or branches); a tourist woman photographs a Diné woman holding a baby(awéé’) in a cradleboard, a toddler girl alongside, Monument Valley beyond; close-ups of the trio as the woman unwraps the baby from the board, and then of their faces; the tourist group eating lunch by a campfire near some shade trees; various close-ups of a Diné woman, baby, two girls (one holding a lamb), a toddler and dog, then the camera pulls back to show the group; a naturally eroded window in the sandstone rocks shot from below; the tourists taking photographs, one of the guides looks to be Diné walks past camera and smiles; various shots of three Diné women posing on horseback atop a hill, a fourth horse stands nearby; the three ride down the hill towards the camera; close-up of the women’s and girl’s jewelry; an older Diné man rides up smiling on his horse, he stops and poses for the camera including in close-up; another rider and a woman with two children on horseback herding sheep down a sand dune, landscape beyond; closer view of the woman and two children on horseback, and back to a wide shot of the pair and sheep in the landscape.