Faiths of the Land
T h e land in southeastern Utah has served as an important element in many different people's religions. Anasazi, Ute, Navajo, Mormon, Catholic, Episcopalian, and other branches of Christianity have all sunk their roots deeply into the soil and traditions of this area. This is not to suggest that the major beliefs of each of these groups have been subverted from their main doctrine, only that they have been added to. The focus of this chapter will be on how religious perception has affected the people and their actions in relation to what they have experienced in San Juan County. The first of these known groups was the Archaic hunters and gatherers, who left behind in their pictographs and petroglyphs an eerie, shamanistic-type of art filled with anthropomorphic forms. Ghostlike figures, animals, and lines in undulating patterns appear to indicate connections with the supernatural in a dream world beyond physical reality. Panels of these anthropomorphic forms march across rockfaces at sites along the San Juan River, at Green Mask ruin in Grand Gulch, and in the Needles District of Canyonlands to remind others of a religious belief long since forgotten.'
