Original subtitles

Man: the legend says

The people emerged through hole in the mother earth.

It is the place of beginning.

It calls, and we must come.

[ hawk shrieks ]

Narrator: zion canyon's the center

Of a mystic land created by the gods.

With water, wind, and time,

They carve their treasures from the stones laid down

Across a million years.

They are called anasazi, but that was not their name.

They are hisatsinom -- the ancient ones.

They came here near the time of christ and stayed 1,000 years.

They came from the south, across the great sea,

Emerging at last to the realms of living earth.

[ chanting in native language ]

[ chanting stops ]

[ chanting resumes ]

[ speaking native language ]

[ hawk shrieks ]

Man: oh, great spirit,

Whose breath gives life to all creation,

Hear my words.

With a token of mother corn, I ask your blessings come to me.

Giver of life, earth maker, look at me.

Let the rays of sun strike my skin and make me gleam.

Bless my path in the circle of life.

[ hawk shrieking ]

Lead me to the center of the sacred hoop,

The place of our beginning...

...The womb of the earth mother.

[ hawk shrieks ]

[ men chanting in native language ]

Narrator: the anasazi flourished here 1,200 years.

Then, suddenly, they were gone.

They abandoned their homes of wood and earth and stone.

Was it drought or fear or invaders from beyond?

We do not know.

A time of the changing had come.

[ whipping, screaming in distance ]

By the late 17th century,

The spanish had invaded the mystic land,

Claimed her treasures, and conquered the native people.

[ indistinct shouting in distance ]

Friar: iay, dios m�o de m�o!

His holiness, the pope,

Entreats us to attend the heathen with kindness.

But gold has become god.

I came to save souls from hell,

But I fear hell has ascended upon us.

It is an ill wind that parches our souls in this forsaken land.

Narrator: in the summer of 1680,

An indian holy man inspired the most remarkable revolt

In the history of the native southwest.

His name was po'pay.

His runners carried knotted strings of yucca fiber

To the people in the spanish mines.

Untying a single knot each day, pueblo slaves counted the time

Until they turned on their oppressors.

[ indistinct shouting, screaming ]

[ gunfire ]

[ indistinct shouting ]

[ glass shattering ]

[ screaming ]

[ speaks native language ]

[ speaks native language ]

[ coyotes howling ]

Narrator: for 200 years

The land remained unknown to the outside world.

Only the people knew that earth maker

Had placed guardians to protect the sacred treasures.

It was a place of prayer and visions,

A place of beginning, a place of the spirits.

[ birds chirping ]

[ speaking native language ]

[ hawk shrieks ]

[ gasps ]

[ speaking native language ]

[ man speaking native language ]

Interpreter: today, you have met kinesava.

He has played a trick on you. He is fond of pranks.

He lives in the canyon of the spirits.

We cannot see them.

We know them only by the signs they give us.

Hewlin u atths inne

This is also the realm of wai-no-pits, the evil one.

He, too, plays tricks and can destroy us.

[ birds chirping ]

Narrator: hidden at the heart of this land

Is a place the indians call ioogoon.

It is near the place of beginning.

[ horse neighing ]

Nephi johnson was the first white man

To explore the unknown realms of the upper virgin river.

He was a mormon missionary living among the paiute indians.

It is September 1858.

Johnson: brigham young sent me to explore

The source of a perilous river east of parunuweap canyon.

It is a strange and remarkable place.

Stone towers stand in council like ancient patriarchs.

Monolithic temples with altars and thrones

Rise to the clouds like shrines to the divine.

The paiutes have warned me the unknown canyon

Is the domain of sinawava and supernatural spirits.

[ birds chirping ]

I am awed by the majesty of god's creation.

[ speaking native language ]

I was told the indians are afraid of this place,

But it is I who find myself unwilling

To challenge the probability of their superstition.

[ hawk shrieks ]

Narrator: the mormons gave the canyon a new name.

They called it zion --

The place of peace, harmony, and devotion to god.

Narrator: in t fall of 1912, an indian guide named toaquim

Brought tervay denous

To the unexplored realms of zion canyon.

In a way, denous personified the photographers, naturalists,

And explorers who would follow.

Denous: I was headed for santa fe

When I heard about this place.

I discounted the exaggerated claims.

In truth, they were too modest.

Nothing prepared me for what I found.

It is a journey through time.

The entire history of the earth

Is written in the poetry of rock and stone.

I came to take photographs, but I am haunted by a curious legend

Of the sacred cave and hidden treasures

In a place they call the center of the earth.

[ birds squawking ]

I can neither describe nor capture

The splendor of this creation.

We move in a world of colors that defy imagination.

I am awed by the grandeur of this place.

My eyes were assaulted at every turn.

But expectation tortures my imagination.

What if the legend is true? Are there places yet unknown?

Is there a sacred center of the earth?

Toaquim has agreed to guide me

To the deep recesses of the inner canyons.

I am certain he knows more than he's willing to tell.

Only after great persuasion does he agree to take me

Where no white man has gone before.

[ bats screeching ]

[ speaking native language ]

[ chuckles ]

[ thunder rumbling ]

[ wind howling ]

[ bats screeching ]

[ hawk shrieks ]

[ thunder crashes ]

Toaquim?!

Toaquim?!

[ wind howling ]

[ panting ]

[ speak native language ]

[ grunts ]

Narrator: all of the photographs were lost.

Tervay denous never returned to zion canyon.

He died in obscurity.

[ hawk shrieks ]

Woman: the canyon calls to us.

It's hard to explain. Like a voice in the wind.

Doug and I come often. Climbing here is dangerous.

The rock is soft and unpredictable.

But there is something.

The scale of the cliffs, the majesty of the rock --

It's just irresistible.

In spite of the risk and the danger,

We are drawn again and again to the heart of this land.

[ breathing heavily ]

[ gasps ]

[ gasps ]

[ exhales sharply ]

[ birds squawking ]

[ hawk shrieks ]

[ sighs ]

Narrator: to the geologist,

Zion canyon is a curious formation

Etched by natural forces and layers of mesozoic sediment.

To the native people,

It is the creation of the great spirit.

Science describes the process of erosion

By water, wind, and time.

The legend says the earth was created

When the sky was shattered by the light.

No one can escape the display of geologic history,

Nor can they resist the spiritual power of this place.

Geology interprets what we find here,

But it cannot explain our feelings.