The Place Where Two Fell Off

During the infamous massacre of 1805, Spanish soldiers may have fired from this site at Navajos huddled in the alcove below and to the left. Spanish accounts tell of a day-long battle against Indians “entrenched in an almost inaccessible point” and report the killing of 90 warriors and 25 women and children. The Navajo say many men were away hunting at the time, so the dead were mostly women, children, and old men who had sought refuge from the invaders. They call the alcove Adah Aho’doo’nili, Two Fell Off, for a brave Navajo woman who grappled with a soldier and tumbled to her death, dragging him with her.

Arizona · United States