Incredible backdrop: The Canyon of Lodore, Colorado, in 1872. After O'Sullivan spent one last season with Clarence King in 1872, he returned back to Washington D.C to marry Laura Pywell in E Street Baptist Church, although his parents thoughts on this non-Catholic marriage went unrecorded

Settlement: View of the White House, Ancestral Pueblo Native American (Anasazi) ruins in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, in 1873. The cliff dwellings were built by the Anasazi more than 500 years earlier. At the bottom, men stand and pose on cliff dwellings in a niche and on ruins on the canyon floor. Climbing ropes connect the groups of men. Anthropologists and archeologists place the Anasazi peoples of Native American culture on the continent from the 12th Century BC. Their unique architecture incorporated 'Great Houses' which averaged up to 200 rooms and could take in up to 700

Sailing away: The Nettie, an expedition boat on the Truckee River, western Nevada, in 1867. This was the river that O'Sullivan almost died in and according to the magazine Harper's 'Being a swimmer of no ordinary power, he succeeded in reaching the shore... he was carried a hundred yards down the rapids...The sharp rocks...had so cut and bruised his body that he was glad to crawl into the brier tangle that fringed the river's brink.' He is also supposed to to have lost three hundred dollars worth of gold pieces during the accident too

Taking a dip: A man bathing in Pagosa Hot Spring, Colorado, in 1874. Coming to the end of his adventures, O'Sullivan returned to Washington to live with his wife Laura and worked as a commercial photographer for Lieutenant Wheeler. In 1876, he buried his only child who was stillborn and it is thought that O'Sullivan buried the baby himself.

A man sits in a wooden boat with a mast on the edge of the Colorado River in the Black Canyon, Mojave County, Arizona. Photo taken in 1871, from an expedition camp, looking upstream. At this time, photographer Timothy O'Sullivan was working as a military photographer for Lt. George Montague Wheeler's U.S. Geographical Surveys West of the One Hundredth Meridian.

Native: Maiman, a Mojave Indian, guide and interpreter during a portion of the season in the Colorado country, in 1871. It has been observed that 30 years before Edward S Curtis began his famous study of native American's dying way of life, O'Sullivan was working without prejudice within the field of his photographic art. Trying to capture the everyday aspects of life for the indigenous people's of North America, O'Sullivan did not use a studio to capture imagery of native Americans, like many other photographers were at the time

Valley view: Alta City, Little Cottonwood, Utah, in 1873. O'Sullivan's amazing eye and work ethic allowed him to compose photographs that evoked the vastness of the West that future generations would come to recognise in the work of Ansel Adams and in the films of John Houston

Remarkable landscape: Cathedral Mesa, Colorado River, Arizona in 1871. O'Sullivan's second expedition employer, Lieutenant George Wheeler, 'was just interested in knowing what kind of fuss the Indians would put up,' according to a profile in the Tucson Weekly and the photographs were used to grease the wheels of expansion westwards

Mountains: Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah, in 1869. A man can be seen with his horse at the bottom near the bridge (right). As people in the east came to see O'Sullivan's photographs the legend of the pioneering west as a land of limitless opportunity even for Americans came to form.

Rock formations in the Washakie Badlands, Wyoming, in 1872. A survey member stands at lower right for scale. Tragically, O'Sullivan's health declined after the death of his boy and he contracted tuberculosis. His wife Laura died from the same disease in 1881.

Tree-mendous: Oak Grove, White Mountains, Sierra Blanca, Arizona in 1873. In 1881, O'Sullivan returned to his parent's home in Staten Island where he died from tuberculosis. Seen as an irony as he had survived some of the most inhospitable conditions known to man beforehand, such as Death valley and the Grand Canyon

Shoshone Falls, Idaho near present-day Twin Falls, Idaho, is 212 feet high, and flows over a rim 1,000 feet wide. it is pictured in 1868. These were some of the first iconic pictures of the western expeditions that O'Sullivan took on the United States Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel. They were also one of the last places he photographed before he returned home to the East Coast and Washington D.C

Rocky: The south side of Inscription Rock (now El Morro National Monument), in New Mexico in 1873. The prominent feature stands near a small pool of water, and has been a resting place for travellers for centuries. Since at least the 17th century, natives, Europeans, and later American pioneers carved names and messages into the rock face as they paused. In 1906, a law was passed, prohibiting further carving.

Very plain landscape: A distant view of Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1873. Santa Fe is one of the oldest continually inhabited places in North America. Thought to have been settled by native American's in around 1050 AD, the city has grown into one of the most prosperous in New Mexico and the Southwestern United States

THE STORY OF NAVAJO CREATION

It is said that the Creator had a thought that was Light in the East. The thought went South and created Water, West and created Air, then North and created Pollen from emptiness. Pollen became the Earth.

Light, air, water, and earth is part of everything in nature which is interconnected and equal. When all of the elements mixed together, the first thing created were the Holy People. The Holy People were responsible for teaching what is right and wrong. When the Holy people were given the original laws, they created the earth and human beings.

The Creator and the Holy People created the Natural World including humans, birds, and all animals. This Natural World was put in Hozjo (BALANCE). Hozjo (harmony, balance, and peace) only occurs when there is interconnectedness. All members of the Natural World depend on each other.

The emergence of highest level of Navajo Hozjo was Xajiinai, a hole in the La Plata mountains of SW Colorado. The Holy People have the power to hurt or help, and centuries ago taught Dine (The People) how to live in harmony with Mother Earth, Father Sky and the other elements: man, animals, plants, insects. The Dine believe that when the ceremonies cease the world will cease.

NAVAJO NATION

Navajo Nation refers to a sovereign Native American Nation established by Dine. Dine means "The People".

The Navajo Indian Reservation covers about 27,000 square miles of land, occupying all of northeastern Arizona, and extending into Utah and New Mexico. It is the largest land area assigned primarily to a Native American jurisdiction within the United States.

In 2000, there were 298,215 Navajos living in the United States; 173,987 living in the Navajo Nation.

Members of the nation are often known as Navajo, also spelled Navaho. Navajo call themselves Diné, a term from the Navajo language that means "The People". The Navajo are closely related to the Apache, and the Navajo language along with other Apache languages make up the Southern Athabaskan language family.

The US Congress established a Hopi reservation within the Navajo Nation's reservation at a site where where Hopi history predates that of Diné.

GEOGRAPHY

The Navajo Nation stretches from the Four Corners Monument landmark across the Colorado Plateau into Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico. Located within the Navajo Nation are Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Monument Valley, Rainbow Bridge National Monument, the Hopi Indian Reservation, and the Shiprock landmark. The seat of government is located at the town of Window Rock, Arizona.

FOUR

The number four is sacred to many Native Americans. There are four sacred mountains, four directions, four colors, four worlds, four sacred plants, and four times of day.

Time and space are defined by the four cardinal light phenomena: Dawn (white, east); Midday (blue, south); Evening Twilight (yellow, west), and Night (black, north).

The four cardinal light phenomena are results of the sun's apparent daily motion. These phenomena are a composite of the four directions, the four times of day, and the four sacred colors linked with them.

A Navajo thinks of the east, Dawn, and the white color of the sky at the beginning of the day. This is the thinking direction.

At midday, the association is with the south which is usually "horizon blue" or "blue haze" in reference to the band of relatively darker blue that lies on the horizon at midday. This is the planning direction.

Evening twilight is associated with the west and "around the area becomes yellow". This is the evaluation direction.

Darkness is associated with the north and with the blackness of the night sky. This is the direction of change.

THE FOUR WORLDS OF THE NAVAJO

First/Black World:

Second/Blue World:

Third/Yellow World:

Fourth/White World:

NAVAJO LIFE

Navajo legend says that Dine had to pass through three different worlds before emerging into the present world - the Fourth World or Glittering World. So, the Holy People put four sacred mountains in four different directions. Mt. Blanca in the east. Mt. Taylor in the south, San Francisco Peaks in the west, and Mt. Hesperus in the north, thus creating the boundaries of Navajoland.

The Navajo (Diné) and Apache tribal groups of the American Southwest speak dialects of the language family referred to as Athabaskan. The Navajo people are very dynamic and creative people who strongly believe in the power of the mind to think and create; finding expression in the myriad symbolic creations of the Navajo language, art and ritual ceremonies.

Aside from being the mother tongue of the Navajo Nation, the Navajo language also has played a highly significant role in helping the entire nation. During World War II, the Navajo language was used as a code to confuse the enemy. Navajo bravery and patriotism is unequaled. Navajos were inducted and trained in the U.S. Marine Corps to become "code talkers" on the front-line. Shrouded in secrecy at the time, these men are known today as the famed Navajo Code Talkers, proved to be the only code that could not be broken during World War II.

Family is very important to the Navajos. There is the immediate family, and the extended family. The extended family is broken up into clans, which were created by the Holy Ones. The four original clans are 'Towering House', 'Bitterwater', 'Big Water' and' One-who-walks-around'.

Today there are about 130 clans. When one Navajo meets another for the first time they tell each other what clan they are from.

A Navaho house is called a "hogan" and is made of logs, brush, and earth. Summer houses are also utilized and made of brush with a windbreak.

Each symbol has specific meaning with its own story.