Appreciation or appropriation? This $3,500-a-night Utah resort walks the line.

Canyon Point, Utah • For a minimum of $3,500 a night, people can pay for a desert getaway at Amangiri.

At the exclusive resort a few miles from Lake Powell, guests are buying luxury and privacy — 900 acres of it. Entered by way of a winding private road, Amangiri is constructed to blend seamlessly into the surrounding mesas.

The resort’s color scheme — a desert palette of tan, terracotta orange, green and cement gray, with blue swimming pools that match the cloudless sky — acts as camouflage. The effect is an almost overwhelming seclusion.

Long before Amangiri opened in 2009, the surrounding mesas were Marques Johnson’s childhood playground.

Johnson — who grew up in nearby Page, Ariz., and who is full-blood Navajo — said he used to run around on this land with his friends and family, and it’s what led him to a career in public lands and later in the hospitality industry. He’s now the supervisor and only Indigenous employee of Amangiri’s experiences team, which arranges guest activities.

These days, Amangiri (part of the Aman Resorts chain) is known for its Instagram-friendly celebrity client list — including Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Hailey and Justin Bieber and Emily Ratajkowski — and for ranking on such lists as The Robb Report’s 50 greatest luxury hotels on Earth.

Another part of Amangiri’s attraction — something the resort uses to sell itself to customers — is its proximity to Indigenous communities, and cultural “encounters” from those communities.

Amangiri is two hours from the Hopi reservation, and a 30-minute drive from the Arizona border of Navajo Nation, the country’s largest Indigenous reservation. Nearby public lands that carry significance with Indigenous people, such as Bryce Canyon National Park and Bears Ears National Monument, are within a few hours’ drive. More than half of the population of Page identifies as American Indian.

Native Land Digital, which tracks where Indigenous people first settled around the world, states the land where Amangiri sits was originally home to the Pueblos and Southern Paiutes.

Indigenous programming at the resort includes things like Navajo storytelling, dreamcatcher workshops and Native American hoop dancing performances.

Audrey Huttert, the resort’s general manager, said the resort doesn’t have a direct relationship with the leaders of Navajo Nation. A spokesperson said the resort’s cultural experiences don’t relate to any specific cultural heritage preservation group, but Huttert noted it does work with local vendors for its outdoor experiences, such as tours of the nearby slot canyons.

However, Huttert added, the resort has “tried to be very respectful of the culture of Native Americans” and subtle in their programming options, aiming to incorporate aspects of Native culture with “great delicacy.”

Indigenous employees, which make up about 42% of the resort’s 230-member staff, are “big ambassadors of their homeland,” Huttert said. “The best ones to showcase their culture are our Navajo friends. Everything which is related to the Navajo culture, let it be told by the Navajo people.”

What the resort’s operators may consider appreciation of Indigenous culture, others may consider cultural appropriation.

“Cultural appreciation is when people, [for whom] it is their own culture, have control and have say over how their culture is being shared or expressed, and they’re the ones that are doing that themselves,” said Rosalyn LaPier, an Indigenous scholar and professor of history at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and a member of the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana and Métis.

At Amangiri, LaPier said, “It’s not the Diné, not the Diné hotel or resort. … It’s a for-profit company that is [near] Diné territory, that is then taking Diné traditions or Indigenous traditions in general and making that part of the experience for the people at that particular hotel.”

Symbolism of sage

Johnson said talking about the line between cultural appreciation and appropriation in a place like Amangiri, is “tough” because it’s “also a business.”

“Everyone’s out to make some money here in some way or another,” Johnson said. “We’re in a whole different level of this industry. This is a completely different segment, how we interact, how we communicate, the attention to detail, just everything that we do.”

Take, for example, a common sight around Amangiri, in the suites and the spa: Bundles of white sage, usually in an abalone shell bowl containing ashes, accompanied by a box of Amangiri-branded matches.

The sage is primarily used in the resort for smudging, a practice traditionally used by Indigenous shamans to create a sense of peace with the divine before ceremonies.

In recent years, the practice has been adopted by the wellness and beauty industries, and has been criticized as an instance where Indigenous rituals have been — as journalist Mary Annette Pember wrote in 2019 for Beauty Independent — “cherry-picked from various tribes to suit non-Natives.”

Timothy Begay, the Navajo cultural specialist at the Navajo Nation Heritage and Historic Preservation Department, said medicinal items such as white sage “are only effective if they are administered with songs and prayers.”

Begay, whose department is part of the Navajo Nation’s government, said the resort hasn’t reached out to their group before. He said he wasn’t aware of Amangiri before The Salt Lake Tribune asked for an interview.

Begay added that white sage smudging is a practice of Plains Indians, and the Navajo (based in the Four Corners region) have adopted sage as a therapy treatment, though there are instances where traditional Navajo sage is boiled and consumed.

LaPier, who is a writer, ethnobotanist and environmental history professor, said the use of white sage — or any species of sage — is different for each tribe.

“Some people use some sage, some people never use it. Each group really thinks about these things differently,” she said. “What the Blackfeet use it for is to purify yourself as a human, to purify objects that you might be using before you pray or talk to the divine.”

Using sage for smudging, LaPier said, could be compared to Roman Catholics using holy water. When it comes to smudging, she said, “Native people don’t purify themselves unless it’s connected to religion. It just wouldn’t happen.”

Johnson said that in the region, because of the proximity to Navajo Nation, there’s a push to always be associated with the Navajo people. That can lead, he said, to people lumping all Native groups together as one.

While the Navajo influence is important, he said, there are “a lot of other names around here” such as Wahweap and Kaiparowits, two common names in the area’s geography, which are Paiute.

Johnson said in his various employment roles, he’s encountered the situation where “oftentimes, [I’m] the only Indigenous person in an entire room full of white men.” Being tasked with educating guests about Indigenous culture, he said, sometimes means “hunkering down” when being asked off-the-wall questions.

But, there is a sense of pride, Johnson said, in sharing some of his culture at Amangiri. There’s also an opportunity at the resort to push for change and to make sure they are spotlighting Indigenous culture properly, he said.

“There’s only so much that I can share,” Johnson said. “A lot of that is kept within us, that’s just who we are. But there are those small little bits that we can and do share. I would like to see a little more of that — better representation.”

Sharing Indigenous culture

As Kyle Davis — who is half-Navajo and grew up in Page — was leading a hike from Amangiri to Broken Arrow Cave, he took a look around and said, “I try to find the beauty in everything.”

The half-hour hike from the resort to the cave is highlighted by sandy pathways, bright desert marigolds, the occasional crawling lizard and sprouting Mormon Tea plants.

Broken Arrow Cave is a site of Indigenous heritage and legacy, as it’s on the land of the Ancestral Puebloan people, who are native to the Four Corners area.

“They were the first tribe to live out here 9,000 years ago,” Davis said, as he led hikers on the path to the cave. He is a guide for Adventure Partners, which works with Amangiri to provide guided outdoor experiences.

The cave — named for the 1996 John Travolta movie “Broken Arrow,” which filmed scenes at an adjacent false mineshaft — is the only section of Amangiri’s 900 acres that it doesn’t own.

It belongs to the state of Utah, and is considered a public resource, but it’s only accessible through the gate that leads to Amangiri.

The cave walls feature petroglyphs, which are carved into the rock, Davis told the hikers, his words echoing off the cavernous walls. The original markings are distinct from more recent graffiti, faded but slightly darker in color and visible only with a discerning eye.

Petroglyphs, unlike hieroglyphs, don’t always have a direct translation, but Davis said the markings at Broken Arrow Cave provide some insight into the Puebloans — abstract windows into their culture.

Guests can climb into the cave, using narrow wooden stairs that have been built there. There is a pile of archeological findings, found in the cave: Tools, broken pieces of pottery, even a tiny piece of corn that’s been preserved for 600 years.

“There’s this enveloping sense of the landscape,” Davis said. “You walk outside for 10 minutes and the resort’s already lost behind a sand dune. That kind of uninterrupted appreciation is what has driven this resort. … It’s a conduit to the southside world.”

That conduit is also present for employees in other parts of the resort.

Maritano ‘Tano’ Cly grew up in Monument Valley, and learned about Amangiri at a career fair in Page. He is Navajo; his grandmother, Rose J. Yazzie, is from one of the few families that reside within the Monument Valley Tribal Park.

Cly is a supervisor in Amangiri’s food and beverage department, where, he said, he gets to talk to guests about foods from his childhood, such as Ch’il Ahwéhé, traditional Navajo tea.

“It’s one of the only teas that us Navajos, as well as some Hopi tribes in this area, all enjoy,” Cly said. Another traditional food is blue corn, which Cly called, “a staple of the Navajo.”

When he worked as a server, Cly said he loved taking the time to share the stories behind these flavors he grew up with. When he was younger, he would go with his grandmother to a market in Kayenta, Arizona, just to get authentic Navajo ingredients, like blue corn.

At Amangiri, a blue corn polenta is the second dish in its four-course “Spirit of the Journey” tasting menu, which is described by the resort as “a celebration of Native American flavors,” with “ingredients procured by native co-ops and southwestern American indian communities.”

The polenta, Cly said, “comes with our authentic Navajo blue cornmeal with our cedar ash.” Suttiphan Ngamtipakon, the Thai-born executive chef at Amangiri, goes every Saturday to the only place that carries the cedar ash, a tiny market in Page, Cly said.

The tasting menu states that the dishes come from the Navajo, Pima, Maricopa, Akimel O’odham, Paiute and Hopi tribes. Each of the courses are named: k’os (“flight”), to` (“water”), dzeh kayenta (“hunters pit”) and u` kan (“sweet one”).

Cly said he feels the resort is respectful and thoughtful in approaching Indigenous culture.

“Telling people that are more wealthy about my culture, and how they can actually spread the word throughout the world, is actually very nice,” Cly said.

It’s also a way to let people know that Indigenous people — and Navajo in particular — don’t only exist on reservations, Cly said. “If [we] tell them here, they’ll tell them somewhere else, maybe,” he said.

Culturally educating through dance

Red Heritage, a group that has an entertainment hall in Page, performs hoop dances at Amangiri. At a performance in mid-July, four dancers were in attendance: Tony Hunt, Owen Fowler and Alluri Chee, who are Diné, and Jered Canty, who is Catawba.

(Though three of the four dancers at this Amangiri performance are Diné, Begay at the Navajo Nation Heritage and Historic Preservation Department, said hoop dances are not originally Navajo.)

The group put on five different performances, a mix of dances and songs, with a picturesque blue sky as a backdrop. The sound of their songs echoed off the mesas that surround the resort’s main gathering area.

The group performs two or three times a week at Amangiri, Canty said, and has done it for 10 years. They’ve never received negative comments or feedback from Amangiri’s visitors, he said.

When asked whether he felt that performing at Amangiri was exploiting Indigenous culture, Canty said he long ago decided not to think about the issue.

“I try to think that, ‘Hey, I’m culturally educating,’” he said. “We’re always taught there’s never a dull question, so you’ll have a lot of off-the-wall comments, but we definitely try to answer culturally and correctly — because if we don’t, we’re worried that no one’s going to know. So much has been taken out of the history books nowadays.”

Canty performs the “men’s traditional” dance, for the guests paying attention in and around the Amangiri pool.

Over the clattering of glasses and whispered small talk from guests, he explains why he’ll be dancing closer to the ground and what his eagle bustle regalia signifies. “Having feathers on, it’s the most honored version of all, that they take all our prayers and thoughts back up to heaven,” he said.

Canty said he sometimes worries that the meanings of the dances, and his explanations, are lost on the guests. But when people come up after the performance to ask questions, or to tip the dancers, he said, “It lets us know that our job’s done.”

Tourism vs. culture

Huttert, Amangiri’s general manager, said the resort supports giving back to local Indigenous communities, with annual contributions and donations of time.

The resort estimated it donated around 120 hours of aid in 2022 to the food bank in Page. Resort representatives said they couldn’t provide exact figures detailing charity donations, because many of them are in-kind contributions.

Amangiri’s donation program, the resort said in a statement, “focuses on youth initiatives and educational purposes, and supports our local community from Big Water to Page, as well as the Navajo Nation.”

LaPier, the Indigenous scholar, said she knows of places similar to Amangiri where she’s from, in Montana.

“There’s sort of this for-profit experience that’s being created for people tapping into a particular place, but at the same time, completely separate from the actual people themselves,” LaPier said. “That place is on somebody’s territory, right? That place has been the place of Indigenous people for thousands of years.”

Begay said, “it’s not right” that a resort tries to sell Indigenous culture on land where Indigenous people once lived, and that it “disgraces” that culture.

“Indigenous groups have their own way of life, which includes families, returning people to balance” Begay said. “None of that knowledge and teaching that they’re doing is going back and recognizing the people of the Southwest or even North America.”

LaPier said, “it’s pretty easy to fall back on stereotypes or tropes about Indigenous people and create a generic Indigenous cultural experience. Oftentimes, when you’re relying on a stereotype or a trope, what you end up doing is erasing the uniqueness of Indigenous cultures.”

Even if that erasure may be the opposite of what a business or a group intends to do, she added.

LePier said she spends summers on the Blackfeet reservation in Montana, near Glacier National Park, where “tourism is a big part of the local economy.”

“It really is a love-hate relationship,” LaPier said. “When it’s the middle of summer and people have jobs, people love that. But at the same time, if we had a choice, we really wouldn’t want all the tourists here. … I know a lot of Indigenous communities would rather have a different economy that is stronger within their community.”

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