MUSIC AT ROCK ART SITES:

This is a compilation of previous columns from RockArtBlog about sound and music at rock art sites. 

ROCK ART AND SOUND EFFECTS, 24 February 2010:

Black Salon, Grotte de Niaux, Ariege, France. From Rault, 2000, p. 18.

One small but interesting subset in the study of rock art concerns the acoustics of rock art sites. According to some researchers it is possible to find interesting acoustics at many rock art sites. In locales where the rock art is on cliffs they believe that the form of the cliffs often provides for a stronger echo than other nearby sections of cliff. Measurements of the strength of echoes from various surfaces in painted European caves suggest that this can indeed be the case. In 2000 Lucy Rault wrote in “Musical Instruments: Craftsmanship and Tradition from Prehistory to the Present,” that “comparable investigations at Niaux have similarly demonstrated that in this cave places with particularly strong echoes also have images associated with them, some if these, significantly, mark places where sounds linger for several seconds. We can therefore conclude that the choice of locations for wall figures seems to have been made largely on the basis of their acoustical value. Sometimes whole walls remain empty where the corresponding space, however vast it may be, produces no echo. On the other hand, places favorable for echoes are marked and painted, even if their location made such decoration difficult to accomplish.” (Rault 2000:22).

Bison, Grotte du Portel, Ariege,France. From: Rault, 2000, p.23.

Given the strong echoes and reverberation found in these sites in the painted caves of Europe, we have to ask ourselves what were they echoing? The most obvious guess would be the sound of the animal depicted on the wall. The call of this creature might be imitated by spiritual leaders or vocally talented members of the clan. Another possibility could be the eerie moaning sound of a bullroarer. Regarding this, John Pfeiffer wrote in 1982 (p. 180) that “oval bone and ivory objects with abstract designs carved on them and a hole at one end make a high whining hum when whirled from a string, suggesting that the sound of a bullroarer moved people in the upper Paleolithic as well as in modern times” (Pfeiffer’s “high whining hum” would have come from a smaller bullroarer on a short string, a larger model on a longer string could give a much lower roaring sound). Especially in the case of a painted bison or other animal whose vocalizations are grunting, roaring, or rumbling sounds, hearing the sound of a bullroarer echoing and reverberating through the chamber would have been startling to say the least.

Halo Shelter, Val Verde County, TX., Photo: Peter Faris, 2004.

Another effect that can often be found in caves and rock shelters is the phenomenon of the whisper channel. When the walls are of the correct shape they will often pass the frequencies of a soft voice smoothly to the other end of the chamber in such a way that they are inaudible to people standing in between. I observed this effect in a rock shelter at Val Verde county in west Texas, where I could hear a soft conversation of people standing about 20 feet away at the other end of the shelter but individuals standing between us could not discern their comments.

A number of years ago, during a visit to the Grand Gallery of Horseshoe Canyon, in Canyonlands, Utah, one visitor had lugged a tape recorder and microphone all the way from the canyon rim to the panel and had set up his sound equipment while he walked back and forth along the rock art panels tapping the surface of the rock with a little hammer made of deer or elk antler. I thought at the time that this was a pretty silly practice, but I now see that it actually may have had some validity. Although I could not really see back then what the value would be in having that sort of information available, it is now obvious that it might add to the overall metadata of cultural knowledge of the people involved, and would allow evaluations based upon a broader knowledge of their cultural concerns, and this would benefit everyone interested in the prehistory of humanity.

REFERENCES:

Pfeiffer, John E., 1982, The Creative Exlosion: An Inquiry into the Origins of Art and Religion, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York.

Rault, Lucy, 2000, Musical Instruments: Traditions and Craftsmanship from Prehistory to the Present, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York.

MUSIC AT ROCK ART SITES, 28 March 2010:

On February 24, 2010, I posted a column titled “Rock Art and Sound Effects”. In that posting I discussed the possibility that sound effects may have enhanced the experience of viewers of painted panels in European caves. Also, that many rock art panels are located in places that display unusual echo effects. Another possible manifestation of sound at rock art sites would be music. This could be music played in the presence of rock art, and could also be music as a theme of the imagery in the rock art.

Trois freres sanctuary, sketched by Abbe Breuel, Musee de l'Homme.

One example of music as a theme of rock art is found in the sanctuary at Le Trois Freres, sketched by the Abbe Breuel. Often considered a shaman figure, this therianthropic character seems to be dancing on human legs but possesses a bison head, horns and forelimbs. Additionally, this enigmatic figure is obviously carrying a bow and appears to be pursuing a group of bison. This has led to previous classifications of this scene as a portrayal of hunting magic.

Les Trois Freres, closeup of lower right. Drawn by Abbe Breuil, 1912.

In Musical Instruments, Craftsmanship and Tradition from Prehistory to the Present, Lucy Rault, suggested that this figure was, in fact, playing music on a musical bow. She described the technique of playing the instrument as “the player places the string between his lips and strikes it with a thin stick. Modifying the volume by altering the position of his lips, and of the tongue within the mouth cavity the musician creates different harmonics to produce a tune” (2000: 151). Rault included a photo of a Dan musician from the Ivory Coast and pointed out the position of the bow relative to the mouth as representative of the figure playing the bow as an instrument.

Musical bow, Dan, Ivory Coast. From Rault, 2000, p.151.

In another connection between music and cave painting bone flutes have been excavated from deposits within caves that also possess cave paintings. It is no great stretch to imagine those flutes being played in a context of ceremonials in front of painted panels within the cave, although we cannot by any means prove that both the flute playing and the painted panels were involved in the same performance.

Paleolithic bone flutes,Isturitz, from Rault, 2000, p.33.

Since we find the concept of music played in the context of rock art panels so interesting, we can probably assume that the prehistoric inhabitants of those regions would like the idea as well, and, since they had all the ingredients available – who knows?

REFERENCES:

Rault, Lucy, 2000, Musical Instruments, Craftsmanship and Tradition from Prehistory to the Present, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York.

MUSIC AT ROCK ART SITES (CONTINUED), 26 April 2010:

On March 28, 2010, I posted a column concerning evidence of the creation of music as a subject of a painted panel in the Sanctuary of the cave of Le Trois Freres. Additional evidence of Paleolithic music in connection with rock art is presented by the upper Aurignacian carved relief known as the “Venus of Laussel” cave in France. This famous female figure is shown holding what appears to be a bison horn in her right hand. The horn is marked with thirteen striations down the side.

"Venus of Laussel", stone relief carving, Laussel cave, France. p.41, Rault, Lucy, Musical Instruments, Craftsmanship and Tradition from Prehistory to the Present,2000.

This figure actually suggests two possible musical implications. One, the horn might be played trumpet fashion. In Musical Instruments, Craftsmanship and Tradition from Prehistory to the Present, Lucy Rault (2000) provided pictures of tribal people playing animal horns trumpet fashion. In playing a trumpet the sound is provided by vibration of the player’s lips blown into the mouthpiece, in these examples a hole drilled into the side of the horn down near the pointed end. Although the Venus of Laussel does not have the horn held to her mouth we must allow the possibility.

Side-blown Kudu horn, Chad. p.198, Rault, Lucy,Musical Instruments, Craftsmanship and Traditionfrom Prehistory to the Present, 2000.

Another possibility relates to the thirteen striations on the side of the horn. With these it is possible that the horn was played as a rhythm instrument known as a rasp. The Ute Indians of Colorado and Utah use a rasp called a morache for their annual Bear Dance in which a notched stick or bone (reportedly originally a bear jaw bone) is held against a resonator such as a basket, a drum, or a plank over a hole in the ground, and rubbed with a stick. The rubbing of the stick back and forth over the notches provides the vibration of the instrument. The sound was felt to reproduce the growling of the bear. Back in 1980 my wife and I attended the spring Bear Dance at Ignacio in the Ute Mountain Ute reservation in southwestern Colorado. The continuing low drone of the morache is immensely compelling and quickly begins to resonate in the mind of the listeners. Rault points out that with the striations marked on the side of the horn held by the “Venus of Laussel” it could have been played as a rasp, rubbed with a stick like the Ute morache and the conical form of the horn would also provide the resonating chamber. Perhaps this sound echoing within the cave would provide a roaring or growling sound to emulate one of the great animals painted on the cave walls.

 

Stalactites as lithophone, South Africa. p.25, Rault, Lucy,
Musical Instruments, Craftsmanship and Tradition
from Prehistory to the Present, 2000.

Another interesting possibility for music played within a cave is provided by the presence of stalactite and stalagmite formations which can be played as a percussion instrument. Such a formation used to make music is known as a lithophone, a stone instrument. Rault stated that in some of the painted caves of Europe evidence remains as signs of impact on such stalactite and stalagmite formations that would ring like a xylophone when struck with a wooden, bone, or perhaps an antler hammer.

As I stated in my previous column none of this is proof that there was ever any playing of music in company with rock art painted on the cave walls. We must, however, acknowledge that it could have been, and I prefer to assume that on ceremonial occasions music and other sound effects would have been included in at least some of the ceremonies.

REFERENCE:

Rault, Lucy, 2000, Musical Instruments, Craftsmanship and Tradition from Prehistory to the Present, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York.

HORSE PETROGLYPHS AS INDICATORS OF CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION – Part 4:

And now the fourth and final installment:

Recording team led by Jim Keyser and Mark Mitchell, Box Canyon Site, 5LA8464, Las Animas County, Colorado. Photograph Peter Faris, August 1999. Jim Keyser on the ladder.

The latter stages of the Narrative Mode of Plains Biographic Style art represent story-telling and the recording of deeds and events. One excellent example is 5LA8464, the Box Canyon Site.

Box Canyon Site, 5LA8464, Picketwire Canyon Lands, Bent County, Colorado. Photograph Peter Faris, August 1999. Tracing of the full panel. Recording team led by Jim Keyser and Mark Mitchell.

The recently discovered (1998 or 1999, recent as of when this was first written) Box Canyon Site (5LA8464) in the Picketwire Canyonlands of the Purgatoire River valley has a lightly engraved panel of Plains Biographic images. It consists of a single, large rectilinear-bodied anthropomorph with a complex composition lightly engraved over it with a number of equestrian figures, and elk, a bear, probable horses, and a probably tipi, and it displays narrative details that suggest decipherable meaning.

Box Canyon Site, 5LA8464, Picketwire Canyon Lands, Bent County, Colorado. Photograph Peter Faris, August 1999. Photograph and tracing of the right side of the panel.

Two equestrian figures on the right are surrounded by riderless horses that may represent horses captured on a horse raid. One of the equestrian figures wears Paynee-style cuffed moccasinns (Afton et al. 1997:18), and both horsemen on the right side of the panel wear long, trailing scalp locks that are also often identified as Pawnee (Afton et al. 1997:18). One of these horsemen fires a rifle toward the horseman on the left side of the panel. Additionally, these figures have zigzag reins which may symbolize lightning power. In Black Elk's 'Horse Dance', which re-enacted his vision, the horses were painted with lightning stripes and hail spots (Brown 1997:58). Lightning stripes were also a common theme on horses painted for war (Mails 1991:223). The two horses with riders on the right, the horse with an incomplete rider partly obscured by the large figure in the center, and the horse with a rider on the far left are equipped with decorated halters. Jim Keyser (1991:261, 1987:57-58) stated that "one of the most common pieces of horse gear depicted in Biographic Style art is a decorated halter." The decorated bridles at the Box Canyon Site were described by Keyser and Mark Mitchell (2001:202) as "wavy, dangling chains" and were compared to examples drawn on a pawnee decorated robe illustrated by John Ewers (1939:Pl.23).

Box Canyon Site, 5LA8464, Picketwire Canyon Lands, Bent County, Colorado. Photograph Peter Faris, August 1999. Detail of the left side of the panel, horse and rider in front of a tipi.

On the left side of the panel one figure on horseback in front of the tipi probably represents the defense of the village (this horse is incomplete). The figure has been struck by and arrow which sticks in its chest. This composition may, in fact, represent a Pawnee horse raid on another tribe's village. From the location and age of the panel it is likely that this resident tribe was Cheyenne or Arapaho, the primary residents of the area during the later historic period.

Box Canyon Site, 5LA8464, Picketwire Canyon Lands, Bent County, Colorado. Photograph Peter Faris, August 1999. Tracing of he left side of the panel, horse and rider in front of a tipi.

As stated above, the mode of portrayal (Iconic or Narrative) of horses in rock art suggests the stage of assimilation of the horse into the society that produced that rock art.

While scholars all agree that the horse had a tremendous effect upon the cultures of the tribes of the original peoples of the Great Plains, just what that effect was is still argued. One side maintains that the horse was merely a cause of intensification, a catalyst as it were, for traits that were already present among the tribes (Carlson 1998:39, Mails 1991:216, Roe 1955:179), while the other side sees the horse as the stimulus to the radical revolution that completely remade the cultures of the peoples of the Great Plains from pedestrian semi-horticulturists to the height of their lives as the Horse Tribes of the late 17th to late 19th centuries (Harrod 1987:9, Mayhall 1987:109).

Farrington Springs, Bent County, CO. Photograph Peter Faris, May 2002. In this scene the horse on the right, the shield figure in the center and the bent over V-necked figure on the left, with a rifle between them, imply a narrative.

As is so often the case in such debates, there is truth in both positions. In the beginning the Indians accepted the horse as a wonderful convenience, and fit it into their lifestyle as it then existed. The horse began as a tool that allowed them to do many things better than before: when pulling a travois it could handle a much bigger load than any dog; for hunting buffalo it made the hunt more reliable by its ability to cover large distances and possessed the speed to run down the quarry; and in war it magnified the striking power of the warrior and vastly enlarged the area he could fight over. In the process the horse remade the cultures and societies of the peoples of the Great Plains.

Ford Mustang. Online photograph, public domain.

In the end, the effect of the horse on the people of the Great Plains can perhaps be likened to the effect of the automobile on the culture of 20th century America. At first, in a horse and buggy culture, the automobile was used as local transportation of questionable reliability. Indeed, its early designation of "horseless carriage" is a striking parallel to Indian names such as "elk dog" for the horse. The automobile went on to grow in importance until it became a major factor in molding societal and cultural change; look at the effect of the interstate highway system on the society of America and its urban landscape. The automobile, like the horse, was an improved means of transportation and could haul more goods and possessions, which greatly affected the economy. The automobile, like the horse, has revolutionized warfare; and the automobile, like the horse, has become an indicator of wealth. By the middle of the 20th century teenage boys dreamed of owning their first car the way that young Indian boys must have dreamed about owning horses and, like the early days of the automobile, conservative tribal elders had probably predicted that the horse was merely a passing fad.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.  

REFERENCES:

Afton, J., D. F. Halaas, and A. E. Masich, 1997, Cheyenne Dog Soldiers, a Ledgerbook History of Coups and Combat, Colorado Historical Society and University Press of Colorado, Denver.

Brown, Joseph E., 1997, Animals of the Soul, Element Books, Inc., Rockport Massachusetts.

Carlson, Paul H., 1998, The Plains Indians, Texas A & M Press, College Station, Texas.

Ewers, John C., 1939, Plains Indian Painting, A Description of an Aboriginal American Art, Stanford University Press, Palo Alto.

Harrod, Howard L., 1987, Renenewing the World, Plains Indian Religion and Morality, University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

Keyser James D.

1991, A Thing to Tie on the Halter: An Addition to the Plains Rock Art Lexicon, Plains Anthropologist, 36(136):261-267. 

1987, A Lexicon for Historic Plains Indian Rock Art: Increasing Interpretive Potential, Plains Anthropologist, 32(115):43-71.

Keyser, James D. and Mark Mitchell, 2001, Decorated Bridles: Horse Tack in Plains Biographic Rock Art, Plains Anthropologist, 46(176):195-210.

DID EINSTEIN REALLY INVENT GENERAL RELATIVITY? AN ANCIENT VERSION ON THE CLIFFS OF THE PICKETWIRE CANYONLANDS IN SOUTHEAST COLORADO - FOR APRIL 1, 2024:

Petroglyphs in the Purgatory Canyon (Picketwire), Bent County, Colorado, that some people believe resemble Archaic Northern African scripts. Photograph Peter Faris, June 1991.

Did Albert Einstein really come up with the Theory of Relativity (his famous E=MC²) first?

In the August 2015 issue of Scientific American magazine, Tony Rothman had an article asking “Was Einstein the First to Invent E=mc²?” Rothman pointed to a number of mathematicians that had played around with formulae approaching that over the years.

Petroglyphs in the Purgatory Canyon (Picketwire), Bent County, Colorado, that some people believe resemble Archaic Northern African scripts. Photograph Peter Faris, June 1991.

“Anyone who sits through a freshman electricity and magnetism course learns that charged objects carry electric fields, and that moving charges also create magnetic fields. Hence, moving charged particles carry electromagnetic fields. Late 19th-century natural philosophers believed that electromagnetism was more fundamental than Isaac Newton’s laws of motion and that the electromagnetic field itself should provide the origin of mass. In 1881 J. J. Thomson, later a discoverer of the electron, made the first attempt to demonstrate how this might come about by explicitly calculating the magnetic field generated by a moving charged sphere and showing that the field in turn induced a mass into the sphere itself.” (Rothman 2015) 

“When Englishman John Henry Poynting announced in 1884 a celebrated theorem on the conservation of energy for the electromagnetic field, other scientists quickly attempted to extend conservation laws to mass plus energy. Indeed, in 1900 the ubiquitous Henri Poincaré stated that if one required that the momentum of any particles present in an electromagnetic field plus the momentum of the field itself be conserved together, then Poynting’s theorem predicted that the field acts as a “fictitious fluid” with mass such that E = mc². Poincaré, however, failed to connect E with the mass of any real body.” (Rothman 2015)

Einstein's first version published on Nov. 25, 1915 (later refined to E=mc². From Green 2015, quoted in Isaacson 2015.

Albert Einstein finally cleared up the loose ends in 1915. "He produced in time for his final lecture on November 25 (1915) - entitled "The Field Equations for Gravitation" - a set of covariant equations that described the general theory of relativity. It was not nearly as vivid to the layperson as, say, E=mc². Yet using the condensed notations of tensors, in which sprawling mathematical complexities can be compressed into little subscripts, the crux of the final Einstein field equation is complex enough to be emblazoned on T-shirts worn by physics geeks. In one of its many variations , it can be written as: Rµν -1/2gµνR= -8 πGTµν. The left side of the equation - which is now known as the Einstein tensor and can be written simply as Gµν - describes how the geometry of spac time is warped and curved by massive objects. The right side describes the movement of matter in the gravitational field. The interplay between the two sides shows how objects curve spacetime and how, in turn, this curvature affects the motion of objects."(Greene 2015:43).” (Isaacson 2015)

Petroglyphs in the Purgatory Canyon (Picketwire), Bent County, Colorado, that some people believe resemble Archaic Northern African scripts, perhaps predating Einstein's famous equation. Photograph Peter Faris, June 1991.

A group of researchers have spent years investigating abstract inscriptions pecked into the rocks of southeast Colorado, particularly focusing on ones that appear to be lines of script that some of them liken to various northern Arabian scripts such as proto-Phoenician and others even earlier. Now, we all know that the ancient inhabitants of Arabia were quite sophisticated in mathematics. In the centuries before Christ inhabitants of the Fertile Crescent invented many of the mathematical techniques still used today.

Close-up of petroglyphs in the Purgatory Canyon (Picketwire), Bent County, Colorado. Photograph Peter Faris, June 1991. These had been enhanced on the cliff at least 40 years ago.

This brings me to the particular inscription from the Picketwire Canyonlands illustrated above. If this could be proven to be a variant of one of the northern Arabian scripts, when compared to Einstein’s formula it seems to show an uncanny resemblance. Could this be the work of an Archaic mathematical genius in southeastern Colorado? You be the judge on this First of April.

NOTE: I added the equivalency symbol (=) in the last illustration to help clarify the concept for April 1. These petroglyphs had been highlighted with aluminum paint by persons unknown some time back in the 1980s I believe (I am pretty sure I do know who but they have never admitted to anything). There had been a short fashion of highlighting petroglyphs with aluminum powder mixed with water that some students of rock art flirted with before they realized that it would change the chemistry of the patina. They believed that the next rain would wash everything away doing no damage. In my opinion someone new to the field misinterpreted that to mean aluminum paint.

REFERENCE:

Isaacson, Walter, 2015, How Einstein Reinvented Reality, September 2015, Scientific American, Volume 313, No. 3, pp. 38-45.

Rothman, Tony, 2015, Was Einstein the First to Invent E=mc²?, 18 August 2015, Scientific American, Volume 313, No. 3.

SECONDARY REFERENCE:

Greene, Brian, 2015, Einstein: Why He Matters, Scientific American, Volume 313, No. 3, Sept. 2015, pages 34 - 37,

HORSE PETROGLYPHS AS INDICATORS OF CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION – Part 3:

As the use of, and dependence upon, the horse became integral to Indian societies Iconic portrayals continued to be produced in some instances (such as records of visions) but the bulk of these were supplanted by portrayals in the Narrative Mode where the horses began to be shown interacting with people and situations.

Early Narrative Mode horse and figures, Farrington Springs, Bent County, Colorado. Photograph Peter Faris.

Narrative Mode: The final stage of portrayals includes identifiable, and even individual, personal details. The horse is shown with tack and gear and other identifiable equestrian accoutrements including decorative elements and painted designs such as hand prints and lightning bolts. These portrayals represent the complete assimilation of the horse into the Plains Indian cultures. (Faris 2001:6)

Horse and rider with tack and gear, painted by Ute Chief Jack House, Montezuma County, Colorado. Photograph Donald Tucker, 1991.

Equestrian figure with spotted cat name glyph, Farrington Springs, Bent County, Colorado. Photograph Peter Faris, 2002.

Additionally, the horse is often one element in an overall composition that is intended to illustrate a personal deed or historical event. The warrior and his horse were so conceptually integrated that it made no sense to show one without the other. These images, with identifiable personal details, show not the horse as spiritual power and potential, or abstract potential in warfare and buffalo hunting, but as a specific and identifiable individual and his mount. In one sense the horse is illustrated as just another accessory possessed by the warrior, like his shield and weapons, but in another sense the horse is presented as a specific, identifiable individual. In some instances context is also indicated. Village scenes are indicated by the presence of triangles that represent tipis. This mode of representation can be classified as narrative. 

Paiute, horse in a barn, Fremont Indian State Park, Utah. Photograph Peter Faris, 2001.

The Narrative Mode corresponds to the ethnographically documented Plains Tradition of 'war record' imagery found on painted bison robes and shirts (Klassen 1998:45). This aspect of the horse is reinforced by the presence in some later representations of a brand on the flank of the horse. The brand is not only an identifiable personal detail of a specific and identifiable animal, but it is also representative of the Plains Tradition of 'war record' imagery since a horse with a brand must have originated with a white man, and was probably acquired by capture in a raid or other deed of war (Faris 2001:8).

Ute Raid Panel, Canyon del Muerto, Arizona. Photograph Peter Faris, 1997.

Iconic and Narrative portrayals are well documented in representational images on items of material culture including bison robes, shields, tipis, and clothing. Their presence in rock art has been documented by Keyser (1987, 1977) and others. Klassen (1998:44) associated the narrative mode with Keyser's Ceremonial Style. Both of these styles and thus both of these modes of portrayal, can be found in rock art, and provide analytical tools to apply in deciphering its content and clues to the society that produced it (this type of analysis can also be applied to other subjects found in rock art - for instance the gun). (Faris 2001:9)

REFERENCES:

Faris, Peter K., 2001, Horse Petroglyphs as Indicators of Cultural Transformation, pages 1-13, in Southwestern Lore, Winter 2001, Vol. 67, No. 4, Colorado Archaeological Society, Denver.

Keyser, James D., 1987, A Lexicon for Historic Plains Indian Rock Art: Increasing Interpretive Potential, in Plains Anthropologist, 32(115): 43-71.

Keyser, James D., 1977, Writing-On-Stone: Rock Art on the Northwestern Plains, in Canadian Journal of Archaeology-1, pp. 15-80.

Klassen, Michael A., 1998, Icon and Narrative in transition: contact-period rock art at Writing-On-Stone, Southwestern Alberta, Canada. In The Archaeology of Rock Art, edited by Christopher Chippindale and Paul S. Taçon, pp. 42-72, Cambridge University Press.

HORSE PETROGLYPHS AS INDICATORS OF CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION – PART 2:

The Cheyenne acquiring their first horse by trading. Ledger Book art by Howling Wolf (Southern Cheyenne). Online image, public domain.

In Part 1 of this series I presented the concept of the early Iconic Mode of horse portrayals illustrating them as somewhat otherworldly spiritual beings. At this stage the horse was shown separately and usually alone. The latter Iconic Mode shows the beginnings of integrating the horse into the Native American culture.

The Blackfoot name for the horse translates as “elk dog”. A name like “elk dog” expresses the results of fitting a new element into preconceived mental templates. When they saw their first horse it was an animal the size of an elk, but domesticated like the dogs around their own camp – thus “elk dog”. Predictably this was not unique to the Blackfoot. “Other tribes of the Great Plains also regarded the horse as strong medicine. Witness the Sioux name for this animal – Shonka Wakan, “Medicine Dog.” (Ewers 1997:207)

Equestrian figure, Shavano Canyon, Montrose County, Colorado. Photograph Peter Faris, 1981.

The Piegan name for the horse was "Missutuim - Big Dogs" (Secoy 1966:36). As the dog was the only domesticated animal that the inhabitants of the Great Plains knew, variations of Dog were natural for naming horses. As Michael Klassen (1998:67) stated: "An individual's first encounter with horses would have been a unique, astonishing, and totally unprecedented experience, which would not immediately fit within the explanatory cultural framework available. The uniqueness of this event, and its lack of cosmic or mythical precedence, may have on a certain level encouraged the recognition of its 'historicality.'"

Equestrian figure, Farrington Springs, Bent County, Colorado. Photograph Peter Faris, 2002.

In later stages of the Iconic Mode, horse portrayals are usually shown with a rider, but anonymously, without details or characteristics that identify the image as representing a specific occasion or individual. This implies an acceptance and appreciation of what the horse and rider together can represent, but shown as an abstract concept instead of an individual portrayal. These modes of representation are both classifiable as iconic. Klassen (1998:53) noted that mounted Horse motifs do not intrinsically display a greater degree of narrativity than that noted for the unmounted Horse motif.

Equestrian figure, Hayden, Routt County, Colorado. Photograph Peter Faris, 1986.

Images portrayed in the Iconic mode lack time sequence relationships (Maurer et al. 1992:23) so they do not represent a specific time, place, or event, but rather evoke the eternal present of the spirit world. Iconic images can be recognized as presentations of sacred subject matter and themes, such as the objects and beings associated with visions and medicine powers. Furthermore the thematic and formal repetition of Iconic motifs reflects the ritualized nature of sacred activities (Klassen 1998:45) 

The development of horse imagery through the Iconic Mode presents the early phases of Plains Biographic Style art.

Equestrian figure, Shield Cave, Glenwood Canyon, Eagle County, Colorado. Photograph Peter Faris, 1991.

As the use of, and dependence upon, the horse became integrel to Indian societies Iconic portrayals continued to be produced in some instances (such as records of visions) but the bulk of these were supplanted by portrayals in the Narrative Mode (Faris 2001:5-6). The Narrative Mode represents the more familiar imagery that we are used to in Plains Biographic Art, in with the artist is recording a deed or event, or telling a story. This can also be seen in rock art produced in the Plains Biographic Style. I will go into this in the next part of the series.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Ewers, John C., 1997, Plains Indian History and Culture: Essays in Continuity and Change, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman..

Faris, Peter K., 2001, Horse Petroglyphs as Indicators of Cultural Transformation, pages 1 - 13, in Southwestern Lore, Winter 2001, Vol. 67, No. 4, Colorado Archaeological Society, Denver.

Klassen, Michael A., 1998, Icon and Narrative in transition: contact-period rock art at Writing-On-Stone, Southern Alberta, Canada. In The Archaeology of Rock Art, edited by Christopher Chippindale, and Paul S. Taçon, pp. 42-72. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Maurer, E. M., L. Lincoln, G. Horse Capture, D. W. Penney and Father P. J. Powell, 1992, Visions of the People: A Pictorial History of Plains Indian Life. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Secoy, F. R., 1966, Changing Military Patterns on the Great Plains (17th Century through Early 19th Century), in Monographs of the American Ethnological Society No. 21. Edited by Esther S. Goldfrank, University of Washington Press, Seattle.

HORSE PETROGLYPHS AS INDICATORS OF CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION – PART 1:

Horses at Little Bighorn (Custer) battlefield, Montana. Photograph Peter Faris.

Every once in a while, inexplicably, some of the columns disappear from RockArtBlog. Now I have no idea if this is done by blogger.com, by hackers, or poltergeists, but I have found it has happened again. A series of columns on horses in rock art that I posted years ago just isn't here anymore. Therefore I am rewriting this series of columns under the title Horse Petroglyphs as Indicators of Cultural Transformation.

Horse petroglyph, Purgatoire Canyon, Bent County, Colorado. Photograph Peter Faris.

The acquisition of horses by Native peoples led to a rapid transformation of Plains Indian life. Not only was the horse a powerful agent of change to the tribes of Plains and Plateau Indians who acquired it, it became a symbol of that change as well. The style of portrayals of horses in rock art changed over the years indicating the people’s attitude toward, and cultural assimilation of, the horse. This process is illustrated by examples of horses in rock art as well as other media used by Native American artists. (Faris 2001:1)

Horse petroglyph from Writing-on-stone Provincial Park, Canada. Photograph Peter Faris.

I first addressed this subject in my 2001 publication of Horse Petroglyphs as Indicators of Cultural Transformation, in Southwestern Lore, Winter 2001, Vol. 67, No. 4, the quarterly journal of the Colorado Archaeological Society, pages 1 - 13. It resulted from a period of research into various horse petroglyphs and pictographs with attention to the implications that details of the portrayals might carry. Starting with the fact that the presence of the horse at all allows us to make age estimates I wanted to look for other forms of information that the horse images might infer. Michael Klassen’s 1998 paper on Icon and Narrative in transition: contact-period rock art at Writing-On-Stone, Southern Alberta, Canada. In The Archaeology of Rock Art, edited by Christopher Chippindale, and Paul S. C. Taçon, pp. 42-72. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, presented the concept of the varying Modes of Plains Biographic art and provided the framework that I had been looking for. The results, although now somewhat dated, may still prove of interest and provide some value in our thinking about contact period rock art.

Lakota Painted Shield cover, ca. 1850. Illustration from Norman Feder, American Indian Art.

Cheyenne sunshade, 1860s, collected at Fort C. F. Smith. Illustration from Feder, American Indian Art.

The acquisition of the horse by the societies of the Great Plains is reflected in the art that was produced by members of those societies. Those portrayals consisst of images painted on hides for shields, war shirts, robes, and tipis, as well as later in ledger books. Other examples may be found that were created in quillwork or beadwork on clothing and leather accessories. The most durable examples of their art are the petroglyphs and pictographs caved into cliffs and boulders, or painted in rock overhangs and caves. Horse images in rock art can be divided into two modes designated iconic and narrative (Klassen 1998:44) which represent the Plains Ceremonial and Plains Biographic traditions defined by Keyser (1977:49-55). The designation of Iconic Mode refers to images created for what appear to be spiritual purposes and Narrative Mode designates images that seem to record events and illustrate deeds. In this context mode refers to the qualities of the image that provide insight into the artist's attitude toward the subject. Mode is thus essentially independent of stylistic qualities. (Faris 2001:1) 

Horse petroglyph, Purgatoire Canyon, Bent County, Colorado. Photograph Peter Faris.

The importance of the horse can be inferred from their frequency of portrayal. Mayhall (1987:159) found that "the most frequently depicted figures were those of horsed, showing the concern of the Plains Indians with the horse, its capture, and its use", and Keyser (1987:52) states that "horses are second only to human figures as the primary components of Biographic art." Plains Indian artists reflected aesthetic concerns in their use of horse imagery, yet their representations also reflect the broader social contexts in which the images were produced. These broader contexts were also reflected in horse images produced in rock art.

Picture Canyon, Baca County, Colorado. Photograph Peter Faris.

Iconic Mode: Iconic portrayals present the subject as an essentially isolated figure, essentially as a record of the subject as a repository of spiritual power, not as part of a larger event or composition. Earlier portrayals of the horse tend to present it as an isolated figure, without accessories or specific details, and usually without a rider or other human accompaniment. This implies that the concept of the horse was seen as an "other", something with medicine power of its own that can be spiritually, if not physically, separate from the people in general and from the individual in particular. The horse is present because of that spiritual power, or the impact it separately has upon the life of the people. It was seen as a special contributor to the well-being of the society. (Faris 2001:4-5)

There were some stylistic changes in horse portrayal with the passage of time. Ewers (1939:33) noted that the hook-like hoof had a wide distribution in the early nineteenth century paintings of horses. It may be seen (painted) on hides from tribes as remote from one another as the Blackfoot and the Wichita. This wide distdribution, coupled with the fact that this feature is usually a part of a relatively crude representation of the horse, suggests that it is an old way of representing the hoof in Plains Indian painting which was later discarded in some localities where a more realistic form of hoof came into use along with a more realistic representation of the entire animal. (Faris 2001:5) This hook-like hoof can be found on early examples of horse imagery in rock art that represent the early Iconic Mode. 

I have presented this earliest form of Iconic Mode horse portrayal above. Subsequent postings will follow the development of horse portrayals in rock art imagery and will illustrate their transition from later stages of the Iconic Mode to the Narrative Mode as Plains Biographic art is elaborated and spread. The style of these portrayals suggests the stage of incorporation of the horse into the cultures of the Native Americans and gives us a basis for rough estimates of the date of the portrayal as well.

REFERENCES:

Ewers, John C., 1939, Plains Indian Painting, A Description of an Aboriginal American Art. Stanford University Press, Palo Alto.

Faris, Peter K., 2001, Horse Petroglyphs as Indicators of Cultural Transformation, pages 1 - 13, in Southwestern Lore, Winter 2001, Vol. 67, No. 4, Colorado Archaeological Society, Denver.

Keyser, James D., 1977,  Writing-On Stone: Rock Art on the Northwestern Plains. Canadian Journal of Archaeology, 1:15-80.

1987, A Lexicon for Historic Plains Indian Rock Art: Increasing Interpretive Potential. Plains Anthropologist, 32(115):43-71.

Klassen, Michael A., 1998, Icon and Narrative in Transition: contact-period rock art at Writing-On-Stone, Southern Alberta, Canada. In The Archaeology of Rock Art, edited by Christopher Chippindale, and Paul S. Taçon, pp. 42-72. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Mayhall, M. P., 1987, The Kiowas. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.