A BIGHORN SHEEP/RAINBOW PETROGLYPH:

On an August afternoon in 2003, friends Bill and Jeannie guided us to visit the Mortandad Ruin near Los Alamos, NM. The remaining ruins consist primarily of a cliff of cavates, rooms excavated into relatively soft volcanic tuff. There is also a considerable amount of rock art, some of it petroglyphs pecked into the cliff walls, and some of it images carved into the smoke-blackened walls of cavates, exposing the light colored tuff beneath. A probable sun symbol in one caveate consists of a circle around a dot (a haloed sun) with approximately sixteen short tic marks on the inside of the circle pointing roughly toward the central dot. Another haloed sun symbol petroglyph carved near the top of the cliff consists of approximately six concentric circles around a central dot.

While inspecting a cloud petroglyph on a generally southwestern-facing point near the top of the cliff I realized what a marvelous weather-spotting point this actually was. I could see a thunderstorm clearing the canyon rim far down the broad valley, bringing refreshing rain to a hot summer afternoon on an arid and sun-facing cliff, and which seemed to fully explain the cloud petroglyphs in that location.

Bighorn sheep petroglyph with a rainbow

on his left horn. Mortendad ruin, New Mexico.

Photo: Peter Faris, August, 2003.

On September 16, 2009, I did a posting about that weather-watching station and the weather-related rock art found there. Also found in that weather-watcher’s station, near the cloud petroglyphs, a small and carefully carved rainbow reminds us of the joyful conclusion of this refreshing summer rain. This rainbow is carved on the left horn (to our right) of the head of a bighorn sheep. This head with horns is presented in the relatively unusual aspect of a frontal view, instead of the usual side view of the sheep’s head. Heart shaped petroglyphs on the right side of the panel represent other sheep’s heads seen in frontal view, but only the one on the left has the rainbow carved into his left horn. So is there a connection between bighorn sheep and rainbows that could help explain this image?

Close-up of bighorn sheep petroglyph with a rainbow

on his left horn. Mortendad ruin, New Mexico.

Photo: Peter Faris, August, 2003.

In Landscapes of the Spirits: Hohokam Rock Art at South Mountain Park (2002), archaeologist Todd Bostwick wrote about the meteorological connotations of bighorn sheep in the American southwest. “Ethnographer Amadeo Rey has noted that no other animal was treated with such awe and reverence by the O’odham as the mountain sheep. Called “Cheson” by the Northern Pima, the bighorn sheep was closely associated with the wind. Some villages had shrines dedicated to the wind and Cheson. Parts of the mountain sheep are very powerful; both the hides and horns must be kept in a safe, respected location to avoid insulting the wind and bringing on violent storms.” 

Thus we have the fact of the conjunction of bighorn sheep head and rainbow symbol, in a location which seems to be devoted to weather watching, and mythological connections between bighorn sheep and weather in the American Southwest, all suggesting that the curved lines superimposed on the bighorn sheep’s left horn are indeed representative of a rainbow.

Reference:
Bostwick, Todd W., Landscapes of the Spirits: Hohokam Rock Art at South Mountain Park, 2002, University of Arizona Press, Tucson.