DANCING FIGURES:

Vermillion Canyon, Brown's Park, Moffat

County, CO. Photo Peter Faris, 1995.

 We find in some locations images that are generally identified as groups of dancing figures. Some of these are lines of figures holding hands, or all facing the same way in a line, each with a hand on the shoulder of the person in front of them. Other variations of the theme are groups of figures, perhaps facing inward in a circle, or apparently in a line all moving together.

Vermillion Canyon, Brown's Park, Moffat

County, CO. Photo Peter Faris, 1975.

 

 

Inevitably we speculate on the meaning of these figures being some sort of celebration or ceremonial activity. In his 2002 book Landscape of the Spirits: Rock Art at South Mountain Park, Todd Bostwick discussed dancing scenes in rock art. “Characteristically, several anthropomorphs in a row will be holding hands and sometimes one or more hold a cane or staff”. He also mentioned examples of “figures in lively postures suggesting rhythmic movement”. Bostwick cited an Akimel O’odham informant, Archie Russell, who identified dancers in several rock art panels.

Salt Creek, Canyonlands, Utah.

Photo Don Campbell, 1985.

If we accept that much rock art has a spiritual significance and includes spiritual components, then we must also expect to find references to spiritual ceremonies and celebrations. As we know that many (perhaps most) spiritual ceremonies and celebrations of tribal peoples involve group dancing, we may justifiably guess that such scenes are illustrations of such ceremonies and celebrations.

Village of the Great Kivas, Zuni, New

Mexico. Photo Teresa Weedin.

 

 

“The most common event centered pictographs and petroglyphs at Zuni portray ritual dancers and dances. A number of Zunis told me that Figure 3.7 (the panel from the Village of the Great Kivas) represents a group of Zuni “clowns” dancing around a pole during the winter solstice ceremony. Although I have never witnessed this ceremony, I have often seen clowns during the summer rain dances move around the plaza with their arms on each other’s waists in a manner similar to that portrayed in this rock carving. Still, one could hardly refer to this as unambiguous evidence that this particular petroglyph actually depicts part of a specific ceremony. The figures are amorphous enough that one cannot say definitively that they form a distinctive clown group. Moreover, there are only ten clowns who participate in Zuni rituals, yet there are perhaps eleven or twelve in this petroglyph. Finally, the date of the carving is highly uncertain; it could have been carved before the formation of the Zuni tribe in the southwest. In fact, the extreme difficulty in dating rock art images renders most interpretations hypothetical at best.” (Young 2004: 93)

If we accept that much rock art has a spiritual significance and includes spiritual components, then we must also expect to find references to spiritual ceremonies and celebrations. As we know that many (perhaps most) spiritual ceremonies and celebrations of tribal peoples involve group dancing, we may justifiably argue that such scenes may be illustrations of such ceremonies and celebrations. Indeed, Colorado State Archaeologist Richard Wilshusen has argued that many of these portrayals are definitely processions to ceremonial events – enter dancing!

REFERENCES:

Patterson, Alex

1992    A Field Guide To Rock Art Symbols Of The Greater Southwest, Johnson Books, Boulder.

Young, M. Jane

2004    Ethnographic Analogies in Southwestern Rock Art, p. 80-102, in New Dimensions In Rock Art Studies, edited by Ray T. Matheny, Museum of Peoples and Cultures Occasional Papers No. 9, Brigham Young University, Provo.