Saturday, July 20, 2013
PICTOGRAPH PIGMENTS - PAINT MINES, COLORADO:
White clay deposits, Paint Mines, Calhan, El Paso county,
Colorado. Photograph: Peter Faris, 2007.
Northeast of Colorado Springs, Colorado, 35 to 40 miles on
highway #24 is found the small town of Calhan in El Paso county, Colorado.
Right outside Calhan is a magical place known as Paint Mines. This is a local
with a deposit of strikingly white selenite clays eroded into interesting
shapes. Other exposed veins of clay have golden yellow, rose pink and purplish
mauve coloring.
This is a place where Native Americans of the Great Plains
could gather pigments for both decorative and ceremonial use. Historian Andrew
Gulliford has documented this use and has written that such places were held
sacred and neutral by all the tribes. “Great
Plains paint mines were neutral territory, and warring tribes could gather red,
yellow, and black clay in peace without attacking one another. Sacred paint
sources include the paint mines near Calhan, Colorado, and in Wyoming at
Sunrise and Rawlins. A Colorado cave contains every clay color needed in Ute
religious ceremonies.” (Gulliford 2000:77-78)
It is likely that many white painted pictographs (as well as
some other colors) in the region had their origin in the pigments collected in
this amazing and beautiful location.
Note: The cave mentioned in Gulliford (2000:77-78) is
probably Shield Cave which I wrote about in my posting of December 26, 2011,OCHRE PIGMENT IN PICTOGRAPHS.
REFERENCE:
Gulliford, Andrew
2000 Sacred
Objects and Sacred Places: Preserving Tribal Traditions, University Press
of Colorado, Boulder.
Labels:
Calhan,
Colorado,
Paint Mine,
pictograph,
pigments,
rock art
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