PLANTS IN ROCK ART - SPROUTING SEEDS?

 

 

 

Sprouting bean petroglyph? Petroglyph Park,

Albuquerque, Bernal County, New Mexico.

Photograph Peter Faris, Sept. 1988.

 

There are petroglyphs on the West Mesa at Albuquerque, that some people identify as arrow fletching, but others tend to see sprouting seeds, particularly beans, in their shapes. The agricultural Ancestral Puebloan peoples relied to a great extent on the three important crops; maize, beans, and squash. We do know that maize or corn is portrayed in rock art, and squash blossoms are an occasional subject in southwestern U.S. rock art. As one of these three staples of their diet, it makes a certain amount of sense that beans would also be included in the catalog of subject matter in rock art of the Puebloan peoples.

 

Sprouting bean petroglyph? Petroglyph Park,

Albuquerque, Bernal County, New Mexico.

Photograph Peter Faris, Sept. 1988.

 

Not only were beans an important food source, they had a role in the ceremonial life of the Puebloan peoples of the American southwest. Sprouted beans play a role in the important ceremony of Powamu in February during which the kachina reappear to the villages. "This ceremony is referred to as the Powamu, or the Bean Dance. The significance of this ceremony is the hope for a successful germination of the crops to be planted later in the spring. During this ceremony dancers distribute bean sprouts that have been grown in heated kivas prior to the ceremony." (www.meta-religion.com)

The Powamu ceremony is opened by the Hopi kachina Ahola, one of the chief kachinas for First and Second Mesas, by rituals inside a kiva before going with the Powamu chief to take prayer feathers to Kachina Spring at the dawn. Afterwards, they visit all of the kivas giving sprouted bean and corn plants. (Wikipedia)

 

 

Sprouting bean seed. inhabit.com.

When a bean seed germinates and sprouts the two halves of the seed split apart and the sprout emerges from between them. This is a fairly good description of the petroglyphs on the West Mesa at Albuquerque, New Mexico, leading to the possibility that they were intended to represent the bean sprouts so vital to this important yearly ceremonial occasion, as well as an important food source to the people who created this rock art.

REFERENCES:

http://www.meta-religion.com/World_Religions/Ancient_religions/North_america/hopi_religion.htm

inhabit.com

Wikipedia