Most rock art researchers, at least those in the western United States, know of the rock art in Nine Mile Canyon, Utah. “Nine Mile Canyon is a canyon, approximately 40 miles (64 km) long, located in Carbon and Duchesne counties in eastern Utah, United States. Promoted as the ‘world’s longest art gallery’, the canyon is known for its extensive rock art, most of it created by the Fremont culture and the Ute people. The rock art, shelters, and granaries left behind by the Fremont make Nine Mile Canyon a destination for archaeologists and tourists alike.” (Wikipedia)
“Gauchos used boleadoras to capture running cattle or game. Depending on the exact design, the thrower grasps the beleadora by one of the weights or by the nexus of the cords. The thrower gives the balls momentum by swinging them and then releases the boleadora. The weapon is usually used to entangle the animals legs. - There is no uniform design; most bolas have two or three balls, but there are versions of up to eight or nine.” (Wikipedia)
I believe that the actual structure of a boleadora is well known. A weight (like a stone ball) is enclosed in a leather or net pouch and attached by a long cord to other weights at a central point where the cords are all tied together. Well it so happens that round stone balls are an earmark of Fremont occupation sites.
“A number of other material items, such as stone balls, basin-shaped metates with small secondary grinding surfaces, and elongated, corner-notched arrow points are characteristic of the Fremont - .” (Madsen 1989:9) And “for a long time stone balls commonly found at Fremont village sites were thought to be part of a game but recent work suggests they may have been used with metates.” (Madsen 1989:33) And finally, “Some stone balls, such as this highly polished specimen from the Old Woman site, suggest a use other than as a grinding tool.” (Madsen 1989:66) So, did the Fremont use boleadoras to catch game? None have ever been found so, apart from this enigmatic Fremont petroglyh, we have no actual evidence that they did.
The actual panel this figure is part of includes a couple of desert bighorn sheep and some armed human figures including on with a bow and arrow appearing to aim at one of the sheep. So, in a hunting context, a boleadora might make sense, but this is certainly not conclusive.
The other commonly suggested interpretations, or designations, of this figure are “balloon man” and “the juggler”. We can do away with the name “the juggler” because the circles are all connected to each other by lines. This is no way to juggle. And “balloon man”? What balloons? They could be sheep or deer bladders full of water tied together for carrying, but I fear we may never know about this.
I even found one suggestion that the figure represents Spider Woman or Spider Grandmother, the mythical southwestern figure involved in creation and man’s presence on this earth. I suppose that whoever made this suggestion was basing it on some perceived resemblance between the object(s) the figure is carrying and a spider web, but I just cannot accept that similarity.
So, if the object(s) in the figure’s hand is not a boleadora, what could it be? It just might be a ceremonial rattle/tinkler.
A discovery at Antelope House in Canyon de Chelly provides another real possibility. A rattle or tinkler made of walnut shells on yucca twine could provide the model for the item possessed by the figure in the Balanced Rock panel. “An examination of this walnut rattle reveals the ingenuity of its maker. Each yucca cord was carefully twined, then threaded through a native Arizona walnut shell. The ends were then bound together in such a way as to make a handle. There are many rattles made by suspending hoofs or other objects in a similar way, but Brown found only two walnut rattles in the collections she researched. Both came from Canyon de Chelly.” (Hoover 2005:14)
This is a variation on the more common deer or antelope hoof rattle. “The deer hoof rattle usually requires the use of twenty-four or thirty-two hoofs. Since deer are split-hoofed, hooves from three or four deer are needed to make this type of rattle. The hooves are boiled for a period of time so that the bone and cartilage can be removed and then shaped and dried to harden. The handles used for this type of rattle are a combination of leather and fiber cordage. The leather strips are used to attach the hooves to the fiber bundle that serves as the handle. The handle is held in the palm of the hand and the rattle is played by dangling the hooves toward)s the ground and moving the hand in sharp, downward motions.” (Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians)
Although called a rattle in both of these quotes this object is more properly designated as a form of tinkler or shaker, rattles consist of a closed container of some sort with smaller objects inside that rattle when it is shaken. A tinkler is a group of hard objects suspended in such a way that they make a sound when they contact each other while undergoing agitation or shaking. Other tinklers are commonly made of seashells, other types of nut shell, or during the historic period metal cones. And while Antelope House in Canyon de Chelley is a long way from Nine-Mile Canyon in Utah, aspects of the cultures are not so far apart. I assume that the Fremont people of Nine-Mile Canyon used rattles or tinklers like the Ancestral Puebloans of Canyon de Chelley. Therefor I submit that the enigmatic figure of balanced rock is a musician, shaking his tinkler, whether deer or antelope hoof, or walnut shell, we cannot know at this remove in time.
Other petroglyphs in Nine-Mile Canyon, Utah, embody the same general shape and layout, although not shown as being held by an anthropomorph.
Another petroglyph, this one an image from Three-Rivers site in New Mexico, just might represent another example of this form of rattle or tinkler as well.
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:
Hoover, Joanne Sheehy, 2005 Making Prehistoric Music, American Archaeology, Winter 2004-5, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp 12 - 21
Madsen, David B., 1989 Exploring the Fremont, Utah Museum of Natural History and University of Utah, Salt Lake City
Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, Rattlemaking: Rattle Types, Temecula, California, https://www.pechanga-nsn.gov
Schaafsma, Polly, 2002, The Rock Art of Utah, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolas
Wikipedia,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninemile_Canyon_(Utah)
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