As the use of, and dependence upon, the horse became integral to Indian societies Iconic portrayals continued to be produced in some instances (such as records of visions) but the bulk of these were supplanted by portrayals in the Narrative Mode where the horses began to be shown interacting with people and situations.
Narrative Mode: The final stage of portrayals includes identifiable, and even individual, personal details. The horse is shown with tack and gear and other identifiable equestrian accoutrements including decorative elements and painted designs such as hand prints and lightning bolts. These portrayals represent the complete assimilation of the horse into the Plains Indian cultures. (Faris 2001:6)
Additionally, the horse is often one element in an overall composition that is intended to illustrate a personal deed or historical event. The warrior and his horse were so conceptually integrated that it made no sense to show one without the other. These images, with identifiable personal details, show not the horse as spiritual power and potential, or abstract potential in warfare and buffalo hunting, but as a specific and identifiable individual and his mount. In one sense the horse is illustrated as just another accessory possessed by the warrior, like his shield and weapons, but in another sense the horse is presented as a specific, identifiable individual. In some instances context is also indicated. Village scenes are indicated by the presence of triangles that represent tipis. This mode of representation can be classified as narrative.
The Narrative Mode corresponds to the ethnographically documented Plains Tradition of 'war record' imagery found on painted bison robes and shirts (Klassen 1998:45). This aspect of the horse is reinforced by the presence in some later representations of a brand on the flank of the horse. The brand is not only an identifiable personal detail of a specific and identifiable animal, but it is also representative of the Plains Tradition of 'war record' imagery since a horse with a brand must have originated with a white man, and was probably acquired by capture in a raid or other deed of war (Faris 2001:8).
Iconic and Narrative portrayals are well documented in representational images on items of material culture including bison robes, shields, tipis, and clothing. Their presence in rock art has been documented by Keyser (1987, 1977) and others. Klassen (1998:44) associated the narrative mode with Keyser's Ceremonial Style. Both of these styles and thus both of these modes of portrayal, can be found in rock art, and provide analytical tools to apply in deciphering its content and clues to the society that produced it (this type of analysis can also be applied to other subjects found in rock art - for instance the gun). (Faris 2001:9)
REFERENCES:
Faris, Peter K., 2001, Horse Petroglyphs as Indicators of Cultural Transformation, pages 1-13, in Southwestern Lore, Winter 2001, Vol. 67, No. 4, Colorado Archaeological Society, Denver.
Keyser, James D., 1987, A Lexicon for Historic Plains Indian Rock Art: Increasing Interpretive Potential, in Plains Anthropologist, 32(115): 43-71.
Keyser, James D., 1977, Writing-On-Stone: Rock Art on the Northwestern Plains, in Canadian Journal of Archaeology-1, pp. 15-80.
Klassen, Michael A., 1998, Icon and Narrative in transition: contact-period rock art at Writing-On-Stone, Southwestern Alberta, Canada. In The Archaeology of Rock Art, edited by Christopher Chippindale and Paul S. Taçon, pp. 42-72, Cambridge University Press.
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