BIGFOOT MAN, A PORTRAIT OF A 6-FINGERED WARRIOR:

Bigfoot man, McConkie Ranch,

near Vernal, UT. Photograph

Peter Faris, November 2010.

Continuing the subject of the meaning of polydactylic figures in rock art, I present this example known as Bigfoot Man, from McConkey Ranch, outside of Vernal, Utah. Usually noticed for his outsized feet, most people do not even note, or if they do they quickly forget, the fact that this gentleman displays six fingers on his raised right hand (I visited the question of his feet in a previous column, cited below). He is obviously a mighty warrior as he holds what appears to be a war club in his left hand. He also has a trophy head suspended from his left elbow and what seems to be a spear or lance behind his right shoulder.

His importance is attested to by the care and hard work that went into producing his picture, and the fact that he is painted as well as pecked into the rock. This picture is in the style commonly known as Fremont Classical Vernal style and is assumed to date from the peak of their culture, ca. 1100 - 1150 A.D.
 

The archeologist H. Marie Wormington explained her theory of polydactylism in Fremont rock art to me back in the 1980s (a personal conversation). She had found a Fremont burial of a six-fingered man who had deluxe grave goods interred with him and, from that, she inferred that the polydactylism made one "special" in that society, and hence more likely to be considered important. Important enough to bury with special grave goods, and important enough to be pictured on the rocks.

Bigfoot man, McConkie Ranch,

near Vernal, UT. Photograph

Peter Faris, November 2010.

This figure is also endowed with deluxe accessories; he has a special headdress with plumes on each side painted with red and white stripes (perhaps meant to indicate bunches of red and white feathers), he also wears jewelry, a Fremont pectoral is around his neck. These were usually made from bone plaques strung side-by-side on a fiber or sinew cord. He is also wearing a tunic which is belted at the waist. The most unique thing about this figure, however, may be the fact that he is six-fingered on each hand. An obvious portrayal of a "special" figure who is shown with six fingers on each hand. I believe that Marie was absolutely right.

REFERENCE:

Faris, Peter
2015    A Beginner's Mistake - Bigfoot Man at McConkie Ranch, Feb. 15, 2015, rockartblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Bigfoot%20man

A BEGINNER’S MISTAKE – BIGFOOT MAN AT MCCONKIE RANCH:

http://adventr.co/201103/dry-fork-mcconkie-ranch.

Among the marvelous Fremont culture rock art at McConkie Ranch outside Vernal, Utah is the figure known as Bigfoot Man. Done in what Polly Schaafsma called the Classic Fremont Style this figure presents us with an example of a beginner’s mistake. I started my working career by teaching art at a few colleges and my curriculum responsibilities usually included life or figure drawing. Anyone who has actually taught art will recognize this panel immediately as a common error made by beginning students in figure drawing. What it represents is someone starting to draw the figure on a scale that is too large for the surface. Depending upon where the student started the head may be too big for the rest of the body, or some other portion may be seen as outsized. Then they recognize that they have to change the scale to fit the rest of the figure onto the surface. In the case of Bigfoot Man the artist ambitiously began with a pair of large feet and quickly realized that he had to reduce the scale of the rest of the figure to fit onto the chosen rock face.

Some other points to note in this panel; the figure has been given knobby knees which I interpret as an attempt to realistically portray the patella, or knee-cap, and he is shown with six fingers on his hand (polydactylism again). Finally, notice that not only is this panel pecked, but paint has then been added as well, particularly in his headdress. It is an example of mixed-media. Many of the students in my former classes would actually have been happy to have done so well in their initial attempts. This figure is portrayed with details of clothing and headdress as well as weapons. He has a spear or something on his back projecting up above his right shoulder, and he holds a club or axe in his left hand.

Funny looking - yes? This is, however, diagnostic of a situation in which the creation of rock art was actually being taught to someone, and probably critiqued by the teacher. In our culture we call that an art school and it suggests a high degree of sophistication in the Fremont culture as well as providing clues as to how their rock art was produced.

NOTE: This material had originally been posted a couple of years ago but I deleted it in order to update it and add  additional information.

WHERE BARRY FELL – MCCONKIE RANCH:

3-Kings panel detail, McConkey Ranch, Uinta

County, UT. Photo Peter Faris, Sept. 1994.

I now return to the subject of the epigraphy of Barry Fell, and my inability to place any credence in his conclusions when they are based upon obviously falsified material. Actually my first great problem with Mr. Fell was based upon his claims for the identity of the large figure from the so-called “3-Kings” panel at McConkie Ranch outside of Vernal, Utah.

Sea people prisoners, from Medinet Habu, Egypt. 

http://www.phoenician.org/sea_peoples.htm 

“According to the great stele of Rameses III, a major invasion of the Nile Delta was attempted around 1200 B.C. by migrant warriors arriving by ship from the northeast, presumably from Anatolia (modern Turkey and neighboring coasts) and Philistia (Lebanon and neighboring parts of Palestine). These seaborne warriors belonged to a half dozen different tribes, distinguished by their helmets and their shields. Among them were the Shardana (or Sherden) who carried round shields, broadswords, and who wore feathered war bonnets.” (Fell 1980:91-2)

“The principal evidence, however, of Libyan settlement in North America rests in the essentially North Africa word content of the spoken language of the Zuni people today. The matching pairs of words from New Mexico on the one hand and from North Africa on the other are so numerous, and the phonetic relationships so evident, that it is possible to set out the rules of phonetic mutation that govern the derivation of the Zuni language from its Libyan parent language. These phonetic rules are of the same kind as another series I demonstrated in 1973, linking the Libyan language with that of Polynesia. The Polynesian people, like the Libyans themselves, are descended from the Anatolian Sea Peoples who invaded the Mediterranean around 1400 B.C. and , after attacking Egypt and suffering a series of defeats as the Egyptians record, eventually settled Libya. (Fell 1976:176) Fell claims that these sea people/Libyans later became the population that manned ships of the Egyptian navy and that when Egyptian fleets reached North America the Libyan language and customs persisted in their colonies here.

In his 1980 book Saga America, Fell identified the large figure in the center of the 3-Kings Panel at McConkie Ranch outside of Vernal Utah as a warrior of the Sea People. I presume this was done on the basis of the distinctive headdress on the figure which does bear a resemblance to those worn by Sherden warriors in the friezes of Ramses III. 

Flicker feather headdress from Mantle Cave,http://cumuseum.colorado.edu.

However, in 1939, a flicker feather headdress was discovered in excavations at Mantle Cave in Dinosaur National Monument quite near McConkie Ranch. 

“One of the Museum's most beautiful objects is a flicker feather headdress, which was recovered during 1939-1940 excavations of Mantle's Cave in the center of Dinosaur National Monument in the far northwest corner of Colorado. This area was inhabited prehistorically by a hunter/gatherer/horticulturalist group that archaeologists call the Fremont, and in historic times by the Ute, a Numic-speaking tribe. 

The headdress is intricately constructed and was found in a buckskin pouch. It is made of flicker feathers, ermine, and buckskin. More than 370 feathers are in the headdress. Six feathers at the center of the crest are from the yellow-shafted flicker and the rest of the feathers are central tail feathers of the red-shafted flicker. Interestingly, the red flicker is native west of the Rockies, while the yellow flicker lives east of the Rockies. The feathers are carefully trimmed and the quills sewn together with sinew. They are placed between strips of ermine and laced into place. Rawhide thongs at either end of the ermine may have been used to hold the headdress in place when it was worn. Long wing feathers adorn the ends.

The original excavators of Mantle's Cave dubbed this object a headdress, although its use remains uncertain. It dates to A.D. 996-1190, which is the transitional time period between the Fremont people and Numic-speaking people in this area, so it could have belonged to either cultural group.” (http://cumuseum.colorado.edu/exhibits/objects/flicker-feather-headdress)

Barry Fell, Saga America, 1980,

Times Books, New York, p. 102.

So where Fell saw a Sherden warrior from the eastern Mediterranean, I see a Fremont warrior wearing a flicker feather headdress. Vernal, Utah, is a long way from any ocean Barry, especially from the eastern Mediterranean. Then we find that Fell based his analysis on another of those photographs taken from a reconstruction of the original rock art (why not just a photo of the rock art I wonder?) and when examining that childish copy of the great rock art panel we can see differences in the details of the portrayal again (as in the case from Picture Canyon). So once again we have Fell carrying out his interpretations on the basis of faulty data. Watch out Barry, it’s a long fall!

REFERENCES:

http://cumuseum.colorado.edu/exhibits/objects/flicker-feather-headdress

http://www.phoenician.org/sea_peoples.htm 

Fell, Barry

1976    America B.C., Demeter Press, New York.

1980    Saga America, Times Books, New York

Wikipedia

THE MOST NORTHERN KOKOPELLI:

The figure that we call Kokopelli has been adapted from the beliefs of the Pueblo peoples of the American southwest. This character often has a humped or rounded back and something like a flute held to, or projecting from, his mouth. In Pueblo beliefs he is sometimes also called the Robber Fly or Assassin Fly kachina because that insect is humpbacked and has long flute-like mouthparts. He frequently appears with a Flute Kachina and sometimes carries no flute until he borrows the flute from the Flute Kachina. When that occurs the Assassin Fly Kachina becomes Kokopelli, the hump-backed flute player. This character that we identify as Kokopelli is commonly found throughout the four corners region (Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah) of the American southwest, and has been identified with prehistoric cultures from that area.

McConkey Ranch, Vernal, Uintah County, UT.

Photograph: John Faris, Sept. 1989.

McConkey Ranch,  Vernal, UT. From

Slifer and Duffield, fig. 169, p. 102.

I have often wondered exactly how far north these flute-player images extend. Last week I illustrated a kokopelli pictograph from Canyon Pintado, south of Rangely in western Colorado. In their 1994 book Kokopelli: Flute Player Images in Rock Art, Dennis Slifer  and James Duffield show examples located up in the Vernal, Utah, area and in Dinosaur National Monument. I have seen a couple of these northern flute-players. One is located at the marvelous McConkey Ranch petroglyph site near Vernal, Utah. He is found lying on his back beneath the central figure of a group of figures done by a Fremont culture artist. This figure is hard to see because he is pecked into an area denuded of the desert varnish that sets the other figures off so clearly. I have also included a site drawing of that panel from the Slifer and Duffield (1994:102) book "Kokopelli: Flute Player Images in Rock Art",  which shows the recumbent flute-player much more clearly. 

Cub Creek, Dinosaur Nat. Mon., Uintah county, UT.

Photograph: John and Esther Faris, Sept. 1989.

The other northern flute-player I have seen is from the wonderful Cub Creek site in Dinosaur National Monument (this site also contains the giant lizard petroglyphs on the masthead of this blog). Slifer and Duffield also list a handful of other examples from the Vernal/Dinosaur National Monument area.

So, as I asked above, I wonder how far north the flute-player image actually extends? This area does roughly approximate the northern boundary of the cultures who commonly portray the flute-player in rock art. Other Native American cultures, however, had the flutes and whistles that these figures are thought to represent. Are there examples to be found farther north than this?

REFERENCE:

Slifer, Dennis, and James Duffield,

1994    Kokopelli: Flute Player Images in Rock Art, Ancient City Press, Santa Fe.

PERSPECTIVE ANAMORPHOSIS - AN EXAMPLE IN ROCK ART:

Hans Holbein, The Ambassadors, 1533. Wikipedia.

There is a perspective trick used in the visual arts which can be used to manipulate proportion in an image to affect how it is perceived by the viewer.

 “An anamorphosis is a deformed image that appears in its true shape when viewed in some "unconventional" way. According toWebster's 1913 Dictionary: A distorted or monstrous projection or representation of an image on a plane or curved surface, which, when viewed from a certain point, or as reflected from a curved mirror or through a polyhedron, appears regular and in proportion; a deformation of an image.” (www.anamorphosis.com) When its effect depends upon viewing it from a certain point it is called Perspective Anamorphosis.

One well-known example in art history is the 1533 painting The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein. In this otherwise-straightforward double portrait the is an apparently unrecognizable long blob floating above the floor between the feet of the two subjects which can only be recognized as a skull, a memento mori (reminder of the inevitability of death) when viewed from a viewpoint below and to the left of the painting.

"The Ambassadors (1533) is a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger in the National Gallery, London. As well as being a double portrait, the painting contains a still life of several meticulously rendered objects, the meaning of which is the cause of much debate. It is also a much-cited example of anamorphosis in painting." (Wikipedia)

That skull represents an example of perspective anamorphosis, not recognizable until seen from the correct perspective. Now, what does any of this have to do with the great 3-Kings panel on McConkie Ranch near Vernal, Utah?

3-Kings panel, McConkie Ranch, Uintah County, UT.

Photograph: Peter Faris, September 1989.

On April 23, 2009, I posted a column titled Portraiture In Rock Art in which I discussed the central figure on the 3-Kings panel on McConkie Ranch. It explained my position that a portrayal with so many unique and identifiable features from anatomical details to clothing and accessories deserves to be thought of as a portrait of a specific individual, not just a generic figure. In that posting I wrote; “This figure also displays another interesting detail. When seen from the ground below, the figure appears in normal proportion. When observed from a vantage point near its height the figure is seen to be vertically elongated out of proportion (as seen in the photo above). This suggests that the hand that produced the work was guided by instructions from someone down below at ground level. I enjoy imagining a Fremont Indian artist and his young apprentice creating the portrait of an important man of the band or tribe. The young apprentice forced to climb the rocky crag with his tools and materials where he took direction from the master who stayed down on the ground below shouting to him to “make that line higher, no, a little down from there.” The result appears in realistic proportion from below on the ground, but it is elongated vertically when viewed from a raised viewpoint.”

Vertical proportion diagram (in head heights)

of central figure from 3-Kings panel.

Indeed, this figure measures eight head lengths in height as seen in this diagram, as opposed to the normal five and a half to six head heights seen in a normal human figure. This vertical elongation represents Perspective Anamorphosis, just like the skull seen in the Holbein painting. The only real difference is that I believe that in the McConkie Ranch example the perspective anamorphosis is caused as I said by the figures’ creation under direction from the ground below and the Holbein example is the purposeful result of the artist’s hand.

REFERENCES:

Wikipedia

www.anamorphosis.com

ANOTHER POSSIBLE SOLAR ECLIPSE SYMBOL IN ROCK ART?

On February 9, I posted a column speculating on the existence of total solar eclipses in rock art.  A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes directly in front of the Sun. This is a spectacular sight, even to our modern society which understands the scientific reason for such an occurrence. It was surely even more impressive to our ancient ancestors who did not have our understanding of it. This is another of the subjects that I cannot imagine would not have been commemorated in rock art somewhere. I personally know of no  proven examples, but I do think there are some possible examples. In that February 9 posting I suggested that the Zia Sun symbol might be a representation of the eclipsed sun disc with solar prominences depicted radiating outward.

Possible total eclipse portrayal. Fremont or Ute. Moffat County,

Colorado. Photo: Peter Faris, September 1987.

Most recognizable from the automobile license plate from the state of New Mexico, the Zia sun symbol is actually a good representation of the moment of totality in a solar eclipse when the corona of the sun becomes visible and the sharp-eyed viewer can see the prominences in the solar atmosphere. Indeed, that is the only time one can see this phenomenon with the naked eye, and this suggests that any sun symbol with points, rays, or projections beyond the outer circle might be a representation of a total eclipse. Such an example would be the familiar sun symbol we recognize worldwide. The example illustrated above is from a private ranch in Moffat County, in northwestern Colorado, and may be attributable to the Fremont culture, or the later Ute people of that area.

Sun symbols at McConkie Ranch, Vernal, Utah.

Photog: Peter Faris, 1990.

As I have pointed out elsewhere the symbol generally accepted as a Sun symbol for most peoples of the Southwest is the concentric circle representing the sun disk. A representation of the sun done differently might possibly be assumed to record a remarkable or unique view of the sun, like a total solar eclipse.

As before, I will happily entertain any other examples you might wish to submit. Indeed, it would be interesting to be able to do a posting of a variety of candidates. Please forward any you have to me at rockartblogmail@yahoo.com. 

TOOL USE IN ROCK ART - PROTRACTORS:

One can often deduce a considerable amount from the actual details and form of rock art. In the case of petroglyphs it comes as a surprise to no-one that examining the grooves can suggest whether they were created by incising or pecking. The physical appearance and condition often allows that sort of analysis. Another example of this that I have looked for, and think that I may have found in a few instances, is the use of a simple protractor for drawing circles. Some circles just seem too perfect to have been done freehand, even by an experienced artist.

Such a tool would have been made simply by tying a couple of sticks together at one end for a pivot and then parting the other end. It could have been held at the chosen angle by tying another stick across them creating a triangle with the two long sides extended out. Simply charring one of the ends then would allow one to use this tool to draw almost perfect circles in charcoal on the cliff face.

3-Kings Panel, McConkie Ranch, Vernal, UT.

Photo Peter Faris.

In the most compelling examples the resulting circle has been used to portray a shield. The first example that suggested this to me is the shield of the main figure in the so-called “Three Kings” panel at McConkie Ranch outside of Vernal, UT.  This appears to be so precise that I wondered whether it could have possibly been drawn freehand.

Castle Gardens, Fremont County, Wyoming.

Photo Peter Faris, September 1992.

 Subsequently I also found myself questioning a couple of the shields seen in this panel from Castle Gardens, Wyoming.

If ancient cultures such as the Egyptians could use wooden dividers in their construction of buildings and monuments, they why would I not also assume that Native Americans had this in their toolbox too, and that they would have used it in drawing circles? 

WHERE DID THEY PRACTICE? - OR BODIES OF WORK:

In looking at rock art we tend to approach the images as single, unitary works. Even in the case of exceptional images that must be classified as high quality visual portrayal we do not usually ask the obvious question; “where are his practice images?” No artist just springs up full blown onto the scene producing works of high quality. Such end results demand many years of practice to achieve.

3-Princesses, near Cub Creek, Dinosaur National

Monument, UT. Photo: Peter Faris.

In some instances we can identify multiple images created by the same hand, adding up to a body of work, something expected of a professional artist. One good example is the panel known as the 3-Princesses near Cub Creek in Dinosaur National Monument, Utah. These three Fremont anthropomorphs exhibit every indication in style and technique of having been produced by the same hand.

Three abstracted Fremont figures, Cub Creek, 

Dinosaur Nat. Mon., UT. Photo: Peter Faris.

Nearby the 3-Princesses, on the cliff face at the Cub Creek site, are a few other instances of multiple images that give every indication of having been produced by the same artist.

Fremont, McConkie Ranch,

UT. Photo: Peter Faris.

What this implies is that the artist that produced the high-quality panel that we admire must have produced many lower quality images while working up to that level of ability. So instead of a large number of creators producing the large number of images at Cub Creek, there may have actually been relatively few artists, each producing a range of images from poor to high quality while practicing their art. This question does have serious implications in the study of rock art as it goes directly to the question of who created it. Was it a large number of people, each making one, or at most a few images, or was it a small number of people, each creating a larger number of images while perfecting their art?  

PORTRAITURE IN ROCK ART:

3-Kings Panel, McConkey Ranch, Utah.

Photo: Peter Faris, 1989.

Central figure of 3-Kings
panel, McConkie Ranch, Utah.

Considering this question we have to define a portrait. To recognize what I call portraits in rock art I am looking for uniquely recognizable individual details in the portrayal that would have been recognized by that individual's friends and tribe or band members. In a world in which everything you own was hand made, one at a time, you would recognize a particular headdress, piece of jewelry, or shield, and you would know who that picture represented. This is not an attempted photographic likeness as we think of in portraiture, it is rather a picture of a figure that includes recognizable personal details as clues to the subject of the picture. The best example I have seen is the central figure in the 3-Kings panel, at McConkie Ranch in the Dry Fork Valley outside of Vernal, Utah. It represents the apex of artistic realism of the Fremont people of central and northeastern Utah and northwestern Colorado. It is located high on a pinnacle of rock overlooking Dry Fork valley.

This marvelous figure has a number of these identifiable details. The most obvious is his shield, the design of which has been carefully delineated and would have been instantly recognizable to anyone who knew the subject. In fact, a Fremont shield was found in a cave in Utah with a very similar design to the one on this figure. The actual shield and its two companions are known as the Pectol shields after the name of their discoverer. The second individual detail
that would have been recognizable to his friends is the flicker feather headdress he wears on his head. An actual example of one of these headdresses was recovered archaeologically in nearby Dinosaur National Monument.

Other individually identifiable traits of this figure include the details of his clothing and jewelry which, like the aspects mentioned above, would have been individually hand made and unlike anyone else's.

Many cases of portraiture are known of course in Plains Indian ledger book art. These images, created by warriors to record their deeds and those of their companions often use name glyphs to identify a particular individual. One possible example of this in rock art is a spotted cat petroglyph found in conjunction with an equestrian warrior on a cliff in southeastern Colorado (my comments on this panel will be a future post).

Other interesting elements are the anatomical details portrayed in his legs such as the patella and identifiable muscle masses. Putting all of this together I cannot think of this figure other than as an intentional portrait of someone known very well to the artist.

This figure also displays another interesting detail. When seen from the ground below the figure appears in normal proportion. When observed from a vantage point near its height the figure is seen to be vertically elongated out of proportion (as seen in the photo above). This suggests that the hand that produced the work was guided by instructions from someone down below at ground level. I enjoy imagining a Fremont Indian artist and his young apprentice creating the portrait of an important man of the band or tribe. The young apprentice forced to climb the rocky crag with his tools and materials where he took direction from the master who stayed down on the ground below shouting to him to "make that line higher, no, a little down from there." The result appears in realistic proportion from below on the ground, but is elongated vertically when viewed from a raised viewpoint.

The key to the importance of the subject portrayed can be seen, not only in the high quality of the portrait, but in the fact that it is both petroglyph and pictograph. It was pecked into the rock and then painted as well and remaining traces of the paint can still be seen in the image, especially on his shield.