THE MILKY WAY IN ROCK ART:

 

The Milky Way. Vera Rubin Observatory photograph.

It is almost universally accepted that ancient cultures were very interested in the heavens, and we can assume that the prehistoric creators of petroglyphs and pictographs were also fascinated by questions of the universe. It could not have been possible to not be fascinated by the Milky Way.

Nut, Egyptian sky goddess. Internet image, public domain.

Among the most prominent features of the night sky is the side view of our galaxy that we call the Milky Way. Ancient cultures had to have an explanation for it that satisfied their world view and mythology. “The Egyptians, for examples, may not have been the only culture to link the Milky Way to a sky goddess who gives birth to other gods and, especially, other celestial objects.” (Graur 2024:37)

Citlalicue, sky-goddess. Internet image, public domain.

Peoples of the Americas had their own beliefs concerning the Milky Way. “Several of the pages in the Codex Borgia, a pre-Colombian pictorial manuscript composed by the Tlaxa-caltec people of the Puebla-Tlaxcala Valley in Mexico, include images of elongated beings covered with stars. These beings have been identified as the Milky Way as well as the goddess Citlalicue (Star Skirt), the “… goddess of the stars …”, and the mother of several gods, including the Venus god Quetzalcoatl. Quetzalcoatl is shown cutting his way out of the belly of Citlalicue; this and other, similar scenes in Co-dex Borgia 29-46 are interpreted as Venus crossing the Milky Way.” (Graur 2024:37)

Similar views of the Milky Way are found across Mesoamerica (Milbrath, 1999: 41). The dead of the Yucatec Maya travel along the Milky Way at night (Sosa, 1985: 432). The Quiché Maya see the Galaxy as two of four cosmic roads. Of these, the Black Road (Q’eqa b’e) or Road of Xibalba (Ri b’e xib’alb’a), which is identified with the dark band of the Milky Way’s Great Rift, leads to the underworld (Tedlock, 1985: 36, 337, 354). Similarly, the Lacandón call the Milky Way the “… white way of our true lord …”, Hachäkyum, the ruler of heaven populated by the dead.” (Graur 2024:39)

Mayan two-headed sky monster, from Clopan, altar 4,  Late Classic Period. Image from Mary Miller and Karl Taube,The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya, Thames and Hudson, London, 1993.

The ancient Maya saw the Milky Way as a serpentine monster with a head at each end. “Specifically, the two-headed monster known as the Celestial Monster or Cosmic Monster. This particular supernatural creature usually has either a crocodilian or sky band body, but in at least one example, cloud scrolls form the body. - - Most commonly, the Bicephalic Monster frames scenes of accession or rulership for the Maya, but its intrinsic meaning may be to represent the arc of the heavens, the front head being identified with Venus, pulling behind it the fleshless head of the Sun in the Underworld .” (Miller and Taube 1993:45) This is considerably more picturesque than many other beliefs, but then the Maya did have amazing imaginations and left us many images of them.

First Nations people in North America had a range of beliefs concerning the Milky Way. “Many Native American peoples across North America view the Milky Way as a road along which the spirits of the dead travel to the afterlife. The souls (tasoom) of the Cheyenne are said to travel toward the home of Hemmawihio (The Wise One Above), an all-knowing high god re-presented by the Sun, via the Milky Way, which is known as ekutsihimmiyo (Adamson Hoebel, 1960: 86–87). The Lakota name for the Milky Way is Wanáǧi Thacháŋku, the Spirits’ Road, which the Lakota follow to heaven when they die (Hollabaugh, 2017: 70–72). The Pawnee come to this life as the children of stars and, when they die, become stars once more. The stars of the Milky Way are the ancestors of the Pawnee moving from this world to the next (Pawnee Nation Tribal Historic Preservation Office, pers. comm., 2022)..” (Graur 2024:39) The idea that the Milky Way is a road or a path is a very common belief all around the world.

Chaco Canyon petroglyph panel. Photograph by Suzan Bradford.

Suzan Bradford's photograph overlaid against the Milky Way. Image by Robert Juhl.

Back in 2014 Robert A. Juhl sent me a PowerPoint presentation that he had created based upon a rock art photograph from Chaco Canyon that had been taken by Susan Bradford. In this presentation he likened the petroglyphs panel in the photograph to details of the Milky Way in the region of Scorpius in the night sky. When he superimposed the petroglyphs panel over this section of the Milky Way a crack across the panel seems to conform with the ‘Great Rift’ in the Milky Way, and he could match up a number of other details in the panel and the Milky Way. Additionally, although Juhl does not make this claim in his PowerPoint, the other features on the panel could represent constellations in that section of sky.

In the area of the American southwest tribes, the Milky Way is known as Ashes placed across the sky, or the Great Snowdrift in the sky by the Zuni people. (Miller 1997:183) In the design for a Navajo sand painting in the Shooting Chant Father Sky on the left side shows the Milky Way across his chest as a row of connected diamonds. (Miller 1997:187) But, most tribes in North and Central America connect the Milky Way with a path arcing across the night sky.

 

Rochester Creek petroglyph panel. Photograph Peter Faris, August 1993. Reminiscent of Nut arched across the sky, with a push me-pull you in the upper left corner to represent the Mayan two-headed monster?

With that definition in mind I will present as a possible representation of the Milky Way the great panel at Rochester Creek, near the junction with Muddy Creek near Emery, Utah. The arc in the panel might be seen as representing the Milky Way, and the creatures scattered around it might represent the constellations as identified by the people. As I said above, this is only a possibility, the arc in the panel is often presented as a rainbow as well, but the Milky Way and surrounding constellations might be a better explanation of the other figures on the panel. In any case, it is an interesting question and kind of fun to speculate on.

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:

Graur, Or, 2024, The Ancient Egyptian Personification of the Milky Way as the Sky-Goddess Nut: An Astronomical and Cross-Cultural Analysis, Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 27(1), 28-45.

Juhl, Robert A., 2013, The Milky Way in Chaco Rock Art, Version 18. PowerPoint presentation.

Miller, Dorcas S., 1997, Stars of the First People, Pruett Publishing Co., Boulder, Colorado.

Miller, Mary, and Karl Taube, 1993, The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya, Thames and Hudson, London.

SECONDARY REFERENCES:

Adamson Hoebel, E., 1960. The Cheyennes: Indians of the Great Plains. New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Milbrath, S., 1988. Birth images in Mixteca-Puebla art. In Miller, V.E. (ed.), The Role of Gender in Pre-Colombian Art and Architecture. Lanham, University Press of America. Pp. 153–178.

Milbrath, S., 1999. Star Gods of the Maya: Astronomy in Art, Folklore, and Calendars. Austin, University of Texas Press.

 

Tedlock, D., 1985. Popol Vuh: The Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life, Revised Edition. New York, Simon & Schuster.

THE SKY SERPENT IN THE ART OF BAJA CALIFORNIA:

In the American southwest as well as down through Mesoamerica there are found ancient traditions around the spiritual significance of snakes, including the famous Plumed Serpent of Mexico and the American southwest. The area of this cultural tradition includes the peninsula of Baja California.

Cueve de la Serpiente,  Photograph from the Instituto Sudcaliforniano de Cultura.

 Drawing of the panel from Cueva de las Serpiente. Image from the Bradshaw Foundation.

In his seminal volume on Rock Art of the American Indians, Campbell Grant (1981) included a majestic example of the plumed serpent in the Baja. “In the San Francisco Mountains of central Baja California, there is a spectacular plumed serpent sixteen feet long surrounded by black and red men and six deer. We can only guess that the snake deity in this case was somehow related to hunting magic.” (Grant 1981:57) The fact is that we do not have to assume that there was any relationship to hunting magic. The long serpent might well have represented the Milky Way while the deer and men could have been meant to represent constellations. This particular panel is located in what is known as Serpent Cave.

Serpent cave. Photograph from the Bradshaw Foundation.

According to the website of the Bradshaw Foundation “the Serpent Cave - Cueva de la Serpiente falls within the Archaic Great Murals Rock Art tradition, found in the central sierras of the Baja California Peninsula: San Borja, San Juan, San Francisco and Guadalupe. The two deer-headed serpents of Cueva de la Serpiente on the Baja California peninsula are spectacular and practically unique. Today, the right-hand one is complete, with deer-like ears and antlers and a long banded body. The left-hand one has lasted less well and only the head is preserved; the rest of the serpent was painted on a section of rock that fell away. The mural is almost 8 metres wide, with more than 50 diminuitive human and animal figures.” (Bradshaw Foundation)

Serpent cave. Photographs from the Bradshaw Foundation.

“The panel is about 8m long and includes 106 motifs. The composition is led by two fantastic deer-headed snakes. The most complete one reaches up to 4m in length and has an undulating body, small antlers and a fish-like tail. It is surrounded by 45 small human figures of between 16 and 41 cm long. The other one, measures 1.8 m and shows contrasting characteristics: a static attitude, and large six-pointed antlers. In both snakes the mouth is half opened, the body is red with black segments, and a white outline that has been almost completely lost.” (Roberto Martinez et al. 2008)

“In the early 1960s, American author Earle Stanley Gardner was exploring Sierra de San Francisco when he heard about a large painted rock shelter along Arroyo de San Pablo, known among the locals as Cueva Pintada. He visited the site and later made his ‘discovery’ public in an article for Life Magazine (Gardner 1962). That first visit was followed by several visits in company of Californian archaeologist Clement Meighan, who then launched the first systematic study of Great Mural Rock Art. Meighan (1966) had some wood fragments from the floor of Cueva Pintada and dated through radiocarbon. The obtained date of 1435±80 AD suggested to Meighan that the rock art belonged with the Comondu archaeological complex, the last phase preceding the historical Cochimi groups. In several occasions Viñas (1989) and colleagues (Viñas et al. 1986-1989) questioned the assumed age and cultural affiliation of Great Mural Rock Art, suggesting that the origin of this tradition might go back several thousands of years BC. The themes indicated that the rock art was created by scantily hierarchised hunter-gatherer groups whose myths, rituals and beliefs were portrayed in the art. A possible relation with the North American Southwest was also put forward.” (Roberto Martinez et al. 2008) In other words they associated it with the ancient cultural significance of the serpent throughout the American southwest and Mesoamerica.

The Great Snake coiled in the sun, Near the Kumeyaay community of San Jose de la Zorra, Baja, California.  Photograph from Jerome Levi.

The sleeping head of the Great Serpent near the Kumeyaay community of San Jose de la Zorra, Baja, California. Photograph from Jerome Levi.

The Cochimi cultural groups mentioned above inhabited the central portion of the Baja Peninsula. Somewhat to their north, overlapping the border with the San Diego, California area resided the Kumeyaay peoples. According to Jerome Levi the Kumeyaay shared the beliefs that centered the serpent in their spiritual and ceremonial life. They, in fact, had actual, physical proof in the form of a rock formation that was shaped like a gigantic coiled snake “near the Kumeyaay community of San Jose de la Zorra, Baja California” (Jerome Levi 2017) between Tecate and Ensenada, Mexico, and known to the Kumeyaay people as “Maayha-Awiity” which he says translates as “snake of the high water.” (Levi 2017)

Levi (2017) directly associated the painting in Cueva de la Serpiente with Maayha-Awiity, associating both with the widespread cultural beliefs in the spiritual significance of serpents in the Southwest and Mesoamerica. And over this wide area that shares so many spiritual beliefs “the horned serpent is frequently related to celestial elements. In Spiro it bears bird wings, in Mayan pottery decorations it is associated with heavenly deities, in Baja California and the Southwest it often appears above other beings, in Michoacán it is portrayed with a bird’s beak and feathered body, and in Wizard Lake, Ontario, it holds an ascending posture. In these examples, the horned serpent is associated to the heavenly realm. - Sky, water and earth appear to be symbolically linked by the image of the horned serpent. Just as the Chorti and Zapotec think that horned serpents inhabit the sky and the land, in the American Southwest it is said that in its human form, this animal is identifiable under the character and attire of the Hopi god of Heaven.” (Martinez 2008:36)

The Milky Way that I am suggesting represents the Sky Serpent. Image from Reddit.

In my opening paragraphs, I suggested that the sky serpent could well represent the Milky Way. While I do not have any direct citations indicating that, it seems logical, and Martinez et al. (2008) do cite a number of heavenly associations for serpents among cultures of the American southwest and Mesoamerica. The long serpent pictured in Cueva de las Serpiente could easily be seen as the long light streak of the Milky Way across the night sky.

NOTE: One image in this posting was retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If this image is 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:

Bradshaw Foundation, The Rock Art of Baja California, The Serpent Cave – Cueva de la Serpiente, https://www.bradshawfoundation.com/baja/serpent_cave/index.php. Accessed online 2 September 2024.

Grant, Campbell, 1981, Rock Art of the American Indian, Outbooks, Golden, Colorado, p. 57.

Levi, Jerome M., 2017, Flight of the Sky Serpent, Observations on Yuman-Cochimi Worldview in Relation to Mesoamerican and the Southwestern United States, 26 October 2017,  XXXI Mesa Redonda de la Sociedad Mexicana de Antropologia, Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico.  Online PowerPoint presentation accessed 27 October 2023.

Martinez, Roberto, Larissa Mendoza and Ramon Viñas, 2008, Cueva de la Serpiente: Inerpretive analysis of an Archaic Great Mural Rock Art panel Mulege, Baja California Sur, Mexico, pp. 31-46, from Rock Art in the Americas: Mythology, Cosmogony, and Rituals, Proceedings of the 2nd REEA Conference, Edited by Francoise Fauconnier and Serge Lemaitre, Published by Archaeopress Publishers of British Archaeologiacal Reports, Gordon House, Oxford, England. Accessed online 2 September 2024.