MACAWS IN ROCK ART – AGAIN. PART 2:

 

Macaw/parrot pens at Casas Grandes. Image from Steven Lekson, 2015, The Chaco Meridian, figure 3.15, p. 92.

Archeology has found proof that macaws were kept, and possibly bred, at many sites in the Southwest. “Humans can remove chicks from the nest at around seven weeks of age or later and feed them pre-chewed food until they wean; in captivity they require feeding 4 times a day by seven weeks of age. Scarlet macaws may begin mimicking human speech at around 7 months of age. Scarlet macaws molt about one third of their feathers one to two times per year. The birds reach sexual maturity at 3-5 years of age. They are not sexually dimorphic, so determining the sex of a macaw is impossible without DNA or seeing one lay an egg.” (Crown undated) This brings me back to images of macaws and parrots in the Southwest. Whether created as pictographs or petroglyphs, wall murals or decoration on pots, macaws and parrots were of undeniable importance to Ancestral Pueblo people (and others) and this is illustrated in remaining examples of their arts and crafts.

Macaw. Three Rivers Petroglyph Site, New Mexico. Internet image, public domain.

Petroglyph of macaws and/or parrots are found throughout much of the American southwest. From the Four Corners to Three Rivers Petroglyph Site I have seen examples and have found other images online and in references (below). “Parrots are clearly depicted at Three Rivers on the northern reaches of the ridge.” (Price 2018:189)

Mimbres bowl, figure carrying burden basket with a macaw on top. Internet photograph, public domain.

In the case of the Mimbres region the presence of macaws is addressed by Gilman et al. (2014) “Why did those receiving the macaws want them in the first place? We propose here that the macaws were part of religious quests and the reorganized or augmented religion in the Mimbres region during the Classic period.  - In the process of obtaining the scarlet macaws for transport, they gained practical and esoteric knowledge necessary to care for the macaws.” (Gilman et al. 2014:104)

Square Tower Canyon, Hovenweep National Monument, Utah. Top - the entire panel, bottom - close-up. Photograph 1988, Peter Faris.

At Square Tower Canyon in Hovenweep National Monument there is a fascinating petroglyphs panel. It shows, among other things a spiral connected to a T-shaped doorway with a macaw sitting on top of the ‘T’, and a second macaw with a squared-fret design connected to its tail. This was described by Nancy Olsen (1985:65). “At the junction of the main canyon and a side canyon is a rock point with access from all sides. On the wind-scoured, exposed bedrock of the point, approximately four feet from the ground two birds in silhouette dominate the panel, and two other identical bird shapes are less visible because of repatination and wind erosion. Prolonged use of the same location is inferred from evidence that the motif is remade in the same place several times and can be seen in different stages of repatination.”  The images that Olsen identified as simply birds are very obviously macaws (or parrots) because of the shape of their beaks.

Macaws, Cedar Mesa, Utah. Photograph by Janet Vervalen.

Gilman et al (2014) theorize a reversal of the possible role of pochteca (traders) from Mesoamerica in providing macaws. In the Mimbres region Gilman et al. write “We propose that, beginning in about the second millennium A.D., people, possibly including both women and men, made journeys of about 1100 km each way to or from the Huasteca region on Mexico’s Gulf Coast to transport scarlet macaws necessary for equinoctial rituals, sacrifice, and the distribution of red feathers tied to religious practices and ultimately horticultural success. While it is possible that people from the Huasteca region came north with the macaws and practical and ritual knowledge, it is unclear what they would have gained from such a dangerous trip.” (Gilman et al 2014:105) Theoretically, of course, they could have “gained”, but it is just as easy to argue that the turquoise could have been carried south into Mesoamerica as to have pochteca coming north to acquire it. Is this settled, I seriously doubt it? It is, however, a fascinating question, and one that well may come up again. At least it fascinates me.

NOTE: Some images in this column 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:

Crown, Patricia, The Scarlet Macaws of Arroyo Hondo Pueblo, an online report from the Arroyo Honda Pueblo Project, https://www.arroyohonda.org. Accessed 13 February 2026.

Gilman, Patricia A., Marc Thompson, and Kristina C. Wykoff, 2014, Ritual Change and the Distant Mesoamerican Iconography, Scarlet Macaws, and Great Kivas in the Membres Region of Southwest New Mexico, American Antiquity, 79 (1). 90-107. Accessed online 12 March 2026 in Academia.org.

Liwosz, Chester R., 2022, Mesoamerica, Macaws, and More: Exploring the Geospatial Relationships and Cultural Significance of Parrot, Raptor, and Related Bird Iconography at Mesa Prieta, New Mexico, American Indian Rock Art, Volume 48, edited by Amy Gilreath, Ken Hedges, and Ann McConnell, American Rock Art Research Association, 2022.

Olsen, Nancy H., 1985, Hovenweep Rock Art, An Anasazi Visual Communication System, Occasional Paper 14, Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles.

Price, Joan E., 2018, Clay and Stone: Petroglyphs at Three Rivers Petroglyph Site Compared with Mimbres Ceramic Painted Bowls, pp. 177-192, in Collected Papers from the 20^th Biennial Mogollon Archaeology Conference, October 11-13, 2018, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico, edited by Lonnie C. Ludeman. Accessed online 17 December 2025.

Schaafsma, Polly, 2022, Riders of the Rainbow, pp. 241-262, in Birds of the Sun, Macaws People in U.S. Southwest and Mexican Northwest, edited by Christofer W. Schwarts, Steven Plog, and Patricia A. Gilman, 2022, University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

Tedlock, Dennis, 1994, Stories of Kachinas and the Dance of Life and Death, pp. 161-174, in Kachinas in the Pueblo World, edited by Polly Schaafsma, University of New Mexico Press.

Tyler, Hamilton A., 1979, Pueblo Birds and Myths, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

Waters, Frank, 1963, Book of the Hopi, Ballantine Books, New York.

Watson, Adam S. et al., 2015, Early procurement of scarlet macaws and the emergence of social complexity in Chaco Canyon, NM, 7 July 2015, PNAS, Vol. 112, no. 27, pp. 8238-8243. Accessed online.

Weiner, Robert S., 2015, A Sensory Approach to Exotica, Ritual Practice, and Cosmology at Chaco Canyon, KIVA, 81:3-4, 220-246, DOI: 10.1080/00231940.2016.1147681. Accessed online.

MACAWS IN ROCK ART – AGAIN. PART 1:

Because of the length of this column I will present it in two parts. Part two will follow this next week.

Scarlet macaw. Image from Archaeology magazine, September/October 2015, page 16.

Along with burials of parrots and macaws from the American southwest, there are many images of these beautiful birds painted and pecked by Ancestral Puebloan people. I have written columns previously on them (available through the cloud index at the bottom) but when additional material becomes available I try to update a subject.

That is the case now as I have some new images and information to add to my previous writing on the subject.

“Archaeologists have known for more than a century that the prehispanic Pueblo people of the American Southwest acquired goods from Mesoamerica. Such items included marine shell from the Gulf of California, raw copper and crafted copper bells from West Mexico, cacao from the Neotropics, and tropical birds such as scarlet and military macaws whose feathers were important in ritual. Scarlet macaws (Ara macao) are the most exotic birds recovered by archaeologists excavating settlements in the SW from southern Utah and Colorado to northern Mexico.” (Watson 2015:8238) While there are colorful birds in nature in these regions (Western tanager, Flicker, Bluebird, Goldfinch) none of the native birds can match the striking colors of the various macaws and parrots from farther south. And, in a culture where colors were pretty much limited to the colors of nature, the radiant colors of these birds would be striking.

Macaw/parrot petroglyph, Springerville Miniature Style, Apache County, Arizona. Image from Ekkehart Malotki, The Rock Art of Arizona, 2002, Kiva Publications Inc., Walnut, California, figure 276, page 134.

Whether these imports arrived on the backs of long distance traders such as the Aztec pochteca, or were traded step by step up a chain of stages from their origins in Mesoamerica is not yet certain.

Boca Negra Canyon, Petroglyph National Monument, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Photograph Peter Faris.

“Along with cacao, shell, and copper, these birds signal the type of long-distance transport of goods often argued to have been an important dimension of emergent sociopolitical complexity in prehistoric societies. Like cacao, to which access was probably restricted to high status individuals or groups, the acquisition and control of scarlet macaws was likely the province of social and religious elites.” (Watson 2015:8238)

In the words of the Billie Holiday song God Bless the Child, “them that’s got shall get, them that’s not shall lose.” You would have had to possess great status and importance to own a macaw, and owning a macaw would reinforce your status and importance. This importance would be a major factor in the creation of images of macaws and parrots in rock art of the American southwest.

Two Macaws facing in upper left,  Petroglyph National Monument, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Photograph by Paul and Joy Foster.

Polly Schaafsma said in 2022 “Macaws and other parrots are portrayed in the ancient pictorial records of farming communities throughout much of the U.S. Southwest and adjacent regions. Their immediate sources of procurement, patterns of trade, management issues, ritual use, and wider connections to politics and social hierarchy are among the subjects concerning these colorful tropical birds in the north of their native habitat.” (Schaafsma 2022:241) We need to remember that the people only had what nature provided at that time, no artificial colors and dyes. And, although some minerals, animals, and plants were quite colorful much of their surrounding would have been quite drab by today’s standards.

Painted kiva mural. Pottery Mound Pueblo, New Mexico. Internet image, public domain.

The descendants of Ancestral Puebloans tend to be culturally somewhat conservative, holding on to their practices and adapting their ceremonies into today’s circumstances. The ceremonial importance of these continues to this day. “Today, these members of the Psittacidae family continue to be highly valued for their cosmological symbolism by the Pueblo people in New Mexico and Arizona. - - Parrots and macaws appear in Ancestral Pueblo imagery possibly around1000 CE. The pictorial evidence from the Pueblo past indicates that first and foremost the members of the parrot family, and most notably the scarlet macaws, were associated with the sun, just as they are today. Accordingly, they are linked to summer and the growing season, while their red, blue, and yellow feathers echo the hues of rainbow and the many colors of maize (Tyler 1979:13-38). Their directional symbolism, due to their red color and place of origin is in the south.” (Schaafsma 2022:241) One interesting question would be if the importance of color and direction existed in Ancestral Pueblo belief before the availability of macaws and parrots, or can the color and directional significance be attributed to association with the arrival of the first birds traded north.

The association of macaws and parrots with the Sun, warmth and the south is echoed by Frank Waters (1963:67) who wrote that the Parrot Clan symbolized the south in Hopi belief because they arrived at Hopi from the south after their migrations. Dennis Tedlock (1993:165) also makes the association with the south “which is where parrots and macaws now come from.”

Macaw/parrot petroglyph. Image from Ekkehart Malotki, The Rock Art of Arizona, 2002, Kiva Publications Inc., Walnut, California, figure 192, page 101.

Hamilton Tyler (1979:26-7) discusses modern pueblo ceremonial dances in which people wear headdresses of macaw feathers on their head instead of tablitas. As a tablita’s stepped-fret design represents clouds this reinforces the sky and weather implications of macaws and parrots – sky; cloud; rain; rainbow; macaw/parrot. Weiner (2015:232-3) agrees with the weather implications and adds that a parrot or macaw can learn to speak words, a talent that would make them doubly exotic and impressive. The striking visual impact of a macaw is generally recognized, but here Crown reminds us of an aspect of the parrots and macaws that would have been seen as even more remarkable – they could speak, and in your language. This would guarantee the social status of the owner of one. A bird that speaks human words would seem magical, so not only were they kept for their feathers, but as amazing companions and ceremonial participants.

Part 2 of this column will be posted next week.

BIRDS IN ROCK ART - PARROTS:

Parrot and mask, West Mesa, Albuquerque,

NM, Photo: Peter Faris, 1988. 

On December 15, 2010, I posted a column about petroglyphs of macaws at Hovenweep National Monument. In it I discussed them as indications of long distance trade networks between the cultures of the American Southwest and Meso-America in ancient times. I also discussed the value of their brightly colored feathers to the ancient inhabitants of the southwest. Although most of the recorded data concerning the presence of these birds comes from Mimbres and Hohokam sites, pictures of these birds in other locations (like Hovenweep) testify to their equal importance in the Ancestral Puebloan peoples of the Four-Corners area.

Parrots, star, and eagle tail headdress. Petroglyph Nat.

Mon., Albuquerque, NM. Photo: Peter Faris, 1988.

Another area with parrots or macaws pictured as petroglyphs on the rocks comes from the Petroglyph National Monument on West Mesa at Albuquerque, New Mexico. The photographs of parrot petroglyphs accompanying this posting were taken there in 1988.

Close-up of parrots, and eagle tail headdress. Petroglyph

Nat. Mon., Albuquerque, NM. Photo: Peter Faris, 1988.

Both photos include a 6” scale to give an indication of the size of the images. The first picture shows a single parrot in side view along with what I believe is intended to represent a mask. The second picture is of a pair of parrots pictured belly to belly facing each other. This second portrayal is on a boulder with other sky themes including a four-pointed star and another mask surmounted by an eagle tail fan. As can be seen the facial area of the mask is below the surface of the ground and there may be more unseen rock art down there as well.