ROCK ART SYMBOLS FROM HORSE PAINTING:

Of the many symbols found in rock art inscriptions it would indeed be strange if none of them were found in other contexts of Native American art.

Hicklin Springs, 5BN7, Bent County, Colorado.

Photograph: Peter Faris, May 1992.

Panel # 3.B2, Hicklin Springs, 5BN7, Bent County,

Colorado. Drawn by Peter Faris, 25 Sept. 1993.

At site 5BN7(Hicklin Springs) in southeastern Colorado’s Bent County one of the petroglyph panels (Panel# 3.B2) carved in the cliff face shows a grouping of short curved lines - semicircles (horseshoes) in four vertical columns.

My field sketch of the panel allows us to count 26 of these symbols on the panel. This is a relatively common symbol in rock art in southeast Colorado and the west, but this is a particularly good grouping of them. According to Thomas Mails if this symbol is painted upon a horse it represents a horseshoe or horse track and symbolizes a horse taken from an enemy in a horse stealing expedition or a fight. Now my grandfather taught me that when you hung up an actual horseshoe for good luck you hung it this way, with the open side up so the good luck would not run out - the way the semicircles are oriented on the rock art panel at Hicklin Springs. Notice that with the Mails and the Bad Heart Buffalo examples the horseshoe is presented the other way around, with the opening down.

Thomas Mails, 1972, Mystic Warriors of the Plains, Barnes and

Noble Books, New York. Pages 220 (left) and 222 (right).

In his book Mystic Warriors of the Plains (1972), Thomas Mails illustrated a number of such symbols that he identified as being used in horse painting. “Painted exploit symbols used on horses. a, war party leader. b, enemy killed in hand combat. c, owner fought from behind breastworks. d, hail. e, coup marks. f, horse raids or number of horses stolen. g, mourning marks. h, medicine symbol.” (Mails 1972: 220)

Writing in Ledger Book Art: A Key to Understanding Northern Plains Biographic Rock Art, James D. Keyser (1989:92) called Ledger Book Art a “lexicon” for Biographic rock art. In this he was pointing out that Ledger Book art, and Plains Biographic rock art as well, are usually records of specific events and that the symbolism used extends to both media.

Amos Bad-Heart Bull, p. XV, in Wind on the

Buffalo Grass, Leslie Tillet, 1976.

“Amos Bad Heart Buffalo’s drawing of himself as a cowboy, done Dec. 3, 1900. The inscription, translated by Helen Blish reads, “Oglalas from White Clay district herding their cattle.” The sketch at upper left is of a cattle ranch of that time, and the label above it reads, “Chenney River S. Dak. Squn Hamper Creek.” (Tillet 1976: XV) Even though he seems to have reconciled to living the white man’s life, he still has his horse painted with traditional symbols, a holdover of the traditional attitudes and ways.

Amos Bad-Heart Bull, p. 34, in Wind on the

Buffalo Grass, Leslie Tillet, 1976.

Also by Amos Bad Heart Buffalo, this panel from a warrior parade shows a horse painted with symbols denoting successful horse raids. “Warrior parades – provided the audience with another means of measuring prestige. Each detail in his drawings gives clues to the particular warrior society that the Indian belonged to. “(Tillet 1976:32)

Does the difference in orientation between the rock art panel and the other examples negate any comparison or assumption of similarity? With a symbol this simple and common my feeling is no, it is recognizable from any angle and is probably not changed by changes in orientation. Perhaps some of the other shapes and symbols in rock art had similar meanings to the artist’s who produced them. Many of Mail’s other symbols are fairly common in rock art of Colorado and the West. Keep your eyes open, it’s at least worth thinking about.

REFERENCES:

Keyser, James D.

1989    Ledger Book Art: A Key to Understanding Northern Plains Biographic Rock Art, p. 86-111, Rock Art of the Western Canyons, edited by Jane Day, Paul D. Friedman, and Marcia J. Tate, Denver Museum of Natural History and Colorado Archaeological Society, Denver.

Mails, Thomas E.

1972    Mystic Warriors of the Plains, Barnes and Noble Books, New York.

Tillet, Leslie

1976    Wind on the Buffalo Grass: The Indians’ Own Account of the Battle at the Little Big Horn River, & the Death of their life on the Plains, Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York.

ARCHITECTURE IN ROCK ART, TIPIS - PART 2:

On November 30, 2013, I posted part one of this column on tipi portrayals in rock art. In that posting I talked about some examples found in southeastern Colorado rock art. In this second visit to the subject I am going to introduce one of the most complex rock art panels known that portrays a single subject, the Battle Scene panel at Writing-on-Stone. Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park / Áísínai'pi National Historic Site. Set in the prairie grasslands of southern Alberta, Writing-on-Stone / Áísínai'pi is a sacred landscape in the Milk River valley and contains possibly the largest concentration of First Nation petroglyphs (rock carvings) and pictographs (rock paintings) on the great plains of North America.

Left side of Battle Scene panel, Writing-on-stone Provincial

Park, Keyser and Klassen, 2001, fig. 14.33, p. 254.

 “The name Áísínai’pi which is Niitsítapi (Blackfoot) meaning “it is pictured / written”. Writing-on-Stone Park contains the greatest concentration of rock art on the North American Great Plains. There are over 50 petroglyph sites and thousands of works. There is evidence that the Milk River Valley was inhabited by native people as long ago as 9000 years. Native tribes such as the Blackfoot probably created much of the rock carvings (petroglyphs) and paintings (pictographs). Other native groups such as the Shoshone also travelled through the valley and may have also created some of the art. Beginning about 1730, large numbers of horses, metal goods, and guns began to appear on the Western plains. This signified not only a change in the native lifestyle, but a change in the content of the rock art. Pictures of hunters on horseback, and warriors without body shields began to be created.” (Wikipedia 2013)

Battle scene panel, faintly scratched, very hard-to-see. http://digipac.cablog/20130907/writing

-on-stone-provincial-park-september-7.

This panel was described by James Keyser and Michael Klassen (2001).

“Biographic rock art reached its zenith with the Battle Scene panel at Writing-on-stone. It includes the greatest number of figures in the most complex composition of any Northwestern Plains rock art scene. Its detail and complexity clearly suggest that it depicts an actual historical event, possibly linked to a famous battle fought along the Milk River in 1866. The Battle Scene shows a large group of pedestrian warriors attacking a large camp circle of tipis (fig. 14.33). In the camp are several groups of humans, including three figures inside the largest, central tipi. At the camp perimeter a row of fourteen guns, two held by humans, represents warriors defending the camp. The attacking party consists of an advance guard of more than a dozen armed warriors, followed by more than three dozen pedestrian figures. Several rearguard figures carry bows or guns, and at least eight lead horses, six of which pull travois. A stream of bullets issues from the muzzle of nearly every gun in the scene.” (Keyser and Klassen 2001:254)

Same battle scene, Writing-on-stone Provincial Park, Canada.

Scene of center of the camp on the left side with 3

figures in tipi in upper center. Strongly side lighted.

“This scene may relate to a battle described in 1924 by a Piegan elder named Bird Rattle. In his story, he directly linked the rock art of Writing-on-stone to the “Retreat up the Hill” battle fought somewhere along the Milk River in 1866. In the fall of that year, the Piegan winter camps filled all the coulees between the Milk River and the Sweetgrass Hills.” (Keyser and Klassen 2001:255) Note that the village of tipis that is being attacked in the Battle Scene is pictured as a rough ring of triangular shapes with the tips pointing in.

Tipis, 39FA7, Sundstrom, Fig. 1.13, p.18.

Linea Sundstrom has identified portrayals of tipi or wickiup shaped structures from the Black Hills region. ”Two tipis are visible among the confused array of lines on this rock art panel from site 39FA7 in the southern Black Hills.” (Sundstrom 2004:18) Sundstrom has also identified a handful of sites in the north Cave Hills where she believes there are portrayals of tipi-shaped eagle trapping lodges. (Sundstrom 2004:119)

Tipi village in upper center.Taylor, Buckskin and

Buffalo, p.47. The circle of triangles in the upper

center represents a tipi village.

“A large tanned steer hide painted in the spring of 1892 by the Piegan artist Sharp. – The pictographs, in a style typical of the Blackfeet of this period, mainly document the military exploits of White Grass, a highly respected chief of the Buffalo Chip band of the Piegan, who was involved in many actions against such tribes as the Flathead and Pend D'Oreilles of the Plateau region to the west of Blackfeet territory. Here, White Grass is about to enter the Flathead circle of tipis to cut free the two picketed horses at the very heart of the encampment. He also captures the enemy chiefs bow, arrows, and quiver.” (Taylor 1998:47)

Tipi village by Piegan artist Sharp, 1892.Taylor, Buckskin and

Buffalo, p.47.

When we look carefully at a rock art portrayal we can often find much more information than we expected at first glance. Keep looking. 

REFERENCES:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing-on-Stone_Provincial_Park

Keyser, James D. and Michael A. Klassen

2001   Plains Indian Rock Art, University of Washington Press, Seattle.

Sundstrom, Linea

2004   Storied Stone: Indian Rock Art of the Black Hills, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

Taylor, Colin

1998   Buckskin and Buffalo, the Artistry of the Plains Indians, Rizzoli, New York.

ARCHITECTURE IN ROCK ART – TIPIS – Part 1:

In their records left on the rocks by Native Americans of their deeds and situations, we can look for clues to the environment that these feats were performed in. One common feature of the environment in Great Plains rock art is one or more residences, their tipis. In the tradition of Plains Biographic Art much of the imagery in a composition is intended as information. In this way a figure seen in relation to a group of tipis would represent a specific person involved in some activity next to that tipi village.

Horseman in lower left, Anubis Cave, Cimarron

County, OK. Photo Peter Faris, 21 Sept. 1986. 

My awareness of this came back in the 1980s on one of a frequent number of trips down into southeastern Colorado. In the so-called Anubis Cave in Cimarron County, Oklahoma, I saw a small equestrian figure on horseback in front of the upside-down “V” of a tipi. It occurred to me at that time that it placed a figure in a specific place, and thus at a specific time, the time when he was there. In other words it was telling a story, a simple story certainly, and one that did not provide me with much information, but a story nevertheless. This is the basic premise of James Keyser in his statement that the Biographic art of ledger books and painted robes can provide a lexicon toward the interpretation of some rock art.

Tracing by James D. Keyser and Mark D. Mitchell, Box

Canyon site, 5LA8464,  Picketwire Canyonlands,

Las Animas County, CO. 1999.

Photograph of a portion of the Box Canyon site, 5LA8464, 

Picketwire Canyonlands, Las Animas County, CO.

Photo Peter Faris, August 1999.

Detail of tracing showing tipi near the center (directly

under the elk). Box Canyon site, 5LA8464,  Picketwire

Canyonlands, Las Animas County, CO. August, 1999.

In the Box Canyon Site in the Purgatoire river canyon in southeastern Colorado a couple of panels illustrate combat in relation to tipis. 5LA8464 was recorded in 1999 by a crew led by Jim Keyser and Mark Mitchell. This is a large panel, faintly scratched into a large flat side of the rock. This panel apparently records an attack upon a tipi village or family encampment by a group of equestrian warriors on the right, whom I believe are Pawnees by the details of their portrayal. The village or encampment being attacked is represented by a tipi on the left side of the panel and would probably have been Cheyenne or Arapahoe based upon the location. One defender seen by the tipi has been struck by an arrow. A number of unridden horses suggest that this combat bay have been in conjunction with a horse raid upon this encampment.

Red Rock Ledge, Picketwire Canyonlands, Las Animas

County, CO. Tracing by James D. Keyser and

Mark D. Mitchell, August 1999.

Red Rock Ledge site, Picketwire Canyonlands, Las Animas

County, CO. Photograph Peter Faris, August 1999.

Another plains biographic rock art panel recorded by James Keyser and Mark Mitchell is the Red Rock Ledge site in the Picketwire Canyonlands, near the Box Canyon site. This smaller panel tells a story related by Keyser in his subsequent published report. “The lightly-scratched petroglyphs at Red Rock Ledge compose a Biographic scene showing a pedestrian bowman who has traveled from a tipi village to engage and enemy represented by a crooked lance or coup stick. Beginning at the right margin of the scene, and following the action to the left, the composition consists of four major elements. At the far right is a group of nine triangles with forked tops representing a camp of tipis. One other incomplete figure probably represents a tenth tipi with one side no longer visible. A series of seventeen more or less horizontal dashes and four “C” shapes extends from the tipi camp toward the bowman. Based on comparisons with other Biographic drawings in various media, the dashes represent human footprints and the “C” shapes represent horse hoofprints. The third element, the bowman, is a simply drawn, rectangular-body figure with a circle head. His legs are shown with thighs, calves, and feet. The short diagonal lines that extend outward from the front of each leg indicate fringed leggings. In his right hand he carries a carefully drawn recurved bow that is shooting an arrow with a large triangular point. The fourth element, located at the far left of the scene, is a horizontally-oriented crook-neck coup stick, from which trail four groups of paired streamers or feathers. Each group extends diagonally downward to the left, and the four groups are spaced about equidistantly along the shaft, with the last at the end of the crook.” (Keyser and Mitchell 2000:26-7)

Picture Canyon, Baca County, CO. Photograph Peter Faris, 1986.

In the well known horse pictograph/petroglyph from Picture Canyon, in Baca County, Colorado, a number of very faint tipi shapes can be made out with careful observation. Indeed, a group of four or five very faint upside-down “V” shapes in the upper right corner of the photo represent a tipi village, with at least two more at the top just left of center.  These presumably represent the tipi village that the horseman himself is associated with.

Numerous other examples of tipis portrayed in rock art can be found in the literature. My point here is that in contrast to the common assumption that “we can never know what rock art is saying” we can, in many instances determine quite a bit about a rock art panel. I will show some other examples and share some other thoughts in future columns.

REFERENCES

Keyser, James D. and Mark D. Mitchell

2000   Red Rock Ledge: Plains Biographic Rock Art in the Picketwire Canyonlands, Southeastern Colorado, Southwestern Lore, Vol. 66, No. 2, Summer, 2000, p. 22-37.