CHIPPED ROCK EDGES AT A WASHINGTON STATE VISION QUEST SITE:

Vision quest site and petroglyphs, Horsethief Lake State
Park, Washington. Photo: Peter Faris, 2000. Notice the
chipped edge of the rock face with the pictographs.

In the summer of 2000 I had the good luck and great privilege to be guided around Horsethief Lake State Park, in Washington State, by Dr. James Keyser, one of the great names in North American Rock Art studies. There is considerable Yakima polychrome painted style rock art in this area and it is also the site of numerous petroglyphs including the marvelous petroglyph known as Tsagaglalal, “She who watches”, which originally probably also included some paint.

Vision quest site and petroglyphs, Horsethief Lake State

Park, Washington. Photo: Peter Faris, 2000. Notice

the chipped edge of the rock face with the petroglyphs.

Along with considerable rock art, the vicinity of Tsagaglalal also contains some small rock shelters which seem to have been used as vision quest sites. The rock floors of these shelters show a considerable degree of butt-polish apparently acquired by frequent sliding in and out of place accompanied by long periods of sitting. The rock here is volcanic, apparently basalt, and naturally fractures in angular blocks. The rock shelters are located in low cliff and are the result of large blocks cracking loose and falling away leaving small, roughly rectangular openings. Many of the nearly right angled edges of the rock around these shelters have been chipped away in small flakes. Keyser suggested that the rock might have been chipped away for medicinal purposes because of the spiritual nature of the site (so near to Tsagaglalal). Additionally, the supposed vision quest shelters also usually contain petroglyphs as well.

Tsagaglalal (She Who Watches), Horsethief Lake

State Park, Washington. Photo: Peter Faris, 2000.

Native American beliefs in animism attributed a spirit presence to many of the physical features around them. According to Wikipedia animism “is a philosophical, religious or spiritual idea that souls or spirits exist not only in humans and animals but also in plants, rocks, natural phenomena such as thunder and lightning, geographic features such as mountains or rivers, or other entities of the natural environment.” The presence of Tsagaglalal would have added a strong spiritual attraction to the environment as well. I can picture that a young Native American undergoing a successful vision quest in this environment might well have wanted to take a chip of the rock with him, to include its power in his medicine bundle.

A pebble wedged into a crack on the cliff by a petroglyph.

Vision quest site and petroglyphs, Horsethief Lake State

Park, Washington. Photo: Peter Faris, 2000.

Another interesting phenomenon found in these rock shelters is the placement of small pebbles of stone into cracks in the rock face at these shelters, perhaps as some sort of offering. I think of this as the “Kilroy was here” motivation, the human urge to make some sort of visible change, to leave some record of their existence. Alternatively, the pebbles may have originally been jammed into the crack to hold some sort of organic offering in place that has since been lost to the elements.

Perhaps any study of a rock art location should include a much more detailed study of surrounding rock surfaces for such modifications as further clues toward the later interpretation of the purpose and significance of the rock art.

Note: I am deeply grateful to my friend Jim Keyser for taking the time and effort to guide me to these locations.

CHIPPED ROCK EDGES AT A WASHINGTON VISION QUEST SITE:

Tsagaglalal, Horsethief Lake State Park, Washington.

Photo: Peter Faris, July 2000.

In the summer of 2000 I had the good luck and great privilege to be guided around Horsethief Lake State Park, in Washington State, by Dr. James Keyser, one of the great names in North American Rock Art studies. There is considerable Yakima polychrome painted style rock art in this area and it is also the site of numerous petroglyphs including the marvelous petroglyph known as Tsagaglalal, “She who watches”, which originally probably also included some paint.

Another Tsagaglalal, Horsethief Lake State Park,

Washington. Note chipped edges of rock.

Photo Peter Faris: July, 2000.

Along with considerable rock art, the vicinity of Tsagaglalal also contains some small rock shelters which seem to have been used as vision quest sites. The rock floors of these shelters show a considerable degree of butt-polish apparently acquired by frequent sliding in and out of place accompanied by long periods of sitting. The rock here is volcanic, apparently basalt, and naturally fractures in angular blocks. The rock shelters are located in low cliff and are the result of large blocks cracking loose and falling away leaving small, roughly rectangular openings. Many of the nearly right angled edges of the rock around these shelters have been chipped away in small flakes. Keyser suggested that the rock might have been chipped away for medicinal purposes because of the spiritual nature of the site (so near to Tsagaglal). Additionally, the supposed vision quest shelters also usually contain petroglyphs as well.

Native American beliefs in animism attributed a spirit presence to many of the physical features around them. According to Wikipedia animism “is a philosophical, religious or spiritual idea that souls or spirits exist not only in humans and animals but also in plants, rocks, natural phenomena such as thunder and lightning, geographic features such as mountains or rivers, or other entities of the natural environment.” The presence of Tsagaglalal would have added a strong spiritual attraction to the environment as well. I can picture that a young Native American undergoing a successful vision quest in this environment might well have wanted to take a chip of the rock with him, to include its power in his medicine bundle.

Pebble wedged in a crack. Horsethief Lake State

Park, Washington. Photo: Peter Faris, July 2000.

Another interesting phenomenon found in these rock shelters is the placement of small pebbles of stone into cracks in the rock face at these shelters, perhaps as some sort of offering. I think of this as the “Kilroy was here” motivation, the human urge to make some sort of visible change, to leave some record of their existence. Alternatively, the pebbles may have originally been jammed into the crack to hold some sort of organic offering in place that has since been lost to the elements.

Perhaps any study of a rock art location should include a much more detailed study of surrounding rock surfaces for such modifications as further clues toward the later interpretation of the purpose and significance of the rock art.

Note: I am deeply grateful to my friend Jim Keyser for taking the time and effort to guide me to these locations.

TSAGAGLALAL - CASTORIDES (THE GIANT BEAVER) IN ROCK ART:

Castoroides ohioensis, the Pleistocene giant beaver,

compared to a modern beaver (Castor castor).

            Many experts believe that a people’s mythology and legends begin as tales of actual events passed down by being told and retold through the generations. Tale becomes myth at some point when the actual connections of memory between the living generation and the generations in the stories are lost. Such myths and legends can properly be classified as cultural fossils making the study of creatures of myth applicable to the study of the influence of fossils upon the belief of the people. Many tribes granted a prominent place in their mythology to the giant beaver, including; the Cree, Chippewa, Hidatsa, Jicarilla Apache, Algonquin, Cheyenne, and others, but perhaps the greatest number of beliefs and legends came from the Northwest Coast peoples.

            The giant beaver (Castoroides) had evolved during the Pleistocene in North America. In North America Castoroides ranged from Alaska to Florida, and was particularly abundant around the Great Lakes. It lived in lakes and ponds bordered by swamp, and had short legs with large webbed feet, suggesting that it was a powerful swimmer. Adults were as large as a black bear, probably reaching 200 kg. in weight and 2.5 meters in length.

Kiksadi pole, Wrangell, Alaska. The bottom figure is

Wishpoosh, the giant beaver. Photo Peter Faris, 2001.

Among people of the northwest coast giant beavers were important totem and ancestral animals. The Kiks’adi totem pole in Wrangell, Alaska, was carved about 1895 by William Ukas. It shows the crests of the Kiks’adi clan of the Stikine Tlinget including the crest of the giant beaver Killisnoo.

A Yakima story entitled “How the Coyote Made the Indian Tribes” sheds some interesting light on the origin of the Columbia River. A giant beaver had inhabited Lake Cle Elum on the eastern side of the Cascades. His name was Wishpoosh and he abused the people so that Coyote decided to help them. Coyote and Wishpoosh got into a fight in Lake Cle Elum and caused an earthquake which made a large hole in the lake, and it began to rain. Wrestling with each other and refusing to give in, Coyote and Wishpoosh rolled down the eastern slope of the Cascades to Kittitas valley, where the waters made a great lake. The combat continued on, Coyote and Wishpoosh, struggling with the waters rushing behind in their wake. They cut the channel for the Yakima River, created a second lake, and tore through Union Gap. The waters overflow this path and form another lake in the Walla Walla country. The fight then took an abrupt turn to the left and the Oregon-Washington border channel of the Columbia was made to the Pacific Ocean. This Yakima story is echoed in several other tribal traditions where only part of the sequence is mentioned; the Colville, Sanpoil, and Okanogan tribes all repeat parts of this story.

            In 1953 Ella Clark published a myth that she attributed to both Colville and Lake Indian Informants that credited Coyote with the creation of the Columbia River in its present configuration. In that myth Coyote ordered the four kinds of salmon to swim up the Columbia and made the beaver their chief. “The people of many tribes will come here to fish,” Coyote said to Beaver. “You will be chief over all of them. You must share the salmon with everyone who comes.”

Beaver drawn from Haida button blanket,

1890. Peter Faris, 2003.

            In Northwest Coast symbolism Beaver is identified by two main characteristics. Although Beaver always has ears and rounded nostrils, the two most identifying symbols are the tail and the two large incisor teeth. – The incisor teeth are close together and not pointed as are the canines of the bear or wolf. Many of these characteristics are illustrated by the beaver image drawn from a Kaigani Haida button blanket collected ca. 1890. Now in the collection of the Philbrook Art Center in Tulsa, OK, the image was made by sewing mother-of-pearl buttons on wool and flannel fabric.

Tsagaglalal (She Who Watches), The Dalles,

Washington. Photo: Peter Faris, 2000.

            South of Puget Sound there are a few carved sites on the lower Columbia that reflect the classic Northwest Style. A noteworthy example is the pecked and painted head of Tsagaglalal (She Who Watches), a legendary woman ruler who was turned to stone by Coyote. It is very skillfully pecked into basaltic rock above the Columbia River at the present site of The Dalles Dam. Remains of red paint on the rock suggest that the lines of many of the petroglyphs were originally filled with paint that has eroded away.

            Tsagaglalal overlooks the cemetery area of the Wishram Indian town of Nixlu’idix at The Dalles. This was a trading center which had attracted people from throughout the Columbia Plateau, and even farther. Traders came here in ocean-going canoes from southern Alaska, and northern California, and horse-men came from the Mandan villages in North Dakota. Trade flourished and tons of salmon and other goods changed hands in the trade fairs that attracted thousands of people each year. Lewis and Clark came to Nixlu’idix in October 1805 and recorded in their journals twenty large wooden plank houses, each home to three families. From April through mid-October the various species of salmon migrated upriver to their spawning grounds providing the Wishram with large quantities of fish. Clark recorded 107 stacks of dried salmon and estimated their total weight at over 10,000 pounds.

In a 1990 paper James Keyser wrote on possible interpretations of the Tsagaglalal petroglyph. “The ethnographic approach to interpreting this petroglyph has considerable historical depth. Before 1910 Edward S. Curtis reported the story of the ancient Wishram woman chief which is associated with the petroglyph. Coyote got to Nixlu’idix, the furthest upriver village and asked the villagers, “Are you living  well?”“You must ask our chief,” said the people, “she is living up there in the rocks.” “She sees everything that is going on.” So Coyote climbed up to her and said, “Soon the world is going to change and women will no longer be chiefs. You stay here and watch the people who are coming.” With that, Coyote threw her up onto the rim rock to watch from there forever (Keyser 1990: page S-3).

            Keyser relied on this ethnographic data for interpreting Tsagaglalal and, noting the proximity of the petroglyph to the above-mentioned cemetery, assigned a funerary interpretation to the image of Tsagaglalal. They may, however, be completely unrelated with the petroglyph predating the cemetery. In such a case the Wishram may have considered Tsagaglalal to have a funerary significance that had nothing to do with the idea behind its original creation.

            I believe that we need to go back to earlier mythologies and folk-memories to identify Tsagaglalal. In style the petroglyph is recognized as representing stylistic elements of Northwest Coast rock art. In Northwest Coast portrayals of Beaver the ears are rounded and the mouth is shown as slightly open with a square in the middle representing the beaver’s characteristic incisor teeth. Tsagaglalal also has these characteristics. Additionally, we have seen that among the mythologies of people of that area Wishpoosh the Giant Beaver was instrumental in creating the features of the landscape, particularly the Columbia River and many of its falls, rapids, and other features. I suggest that Tsagaglalal portrays the Giant Beaver, chief of all the salmon and thus the benefactor of the Wishram people who resided there and depended upon them for their living, looking out over The Dalles which it created, and which proved to be so vital to the fishing economy of the Wishram people who lived there.

REFERENCES:

Clark, Ella E.

1966    Indian Legends of the Northern Rockies, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

Keyser, James D.

1990    Tsagaglalal – She Who Watches: Rock Art As An Interpretable Phenomenon, Journal of Interpretation, Volume 14, Number 2.

ROCK ART OF LEWIS AND CLARK:

"Manitou on a rock," Clark's journal, June 5, 1804.

The Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery traversed regions of the continent that are now known to possess considerable amounts of Native American rock art. Among the instructions that Lewis and Clark had received from President Thomas Jefferson in June 1803 for their exploratory expedition was to gather information on the native peoples that they met along the way. They were to gather information on a number of points of native life and customs. President Thomas Jefferson had taken great pains to contact all available scholars and savants in the United States asking them to suggest things that such an expedition should try to ascertain.

Jefferson had delivered in January 1803 a confidential message to Congress that justified the expedition on the grounds of expanding trade with the Indians. Jefferson had also solicited suggestions from scientist and knowledgeable government officials for the types of information that should be sought. He could synthesize the resulting suggestions into a final draft of instructions for the expedition. Jefferson’s instructions concerning Native Americans covered everything from language and law to trade and technology. The explorers were to record Indian foods, what the Indians wore, their technology and handcrafts, and what they believed in. Jefferson told Lewis: “You will therefore endeavor to make yourself acquainted as far as diligent pursuit of your journey shall admit, with the names of the nations and their numbers”. The captains understood that they were to do more than count natives and list languages. From the beginning of the corps of discovery virtually every diarist in it diligently recorded all sorts of information about Indian life.

 "Manitou, buffalo, and Indian." Clark's journal, June 7, 1804.

We must remember however that Lewis and Clark were very much men of their times and that they were imbued with the belief that the culture they represented was much higher and more enlightened that the cultures of the native tribes. As avocational natural historians they certainly would have agreed with modern science’s need for accuracy, but would not have understood any need for impartiality.

Their questions and observations of Native Americans predominately were intended to gather information about the economic and military strength and potential of each tribe. Can they provide raw materials for our industry, can they provide a market for our merchants and traders, are we likely to become embroiled militarily in inter tribal squabbles? Such information goals would only distantly be affected by information on the arts of Native Americans. Therefore their journals contain few references to the arts of these peoples. Likewise, there were few examples of what we would call the visual arts in the items that they collected to send back to Jefferson. One such item was a buffalo robe that they sent back after the winter of 1805, at Fort Mandan. On a large buffalo skin a Mandan artist had portrayed in vivid detail a 1797 battle between Arikara-Sioux raiders and Mandan-Hidatsa warriors. Significantly, this piece of art was most likely included not for its artistic interest but for whatever intelligence could be gained from it concerning the military power of Indian tribes.

Petroglyph, Indian Cave State Park, Nebraska.

One petroglyph that they probably saw because it is right on their path is an engraved quadruped found at Indian Cave State Park, Nebraska. William Clark also recorded in his journal a few examples of rock art that the party of exploration observed (see illustrations above). He drew rough copies in the journals of a number of these. While not the earliest known records of North American rock art, they are very early and display a significant interest in the cultures of the Native Americans they encountered. Clark labeled these images as manitoux, illustrating his assumption that they were religious images.

Tsagaglalal (she who watches), The Dalles, Washington. Photo Peter Faris, 2000.

Interestingly, their eventual route down the Columbia river led past the site of the magnificent petroglyph now named Tsagaglalal (She Who Watches) but there is no hint in their records that they actually saw it. They visited a village of the Wishram people which was named Nixluidix by its residents. The Wishram were one of the Upper Chinook people and prospered in their location on trade, specifically in large quantities of dried salmon. Tsagaglalal was apparently near the site of Nixluidix and was one or two hundred feet above the river on the flat. With its location above and back from the original river bottom Lewis and Clark apparently passed within a few hundred yards of it on both their westward journey and their return trip, although they recorded in detail their visit to the Indian village at that site.

Wm. Clark's inscription. Pompey's Pillar,

Billings, MT. Photo Peter Faris, 2009.

One inscription that was created by the expedition is William Clark’s signature with the date July 25, 1806, inscribed on the rock pinnacle known as Pompey’s Pillar, just a little east of Billings, Montana.

On the whole it is not surprising that Lewis and Clark did not record more information about the Native American rock art that they passed on the way. Given the cultural biases of the time, and their mission from Thomas Jefferson, recording all rock art was just not generally thought worthwhile. We do have to wonder what other things we could have learned about Native American art had attitudes been different.