DANCING FIGURES:

Vermillion Canyon, Brown's Park, Moffat

County, CO. Photo Peter Faris, 1995.

 We find in some locations images that are generally identified as groups of dancing figures. Some of these are lines of figures holding hands, or all facing the same way in a line, each with a hand on the shoulder of the person in front of them. Other variations of the theme are groups of figures, perhaps facing inward in a circle, or apparently in a line all moving together.

Vermillion Canyon, Brown's Park, Moffat

County, CO. Photo Peter Faris, 1975.

 

 

Inevitably we speculate on the meaning of these figures being some sort of celebration or ceremonial activity. In his 2002 book Landscape of the Spirits: Rock Art at South Mountain Park, Todd Bostwick discussed dancing scenes in rock art. “Characteristically, several anthropomorphs in a row will be holding hands and sometimes one or more hold a cane or staff”. He also mentioned examples of “figures in lively postures suggesting rhythmic movement”. Bostwick cited an Akimel O’odham informant, Archie Russell, who identified dancers in several rock art panels.

Salt Creek, Canyonlands, Utah.

Photo Don Campbell, 1985.

If we accept that much rock art has a spiritual significance and includes spiritual components, then we must also expect to find references to spiritual ceremonies and celebrations. As we know that many (perhaps most) spiritual ceremonies and celebrations of tribal peoples involve group dancing, we may justifiably guess that such scenes are illustrations of such ceremonies and celebrations.

Village of the Great Kivas, Zuni, New

Mexico. Photo Teresa Weedin.

 

 

“The most common event centered pictographs and petroglyphs at Zuni portray ritual dancers and dances. A number of Zunis told me that Figure 3.7 (the panel from the Village of the Great Kivas) represents a group of Zuni “clowns” dancing around a pole during the winter solstice ceremony. Although I have never witnessed this ceremony, I have often seen clowns during the summer rain dances move around the plaza with their arms on each other’s waists in a manner similar to that portrayed in this rock carving. Still, one could hardly refer to this as unambiguous evidence that this particular petroglyph actually depicts part of a specific ceremony. The figures are amorphous enough that one cannot say definitively that they form a distinctive clown group. Moreover, there are only ten clowns who participate in Zuni rituals, yet there are perhaps eleven or twelve in this petroglyph. Finally, the date of the carving is highly uncertain; it could have been carved before the formation of the Zuni tribe in the southwest. In fact, the extreme difficulty in dating rock art images renders most interpretations hypothetical at best.” (Young 2004: 93)

If we accept that much rock art has a spiritual significance and includes spiritual components, then we must also expect to find references to spiritual ceremonies and celebrations. As we know that many (perhaps most) spiritual ceremonies and celebrations of tribal peoples involve group dancing, we may justifiably argue that such scenes may be illustrations of such ceremonies and celebrations. Indeed, Colorado State Archaeologist Richard Wilshusen has argued that many of these portrayals are definitely processions to ceremonial events – enter dancing!

REFERENCES:

Patterson, Alex

1992    A Field Guide To Rock Art Symbols Of The Greater Southwest, Johnson Books, Boulder.

Young, M. Jane

2004    Ethnographic Analogies in Southwestern Rock Art, p. 80-102, in New Dimensions In Rock Art Studies, edited by Ray T. Matheny, Museum of Peoples and Cultures Occasional Papers No. 9, Brigham Young University, Provo.

THUNDERSTUD – A FREMONT PETROGLYPH PANEL IN NORTHWESTERN COLORADO:

Vermillion Canyon, Moffat County, CO.

Photo Peter Faris, Sept. 1987.

Back in the late 1980s the Denver Chapter of the Colorado Archaeological Society (DC/CAS) took a number of field trips into Brown’s Park in northwestern Colorado. These trips were primarily to visit Fremont rock art sites in Brown’s Park, an area that is really a long way from anywhere. One of the favorite sites involved considerable 4-wheel driving and then a long hike. This was the Vermillion Creek canyon, a narrow slot canyon through the Vermillion Bluffs . We had to come in from the north side because access from the south end was blocked by a drop-off and a pool of water. We usually tried to time the visit so we could sit and have lunch below this panel with the large figure gazing down at us. One strange coincidence was that on two of our trips in while we were sitting there a troop of boy scouts came along down the canyon. The odds against two groups of such totally different origin as DC/CAS and a boy scout troop being in that remote place at the same time seemed very high, and the odds against it being the same two groups seemed stellar. Yet it did happen, and I had been told that it not only happened the two times I witnessed it, but on at least one other occasion as well.

 On the trip in 1987 that the illustration is from we were sitting below the panel eating our lunches and not much talking was taking place. We were in that state of revery that all of us real rock art groupies fall into when confronted by an impressive panel. Indeed, some of our members believed that we were in a spiritual place and having a spiritual experience. Well lo and behold, the troop of boy scouts came swinging on by hiking to some destination farther down the canyon, and as they passed one scout pointed up to the petroglyph panel and I distinctly heard him say to his companion “see, there is the Thunderstud that I told you about.” – End of spiritual moment, it instantly snapped us back into perspective. Think about it, who are we to assume that there was anything spiritual about that place and that imagery. We don’t have a clue to the motives for its creation. In the study of rock art we may sometimes jump to conclusions too quickly. Let’s try to hold off on the guesswork and base our opinions on actual fact. Remember, Thunderstud is watching you. 

VERMILLION CANYON MEDICINE WHEEL:

Vermillion Canyon medicine wheel, visit by members of the
Denver Chapter, Colorado Archaeological Society.
Photo: Peter Faris, 1999.

Throughout the northern Great Plains a number of Medicine Wheels have been found. These usually consist of a circle of rocks with a number of interior spokes (there are a few examples which omit the circle and consist only of rock alignments like spokes) and may or may not include cairns of stone that mark various locations on the structure.

The medicine wheels, especially important to the northern Arapahos and to a lesser extent the Shoshones, reflected the reverence that all people of the plains maintained for the circle, a shape that suggested spiritual and political unity and connected people with one another and with the natural world.

Vermillion Canyon is found in Brown’s Park in far northeastern Colordo. It runs south from the Vermillion Basin carrying Vermillion Creek through the eastern end of the Cold Spring Mountains to join with the Green River at the south end of Brown’s Park. The northern half of Vermillion Canyon is a narrow slot cut through the rock of the ridge, and the southern half opens up into an enclosed bowl. This bowl is well watered by Vermillion Creek, a permanent stream, and shows signs of prehistoric habitation in addition to the rock art and medicine wheel discussed here. There is considerable rock art produced by the Fremont culture, dating from between AD 600 and AD 1000, in Browns Park and Vermillion Canyon. Most rock art in the Brown’s Park area is attributed to the Uinta Fremont culture and all rock art in Vermillion Canyon is Uinta Fremont. Some of the petroglyphs in Vermillion Canyon are of the Classic Vernal Style as defined by Polly Schaafsma.

In northeastern Utah and northwestern Colorado the Fremont culture seems to have been followed by the Shoshone. About 1000 years ago speakers of the family of languages known to linguists as Numic, which includes Shoshone, began a movement that originated in the southwestern Great Basin and expanded northeastward. Groups of people who spoke the Shoshone language spread up through central Nevada and across northern Utah into southern Idaho and adjacent Wyoming. The Shoshone probably succeeded the Fremont Culture in northwestern Colorado around AD 1300.

In 1994 a medicine wheel was discovered in the lower reaches of Vermillion Canyon by John Tarnesse, an Eastern Shoshone spiritual leader, and Joseph Triscari, a Denver photographer. They had been told by elders on the Wind River Reservation (some 275 miles to the North) in Wyoming of rumors that there was a medicine wheel in that area and had been searching for it, as well as visiting the rock art in Vermillion Canyon.

The Vermillion Canyon Medicine Wheel is located in the bottom of the lower portion of Vermillion Canyon, near the foot of the slope of the western wall of the canyon. This position at the bottom of the canyon prevents the long sight lines to a distant horizon to be expected in a site with archaeoastronomical significance. I therefore conclude that the significance of the Vermillion Canyon medicine wheel had nothing to do with archaeoastronomy. Measuring approximately 27.5 feet in diameter (8.4 meters), the wheel is laid out as two concentric circles, linked by four spokes, and surrounding a single upright center stone. The four spokes consist of seven stones each for a total of twenty-eight stones. The number 28 is often quoted as the length in days of the lunar cycle (or synodic cycle) although the real number is 29.53 days. For instance there are 28 spokes in the Bighorn Medicine Wheel located in north central Wyoming.

The four spokes in the Brown’s Park Medicine Wheel are roughly aligned to the cardinal directions. The four winds or four directions of the compass represented both natural and metaphysical powers. In effect, because the great creator force (or Holy One Above) created everything in fours, the Plains Indians believed they should do as much as possible in fours”.

The age of the medicine wheel is unknown. Given the absence of an absolute date at this time, any guess as to its age must be made on the basis of relative factors. As earlier peoples are not known to have made medicine wheels, and since Shoshone occupation of the region began in about 1300 AD, it should date from that time or later.

The medicine wheel is located near three Fremont rock art sites on boulders that, as suggested above, may have provided part of the motivation for the location selected for the wheel.

A feature like the Vermillion Canyon Medicine Wheel in a location like Vermillion Canyon compels us to attempt to explain its purpose. As we have seen, medicine wheels were of spiritual significance to the Shoshone culture, and we must assume that no matter who originally created the Vermillion Canyon Medicine Wheel, the Shoshone people appropriated it later for their own cultural purposes.

However, it is likely that the Vermillion Canyon Medicine Wheel was created by the early Shoshone inhabitants of the area, the ancestors of the Eastern Shoshone tribe of the Wind River Reservation in Western Wyoming. They had a considerable time depth in occupation of the area. The proximity of the wheel to the rock art is known to be of considerable importance to the Shoshone. This suggests that Vermillion Canyon in northwestern Colorado is a location that was of rich spiritual significance to the Shoshones.

Considering its relatively recent discovery and nearly pristine condition there were early attempts to keep its location secret. However, during our first visit there in the company of a BLM archaeologist to whom we had sworn secrecy, we found a car from California parked nearby. It has apparently already made it to the New Agers circuit. Let’s hope that they don’t feel the need to bury offerings there to mess up the archaeological record.

WATER BUGS IN ROCK ART:

In far northwestern Colorado adjoining Dinosaur National Monument on the north side in Moffat County is an area known as Brown’s Park. Towards the eastern end of Brown’s Park, Vermillion Canyon runs from the north to the south to join up with the Green river. As a permanent source of water in a dry area Vermillion Creek must have served as a travel route for the Native American inhabitants of the area from the arid lands to the north to the more watered Brown’s Park. They left considerable rock art on the canyon walls along the creek, most of it traceable to the Fremont culture of Eastern Utah/Northwestern Colorado.

Water bug petroglyphs, probably Fremont,
Vermillion Canyon, Moffat County, CO.
Photo: Peter Faris, 1988.

The importance of this water source is suggested by the presence of a unique petroglyph found in the narrow reaches of the canyon. This image appears to present four insects above a zigzag horizontal line which is usually thought to represent water, and could be intended to represent Vermillion creek. The canyon in this area is deep and narrow with vertical cliffs, and on a searing hot summer day the bottom of the canyon is cool and comfortable.

So what would this grouping represent? While it is possible to stretch some of the traditional explanations of rock art such as sympathetic magic or shamanism to explain these that would be pretty much a modern intellectual construct. Within an animistic religious framework the spirits of the water bugs could well be thought to appeal to the Great Spirit to keep the cool water flowing for them. I prefer to think, however, that some Native American, probably from among the Fremont people, sitting in the cool shade by the streamside during a mid-summer hot spell, was amused by watching water bugs scooting around on the surface of Vermillion Creek, and decided to affectionately record the moment on the handy cliff face. Remember, not all meanings have to be big, important, and significant. Some rock art may have been done just for fun!