POLYDACTYLISM IN ROCK ART - BEAR PAW PRINTS, PART 1:

12-toed bear paw prints, Sieber Canyon, Mesa County, Colorado. Photograph Peter Faris, 23 August 1981.

As I have written elsewhere on the question of polydactyly (polydactylism) in human hand and foot prints in rock art, we also find instances of polydactylism in bear paw prints. Polydactyly is “the condition of having more than the normal number of fingers or toes.” (Webster) Early on in my studies of rock art I noticed that many bear paw prints showed extra toes and claws. I wondered why this might be and have now pondered it for over four decades.

In approaching this question the first thing I want to know is the possibility of an actual bear showing polydactyly. The answer to this is a definite yes. A simple online search for animal polydactyly found hundreds of references to this; mostly among cats (the so-called Hemingway cat), but also for dogs, bovines, camelids, reptiles, and even a kangaroo. So the question of possible polydactyly for a bear had to be answered yes. 

Six-toed bear foot, Facebook photograph, Wade Lemon Hunting.

Six-toed bear track in snow, in Yosemite, California. Internet photograph, Seth Horstmeyer. (it is just possible that this one is a double print made by a normal five-toed bear stepping in the same spot twice).

Six-toed bear paw print, Okanagan, British Columbia, Photograph, 2012, Adam Konanz, provided by Sean Coogan, University of Alberta.

Then I ran across a photograph online of a bear’s hind foot with six toes on a Facebook page for “Wade Lemon - Hunting Guide”. Additionally, photos of bear tracks showing six toes provide extra proof of the existence of polydactyly among bears. Other proof was found online with pictures of bear paw prints in snow showing six toes. So now we have proof that bears too can be subject to polydactyly.

12-toed bear paw prints, Sieber Canyon, Mesa County, Colorado. Photograph Peter Faris, 23 August 1981.

I have written before about Marie Wormington’s comments to me about a Fremont burial of a man with six toes that she excavated. She related him to Native American beliefs that personal differences can point to spiritual significance. That a person with six digits might have been thought special and so celebrated in rock art. I have long since assumed the same thing for bears. Since one of the most significant things about a bear might be considered to be his claws, the way to portray a significant bear, a legendary or mythological bear, would be to enhance the claws. Thus we find a pair of bear paw petroglyphs in Sieber Canyon, Mesa County, Colorado, by a Fremont artist with twelve claws on each paw. That is a very significant bear. There are many Fremont representations of polydactyl bear tracks.

DeBeque Canyon, Mesa County, Colorado. Uncompaghre style.

Photograph by Paul and Joy Foster.

“The bear possesses a number of qualities that have led most Native Americans to regard it with great reverence. Although recognized as an animal and a supernatural being, it also shares many traits with humans. Perhaps most important is that it sometimes walks upright and flat-footed. Its front paws are much like human hands in the way they rotate and grasp things. The bear is omnivorous, consuming roots, berries, corn, and also many kinds of animal prey; it is thus both a hunter and a gatherer. While many animals are predictable in their behavior patterns, bears seem to have a repertoire of moods similar to people ranging from playful to violent.” (Olsen 1998:111)

“The powerful bear paw, with its formidable claws, serves as a clan or ceremonial symbol for many tribes, and is also used in medical treatments and for magic. In prehistoric times, the strong canine teeth and the claws of bears were worn as amulets and ornaments and bear cubs were sometimes given ceremonial burials.” (Olsen 1998:112)

Six-toed bear paw print, Rock Creek Pictograph Site, Montana. Used with permission of Mavis Greer.

Seven-toed bear paw print, Indian Cave Site, Montana. Used with permission of Mavis Greer.

Mavis Greer (1997) illustrated bear paw prints showing polydactyly, from two different sites in Central Montana. One painted at site 24LC33 (Rock Creek pictograph site) has a pad 42 cm. long and six claws 10 -20 cm. long. The other is at 24CA347 (Indian Cave) is a red forefoot paw print with seven toes. (Greer 1997:91) These are located in the region historically associated with the Blackfeet and Gros Ventre peoples.

Polydactyl bear paw print, Pictograph Cave, Billings, Montana. Photograph Peter Faris

Another polydactyl bear paw print can be found at Pictograph Cave, Billings, Montana.

Keyser and Poetschat, 2015, Seeking Bear, fig.33, p.44.

Uncompaghre style, Keyser and Poetschat, 2015, Seeking Bear, fig.30f, g & h, p.42.

In southwestern Wyoming, Keyser and Poetschat show a bear with very detailed toes and claws and a three-track trackway behind him with the same detailing of toes and claws. "The three-track sequence leading to the largest bear shows tracks exactly like those of the bear's own paws and has a right-left-right sequence." (Keyser and Poetschat 2015:45). One of the right paw prints, however, is given six toes and claws while the others, like the bear's paws, only show five. They assign these images to the Uncompaghre complex (probably the farthest north this style has penetrated). Uncompaghre complex rock art had previously been assumed to be pretty much confined to west-central Colorado and a small portion of adjacent Utah, a region dominated by the Uncompaghre Mesa. Given the great care and detail that went into the creation of these bear tracks I have to assume that the one track shown with six toes is done purposefully, although I do not presume to know what that purpose is.

Uncompaghre style bear petroglyph, Keyser and Fossatti, Fig. 4, p. 17.

An additional six-clawed bear from southwestern Wyoming is pictured in Keyser and Fossati’s 2014 study of the Gateway Site in the Green River Basin. This bear has three normal five-toed paws depicted and with its right front paw bearing six claws.

Uncompahgre style bears, Grand Mesa, Colorado. From Sally Cole, 1987, Fig. 33, p. 109.

An interesting example from the Grand Mesa, Mesa County, Colorado, of a polydactyl bear was shownby Sally Cole (1987). Two headless bears are seen with a single six-toed rear paw print between them. The bears have pecked pits where their claws would be indicated and the lower bear has six small pits on the edge of its left hind foot.

This column will resume next week with a continued look at polydactyl bears and bearpaw prints in part two.

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:

Cole, Sally J., 1987, An Analysis of the Prehistoric and Historic Rock Art of West-Central Colorado, Bureau of Land Management Cultural Resource Series, number 21, Denver.

Coogan, Sean, 2013,  A Six-Toed Paw Print, International Bear News, Summer 2013, Vol. 22, No. 2.

Greer, Mavis, 1997, Bear Imagery in Central Montana Rock Art, in American Indian Rock Art, Volume 23, Steven M. Freers, Editor, American Rock Art Research Association, pp. 85-94.

Keyser, James D., and George Poetschat, 2014, Seeking Bear: The Petroglyphs of Lucerne Valley, Wyoming, Oregon Archaeological Society Press Publication #23, Portland.

Keyser, James D., and Angelo Eugenio Fossati, 2014, Pecked Petroglyphs at the Gateway Site: The Uncompahgre Style in the Green River Basin, The Wyoming Archaeologist, Vol. 58(2), Fall 2014

Lemon, Wade, 2018, Crazy 6-Toed Bear! What’s Your Thoughts?, 7 June 2018, Facebook.com

Olsen, Sandra L., 1998, Animals in American Indian Life: An Overview, pp. 95 - 118, in  Stars Above, Earth Below: American Indians and Nature, Marsha C. Bol, editor, Robert Reinhart Publishers, Niwot, CO.

Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/polydactyly

CHARLES DARWIN'S BEAR:

"Don't Deface" - the bear, pictograph

Picketwire Canyon, Las Animas

County, Colorado.

At the time of his death Charles Darwin had in his correspondence files a letter that had accompanied a photograph of a Colorado pictograph. According to the on-line database of the Darwin Correspondence Project at the University of Cambridge, England, they were sent on May 24, 1874, by Lieut. George J. Anderson, of Fort Lyon, Colorado, http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-9466.html. The database entry refers to the letter, which describes the image as a “photograph of a ‘natural curiosity’, a bear apparently ‘painted’ with red iron on the face of a soft rock”. The letter itself forms part of the Darwin Archive at Cambridge University Library, but the photograph has not been found.

I had found mention of this a number of years ago and was interested enough to pursue a search in an attempt to identify which bear image from southern Colorado this might be. During a subsequent conversation with Larry Loendorf we agreed that it might be the large Picketwire bear. This figure was prominent, had been discovered and publicized early on - its photograph had been printed in newspapers. Loendorf also pointed out that it was originally known as the “cinnamon bear” because rain runoff from the canyon rim had dyed it red with the red dust of the soil. This seems to match the description of it being “apparently ‘painted’ with red iron on the face of a soft rock”.

On May 13, 2009, I received from the Darwin Correspondence Project a transcription of the letter, which described the picture and its location. “The image is painted – as it were – on a perpendicular face of a very soft grey sandstone rock, about 40 feet from its base & 38 feet from its top, but may be easily reached – to the level of the bottom of the picture – by climbing over the dèbris at the foot of the bluff. . . . The coloring matter appears to be iron (probably Fe3O4) and penetrates the rock to a depth of more than ½ inch. . . . The image is in length, from nose to tail, about 8½ feet”. (This preliminary transcription has yet to be published in the Correspondence of Charles Darwin.)

Anderson’s description of the image size seems to fit that of the large Picketwire Bear and I know of no other bear pictograph in southeastern Colorado of that size, but its location is nothing like that described in the letter. The location of the large Picketwire Bear is basically just a little above the present ground surface on a slight slope. Unless we can be assured by a geomorphologist that the canyon bottom has been raised by nearly 40 feet (unlikely since the canyon bottom can be demonstrated to have been eroding deeper) since the creation of the pictograph, then I see no way to reconcile the present location of this bear with the described location. If we are lucky the original picture may some day be located in the Darwin archives: meanwhile the identity of the southeast Colorado bear pictograph sent to Charles Darwin remains a mystery.

I wish to extend an extra thank you to Rosemary Clarkson of the Darwin Correspondence Project for her generous assistance with my inquiry.