BIRDS IN ROCK ART - MACAWS/PARROTS REVISITED:

Macaws, Square Tower Canyon,

Hovenweep Nat. Mon., San Juan

county, UT. Photograph:

Peter Faris, 28 May 1988.

A fascinating subject to study in rock art of the American Southwest, an arid region with much desert, is a picture of a parrot or macaw. But we know that macaws were imported into the American Southwest from their Mesoamerican home during the Ancestral Puebloan periods. On December 15, 2010, I posted a column entitled BIRDS IN ROCK ART - MACAWS, about a group of petroglyphs in Hovenweep National Monument, Utah.

Macaw, West Mesa, Albuquerque,

New Mexico. Photograph: Paul

and Joy Foster.

On March 20, 2011, I posted another column entitled BIRDS IN ROCK ART -PARROTS, about images found in Petroglyph National Monument in West Mesa, Albuquerque, New Mexico. These are birds we think of as jungle creatures from a wetter and more verdant area, one thousand miles away from where the petroglyphs are found.

Two macaws, West Mesa, Albuquerque,

New Mexico. Photograph: Paul

and Joy Foster.

Stephen Lekson (2015) discussed the presence of macaws in this area in terms of logistics (importing/breeding/trading). He relegated to them a function of display and ceremony, almost conspicuous consumption, among upper class rulers at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, in the twelfth century, and Aztec, New Mexico, in the thirteenth century.

                                                              

Scarlet macaw. Archaeology,

Vol. 68, No. 5, September/October

                           2015 p. 16.

         

"Chaco was a conspicuous eleventh century consumer of macaws. Paquime was a fourteenth-century producer. Aztec . . . well, Aztec had three macaws - two actual macaws (Lori Pendelton, personal communication, 1997) and one macaw feather (Morris 1919:64). Aztec Ruins and its region have not produced many foreign curios.

But, of course, Aztec West is only one of the half dozen large buildings at Aztec. What a different picture we would have of Chaco had only Chetro Ketl and not Pueblo Bonito been excavated! With the current data, however, it appears that long-range exchange - spectacularly evident at Chaco in the twelfth century and Paquime in the fourteenth century - was greatly reduced at Aztec during the thirteenth century." (Lekson 2015:91)

"Macaws were important to Chaco; thirty-four were found at the canyon, and a few were found at Aztec. Paquime had hundreds and bred the birds, probably supplying feathers - needed for developing kachina ceremonialism - to all the Pueblos (Hargrave 1970). "The people wished to go south, and raise parrots," according to the Acoma and Zuni stories; and that's exactly what they did." (Lekson 2015:147)

Now, according to an article in Archaeology magazine (Vol. 68, No. 5, September/October 2015, p.16) by Eric A. Powell, we have a hard date for the presence of those birds in the area. 

Macaw skull, Chaco Canyon, New

Mexico. Archaeology, Vol. 68, No. 5,

September/October 2015, p. 16.

"In the prehistoric American Southwest, trade with distant Mesoamerica was a source of power and prestige that could make or break a ruler. Within the massive multistory buildings at New Mexico's Chaco Canyon, for instance, archaeologists have discovered exotic goods from Mexico, such as cacao and the remains of 33 scarlet macaws, whose natural habitat is 1,000 miles away on the Gulf of Mexico. Scholars had assumed that long-distance trade became important only during the period when Chaco's power was greatest, from A.D. 1040 to 1110. But now a team has dated the macaw bones and found that some were imported as early as A. D. 900. "I was very much surprised," says American Museum of Natural History archaeologist Adam Watson, who helped organize the dating. "I, along with everyone else, assumed the trade networks with Mexico didn't become important until Chaco expanded. Now we have evidence that control over trade and political power were being consolidated long before then." (Powell 2015:16)

It turns out that the presence of macaws/parrots in the American Southwest dates from almost a century earlier than previously assumed. This carries strong implications on the scale of trade between the American Southwest and Mesoamerica, as well as Chacoan societal development. I imagine the impact that a creature like a scarlet macaw would have had on the people of Chacoan society, their presence would seem almost magical. It is this mental and emotional picture that gives these petroglyphs their impact on modern viewers.

REFERENCES:

Lekson, Stephen H.

2015    The Chaco Meridian: One Thousand Years Of Political And Religious Power In The Ancient Southwest, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland.

Powell, Eric A.

2015    Early Parrots in the Southwest, page 16, Archaeology, Vol. 68, No. 5, September/October 2015.

BIRDS IN ROCK ART - MACAWS:

Among the birds pictured in rock art of the American southwest are the figures of some birds that are not native to North America but which had been imported from Meso-America. These alien visitors are parrots and macaws. Macaws and parrots, along with copper bells, and sea shells were imported from the jungles of southern Mexico, up to 1,000 kilometers (more than 600 miles) to the south.
Macaws and parrots were important birds in prehistoric Mimbres-area communities by A.D. 1000. Scarlet macaws apparently were imported into the area from the tropical lowlands in Mexico. Macaws in particular evidently were of special, perhaps ceremonial, importance as indicated by consistent age at death, probably reflecting sacrifice in the spring, and by deliberate burial, often in special rooms in the community. Remains of macaws and parrots were also found in abundance at Chaco Canyon and other sites proving that not just the feathers, but the birds themselves had been traded for.

There were basically two species of Macaw that were prehistorically imported into the American southwest from Mesoamerica. These are the military macaw (Ara militaris), a green feathered species, and the scarlet macaw (aro macao). The military macaw is from relatively dry areas and its range reached to within 20-30 miles of the Arizona/Mexico border. The scarlet macaw occupied wetter habitation so its natural range ends considerably farther south (Hutchins 36-37). Scarlet macaws are relatively easily tamed and so would have been easier to transport (Hutchins p.40).

Three macaws, Hovenweep National Monument,

Utah/Colorado. Photo: Peter Faris.

My petroglyph of macaws is located at Hovenweep. There are three of the birds arrayed horizontally across the center of the picture with their heads with curved beaks facing to the right and their tails pointing out to the left. The bird on the right has a squared fret design sticking up from its tail, the center bird seems to be standing on a Mesa Verde style t-shaped doorway, and a smaller, fainter one is on the left side past the spiral.

Close-up of three macaws, Hovenweep National

Monument, Utah/Colorado. Photo: Peter Faris.

Native American societies prized feathers for decorative purposes as well as for their perceived symbolic and spiritual meanings. For any people who highly prized feathers the feathers of Mexican macaws would have been valued highly indeed for the beauty of their bright colors. Pueblo peoples associated macaws with the rainbow because of their bright colors and, as birds, they belonged in the sky. The accompanying complex of associations included clouds, the sun, and rain, and maize (which needed rain to grow). The multicolored plumage of macaws also suggested the many colors of kernels found on Indian maize. Thus it is not surprising that macaw and parrot feathers were important for the creation of “Corn Mother” fetishes. Pueblo peoples create “Corn Mother” fetishes, based on a perfect head of corn bundled within a cluster of feathers. Called the mi’li at Zuni, the base was hollowed out and a heart of flint was placed within. Called a tiponi at Hopi, instead of flint it held seeds. Among the feathers affixed to the corn mother, the feathers of the macaw were highly prized. They would have also been prized for the creation of Pahos the so-called "prayer sticks".

Parrot effigy pot, Tonto polychrome, ca. 1300-1400,

p.189, Brasser, Native American Clothing, 2009

The Tonto polychrome macaw effigy pot illustrated was created by the Hohokam people of southern Arizona.

It is hardly surprising then to find images of parrots and/or macaws in the rock art of the region. While we cannot know if the motive for the creation of their images was to invoke spiritual influences, a prayer for rain, or just to brag about wealth, it is interesting to reflect that the images of parrots and macaws are placed on the rocks in a region where they never naturally lived. These images remain as a symbol of the complexities of the culture of these people who benefited from these long distance trade networks.

Reference:

Hutchins, Megan
2008   Survey of the Macaw, p. 36-44, in Mesoamerican Influences in the Southwest, Kachinas, Macaws, and Feathered Serpents, edited by Glenna Nielsen-Grimm, Museum of Peoples and Cultures, Popular Series #4, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT.