RAINBOWS IN ROCK ART:

Rainbow with traces of supernumerary arcs. Yellowstone

Park, Wyoming. Photo: Peter Faris, 2007.

One weather phenomenon that is welcomed by everyone is the rainbow. It is welcomed for its beauty, agricultural people celebrate it for its relationship to the presence of rain, and in the case of severe weather the rainbow announces the end of the storm. Thus, the rainbow as a symbol is common in the American southwest, and is also found in the rock art of that region. The examples illustrated are found in Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. It is also often found in conjunction with other weather symbols such as clouds and rain. The rainbow is also illustrated on the masks or headgear of a number of kachinas, reinforcing its importance as a weather symbol to the agricultural peoples of the southwest.

Rainbow, with anthropomorphs and quadrupeds, Antelope House,

Canyon del Muerto, Arizona. Photo: Peter Faris, 1997.

Ferron Box, San Rafael Swell, UT. From Simms and Gohier,

Traces of Fremont, Univ. of Utah Press, 2010,  p. 26

Red Hole Wash, UT.

Notice that in the example of the polychrome rainbow from Red Hole Wash, Utah, the arc of the rainbow encloses a faint concentric circle sun symbol. This is contrary to the reality of the rainbow being seen in the sky opposite to the sun, but it does seem to indicate some knowledge or realization that the sun and the rainbow are related.

Rochester Creek, UT. Photo: Peter Faris, 1993.

The rainbow is very often identified as a bridge to the sky in Native American mythology, and plays a role in many of the tribal myth cycles that involve traveling to the sky or returning from the sky. The example above from Rochester Creek in Utah is generally interpreted as an example of rainbow as bridge to the sky. Of course, with all of the additional figures in that panel, it is not hard to pick out elements that fit into any mythology.

It has also, and this is perhaps my favorite, been referred to as the “happy hunting ground for the flowers.” So happy hunting, for rock art and rainbows.

CREDITS:

Simms, Steven R., and Francois Gohier

2010     Traces of Fremont: Society and Rock Art in Ancient Utah, University of Utah Press, p. 26.

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A BIGHORN SHEEP/RAINBOW PETROGLYPH:

On an August afternoon in 2003, friends Bill and Jeannie guided us to visit the Mortandad Ruin near Los Alamos, NM. The remaining ruins consist primarily of a cliff of cavates, rooms excavated into relatively soft volcanic tuff. There is also a considerable amount of rock art, some of it petroglyphs pecked into the cliff walls, and some of it images carved into the smoke-blackened walls of cavates, exposing the light colored tuff beneath. A probable sun symbol in one caveate consists of a circle around a dot (a haloed sun) with approximately sixteen short tic marks on the inside of the circle pointing roughly toward the central dot. Another haloed sun symbol petroglyph carved near the top of the cliff consists of approximately six concentric circles around a central dot.

While inspecting a cloud petroglyph on a generally southwestern-facing point near the top of the cliff I realized what a marvelous weather-spotting point this actually was. I could see a thunderstorm clearing the canyon rim far down the broad valley, bringing refreshing rain to a hot summer afternoon on an arid and sun-facing cliff, and which seemed to fully explain the cloud petroglyphs in that location.

Bighorn sheep petroglyph with a rainbow

on his left horn. Mortendad ruin, New Mexico.

Photo: Peter Faris, August, 2003.

On September 16, 2009, I did a posting about that weather-watching station and the weather-related rock art found there. Also found in that weather-watcher’s station, near the cloud petroglyphs, a small and carefully carved rainbow reminds us of the joyful conclusion of this refreshing summer rain. This rainbow is carved on the left horn (to our right) of the head of a bighorn sheep. This head with horns is presented in the relatively unusual aspect of a frontal view, instead of the usual side view of the sheep’s head. Heart shaped petroglyphs on the right side of the panel represent other sheep’s heads seen in frontal view, but only the one on the left has the rainbow carved into his left horn. So is there a connection between bighorn sheep and rainbows that could help explain this image?

Close-up of bighorn sheep petroglyph with a rainbow

on his left horn. Mortendad ruin, New Mexico.

Photo: Peter Faris, August, 2003.

In Landscapes of the Spirits: Hohokam Rock Art at South Mountain Park (2002), archaeologist Todd Bostwick wrote about the meteorological connotations of bighorn sheep in the American southwest. “Ethnographer Amadeo Rey has noted that no other animal was treated with such awe and reverence by the O’odham as the mountain sheep. Called “Cheson” by the Northern Pima, the bighorn sheep was closely associated with the wind. Some villages had shrines dedicated to the wind and Cheson. Parts of the mountain sheep are very powerful; both the hides and horns must be kept in a safe, respected location to avoid insulting the wind and bringing on violent storms.” 

Thus we have the fact of the conjunction of bighorn sheep head and rainbow symbol, in a location which seems to be devoted to weather watching, and mythological connections between bighorn sheep and weather in the American Southwest, all suggesting that the curved lines superimposed on the bighorn sheep’s left horn are indeed representative of a rainbow.

Reference:
Bostwick, Todd W., Landscapes of the Spirits: Hohokam Rock Art at South Mountain Park, 2002, University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

HEADDRESS OR HALO? - HEILIGENSHEIN IN ROCK ART:

HEILIGENSCHEIN (HOLY LIGHT):

Heiligenschein, or holy light, is a subtle, yet amazing phenomenon in which observers facing away from the sun see their shadows with a lighter glow around their head than the basic background tone.

Dew heiligenschein, photo by the author. Victoria, B.C., 1995.

Wikipedia describes it as an “optical phenomenon which creates a bright spot around the shadow of the viewer's head. It is created when the surface on which the shadow falls has special optical characteristics. Dewy grass is known to exhibit these characteristics, and creates a Heiligenschein. Nearly spherical dew droplets act as lenses to focus the light on the surface beneath them. Some of this light 'backscatters’ in the direction of the sunlight as it passes back through the dew droplet. This makes the antisolar point appear the brightest."

Opposition effect halo in dead grass,
photographed by author, Aurora, CO,
February 2009.

"The opposition effect creates a similar halo effect, a bright spot of light around the viewer's head when the viewer is looking in the opposite direction of the sun, but is instead caused by shadows being hidden by the objects casting them.”

Figures with rayed headdresses, or
heiligenschein. Vantage, WA,
photographed by the author, 1983.

These phenomena are believed to be the cross-cultural cause of commonly portraying holy figures with a halo or spiritual glow around their heads so commonly found in the history of western art. If this was true for a number of religious beliefs world-wide why would we not assume that Native Americans would have also noticed this phenomenon and also portrayed it in their art. Rock art images that show figures with arcs or rays around their heads are usually identified as wearing headdresses, and I am sure that this is usually correct – but always? Would not an effect as striking as heiligenschein be just the sort of thing that we might expect to be recorded as a miraculous or spiritual event? If I were a Native American on my vision quest, and suddenly one morning I saw my shadow, cast by the rising sun and outlined by the bright glow of heiligenschein, might I not be justified in assuming that something powerfully spiritual had happened to me? And would I not want to record that marvelous event?

Heads with rayed headdresses, Yakima,
WA, photographed by the author, 1983.

As I said above we see reports of rock art figures with full headdresses, but we do not always know whether those cultures wore full headdresses. Some of our more psychically inclined colleagues see those same figures as displaying auras but this is a phenomenon that I have yet to see evidence for. I do think it that it is time that we try to explain the various features of rock art imagery based upon scientific truth when we can find it, and both heiligenshein and the opposition effect are scientific phenomena that I have both seen and photographed. I believe we need to keep it in mind as a possibility.

A beautiful book on atmospheric phenomena, optical and otherwise, is Robert Greenler, Rainbows, Halos, and Glories, 1980, Cambridge University Press, London, New York. Illustrated with many photos and with explanations of the optics behind them, it may have insights into some rock art imagery otherwise unexplained.