KUKANILOKO BIRTHING STONES, WAHIAWA, OAHU:

Kukaniloko Birthing Stones, Wahiawa, Oahu.

Photo: October 26, 2010, Peter Faris.

Located a little north of the old royal city of Wahiawa, Oahu, the Kukaniloko Birthing Stones are a vestige of the old ways, still apparently honored as indicated by the presence of offerings placed upon some of the stones. Kukaniloko was a place of great mana, and it was reportedly customary for pregnant women from the ruling families to come to the site to have their baby lying upon one of the stones in the belief that it will gain great mana from that. The stones are found in a grove of palm trees surrounded by fields of sugar cane and was once part of the Dole pineapple plantation.

Offerings on stones, Kukaniloko Birthing Stones, Wahiawa,

Oahu. Photo: October 26, 2010, Peter Faris.

According to Van James, “this is the first ancient site on Oahu to have been officially recognized, preserved, and protected, thanks to the efforts of the Daughters of Hawaii in 1925.” “The site is believed to have been established by chief Nanakaoko and his wife Kahihiokalani. The efficacy of the stones was attributed to aumakua residing in them.” (2010: 113) “In Hawaiian mythology, an ʻaumakua is a family god, often a deified ancestor. The Hawaiian plural of ʻaumakua is nā ʻaumākua, although in English the plural is usually ʻaumakuas. Nā ʻaumākua frequently manifested as animals such as sharks or owls. Nā ʻaumākua were worshipped at localities (often rocks) where they were believed to "dwell".” (Wikipedia 2010)

Engraving on top of rock. Kukaniloko Birthing Stones,

Wahiawa, Oahu.Photo: October 26, 2010, Peter Faris.

Shadows cast on the engraving on top of the rock.Kukaniloko

Birthing Stones, Wahiawa, Oahu. Van James, Ancient Sites of O’ahu:

Revised Edition, Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu, 2010, p. 114.

Few of these stones have recognizable petroglyphs although many of them seem to be shaped in ways that suggest that they have been worked. Many of them bear hollows like basins that may have been used for sacrifices or divination rituals. Others have channels in the surface like drains, and one extreme stone has a large number of rounded vertical projections around the upper rim. Although to the casual viewer’s eye there are no tool marks on these they seem too extreme to not suspect purposeful working. This stone also has the most obvious petroglyph on its upper surface, four concentric circles. With a low sun, at certain times of the year, some of the projections cast shadows across the petroglyph which has prompted suggestions that this has calendrical significance.

Piko stone, Kukaniloko Birthing Stones, Wahiawa,

Oahu. Photo: October 26, 2010, Peter Faris.

Another stone that has obvious working is identified as a piko stone. A stone into which a number of small pits has been pecked. These were reportedly intended as repositories for the umbilical cords (piko) of children born at Kukaniloko, and Kukaniloko is identified as the piko (navel) of Oahu.

A number of lei offerings on the stones at the time of our visit testify to the continued relevance of this site to the beliefs of some people.

References:

James, Van
2010 Ancient Sites of O’ahu: Revised Edition, Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aumakua

A MISPLACED RELIANCE ON STATISTICAL ANALYSIS:

A recent trend in rock art studies is the partial acceptance of rock art as a legitimate subject for study by academics and professionals. Much of this is made possible by the application of statistical analysis of rock art which lends an air of scientific respectability to what was before a somewhat messy field of study. This is because the statistical analysis provides quantifiable data that can be pointed to as scientifically verifiable objective fact. I have personally never been completely comfortable with this type of rock art study but I had always put it down to the fact that, as an art historian, statistical analysis is seriously foreign territory, something I am not conversant with. My feeling has been that once we have finished the elaborate statistical analysis of rock art elements, and now know which elements are closer to which other elements, what have we really learned? We could have pretty much determined that by simple observation, and learned just as little by doing so.

On July 12, 2010, I published a posting titled The Writing On The (Cave) Wall concerning a recent example of this sort of study which was related in a February 17, 2010, article by Kate Ravilious in New Scientist magazine entitled “The Writing On The Cave Wall” which made the ambitious claim that writing had been discovered on the walls of the painted European caves. According to this report a pair of scholars at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, graduate student Genevieve von Petzinger and her supervisor April Nowell undertook as a Master’s project a numerical analysis of all the signs found in 146 sites in France covering a date range from 37,000 to 12,000 B.P. The signs were compiled in a database for analysis. They found that 26 of these signs appeared frequently in numerous sites. The most common sign was a line that was found at 70 percent of the sites and across all time periods. The next most common symbols were what they called “open angles” and dots being found at 42 percent of the sites. Having found quantifiable examples of common occurrence of these symbols in conjunction with each other they made the amazing announcement that they represent a form of written communication, and astoundingly the scientific community, including anthropology and archaeology, seems to accept this statement. Why would scientists fall for this? Because, Petzinger and Nowell got their results from a statistical analysis of numbers in a database.

An essay by Tom Siegfried in the March 27, 2010, issue of Science News titled "Odds Are, It’s Wrong: Science Fails to Face the Shortcomings of Statistics", addresses the question of accuracy and truth in science based upon statistical analysis. In a detailed explanation, and with a number of interesting examples, Siegfried points out that all scientific results that have been reached through a statistical analysis are literally only possible explanations, not proven truth. One example he cites is the 2007 meta-analysis published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which attributed an increased risk of heart of attack to users of the diabetes drug Avandia. Siegfried stated that “raw data from the combined trials showed that only 55 people in 10,000 had heart attacks when using Avandia, compared with 59 people per 10,000 in comparison groups. But after a series of statistical manipulations, Avandia appeared to confer an increased risk.” We have since seen much about this in the news including recent hearings by an FDA panel on the subject.

Now, as I stated above, I am not a statistician, and am not personally qualified to pass judgment on statistical work done by others. However, if I was interested in doing statistical analysis of rock art I would certainly read Siegfried’s essay before I tied my reputation to the results.

References:

Siegfried, Tom
2010     Odds Are, It’s Wrong: Science Fails to Face the Shortcomings of Statistics, Science News,
             Vol. 177, No. 7, (26-29). (March 27)

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527481.200-the-writing-on-the-cave-wall.html?full=true

ARCHAEOASTRONOMY - TURKEY TRACKS ACROSS THE SKY:

Tracks on cliff, Fremont Indian State Park, Utah. Photo: Peter Faris, 2001.

Native Americans recognized constellations of stars just like other ancient cultures, they just had different names for them. In Stars of the First People, Dorcas Miller (1997:179) wrote “Pueblo farmers kept turkeys, so it is not surprising that they should recognize a Turkey Feet constellation. John P. Harrington, an ethnologist who worked in the southwest and published information about Tewa constellations in 1916, writes that the group is “”an easily learned constellation of the exact form of a turkey’s foot,”” but to the frustration of later readers he does not identify these stars. The shape of a turkey’s foot is similar to that of the Northern Cross, which has also been suggested as the Pawnee Bird’s Foot constellation.” The Northern Cross is the central grouping of the larger constellation Cygnus, the Swan. Looking at star charts for this area of the sky, I find nearby another classical constellation that looks, if anything, even more like a turkey track and that is Aquila, the Eagle. Taken together Cygnus the Swan and Aquila the Eagle would represent a pair of turkey tracks, Turkey would have been walking across the sky.

Star map showing Eagle and Northern Cross constellations.

Miller, Stars of the First People, p.17.

When we find a row of bird tracks on a rock in the Southwest there are a standard few pat answers as to what they represent. In many instances they would be assumed to represent the turkey itself and its role as a food source, or a source of feathers, or even represent a spirit helper. In traditionally ancestral Puebloan areas they might be called clan symbols. What I do not believe that I have ever seen as an explanation however, is that they might represent an archaeoastronomical reference, the constellation – Turkey Tracks across the sky.

Reference:
Miller, Dorcas S.
1997     Stars of the First People, Native American Star Myths and Constellations, Pruett Pub. Co.,
             Boulder, Colorado.

SHEEP BUTT PAINTINGS – NOT REALLY ROCK ART:

Red paint smear with petroglyphs,

Photograph provided by Bonnie Newman.

We have all seen them, the meaningless smears of paint two to three feet above ground level on a vertical rock face, often in a rock shelter or overhang somewhere in the American west. The paint often looks relatively new but it is always unrecognizable as any sort of image or symbol, just a smear. Rock art researchers have speculated that these markings were made by sheep which had been marked with paint. This premise has now been confirmed by X-ray fluorescence spectrometry in a project by rock art researchers Bonnie Newman and Larry Loendorf.

Ewes with paint applied to their rumps.

Photograph provided by Bonnie Newman.

“Ewes with painted rumps are responsible for creating some "rock art" panels in central Wyoming. That's what researcher Bonnie Newman, of the Museum of New Mexico's Office of Archaeological Services, and New Mexico State University archaeologist Larry Loendorf discovered when they compared suspiciously abstract paint smears at the Notches Dome site with paint found at a nearby historic shepherds' camp. X-ray fluorescence spectrometer analysis revealed that the blue, green, and red paint smeared onto Notches Dome rock projections was chemically very similar to the paint used in a woman's portrait on a barn wall at the sheep camp. Ewes marked with paint for breeding and branding purposes had probably taken shelter beneath the rock ledges, where they left paint smears later mistaken for rock art.” This marvelous analytical tool was previously discussed here on October 28, 2010.

Close-up of sheep paint smear. Photograph

provided by Bonnie Newman.

Sheep paint on rock surface.

Photograph by Bonnie Newman.

For at least a century pigments have been used to brand sheep, or to match ewes with their infants, as well as which ewes have been bred by which sires. The paint spot for the first purpose would have been applied to the back of the ewe and baby which could be rubbed off on an overhanging rock. The paint used to determine which sire bred which ewe would have been applied on the low chest area of the ram, some of which would have rubbed off on the ewes back or rump when he mounted her. A shepherd with two or more breeding rams could mark each one with a different paint color to maintain records of bloodlines among his flock. Some of this paint could be transferred to the rock by the ewe in the same way as in the other example.

Bonnie Newman and Lawrence Loendorf have pretty much settled the question for us with this cutting edge research.

Bonita Newman is an archaeologist with ICI Corporation, Virginia Beach, VA., and is currently a member of the board of directors of the Colorado Rock Art Association. Lawrence Loendorf is a retired professor from New Mexico State University, and a former President of the American Rock Art Research Association.

Reference.
Quote from: Archaeology Magazine, Volume 61 Number 1, January/February, 2008.

THE NU’UANU PETROGLYPHS, OAHU:

On October 23, 2010, we were given a tour of the Honolulu area by my cousin Rob and one of the sites that we located was the Nu’uanu petroglyphs. They are located in Nu’uanu valley which is where the deciding battle of King Kamehaha I’s drive to conquer Oahu and thus unify the Hawaiian islands occurred in 1795.

Nu'uannu Stream, Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii. Photo: Peter Faris, Oct. 23, 2010.

According to Wikipedia the battle “is known in the Hawaiian language as Kalelekaʻanae, which means "the leaping mullet", and refers to a number of Oahu warriors driven off the cliff in the final phase of the battle. Kamehameha I had begun his campaign to unify Hawaii in 1783, but prior to 1795 had only managed to unify the Big Island. In February 1795 he assembled the largest army the Hawaiian Islands had ever seen, with about 12,000 men and 1,200 war canoes. Kamehameha initially moved against the southern islands of Maui and Molokai, conquering them in the early spring. Then he invaded Oahu”. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Nu'uanu)

Nu'uannu petroglyphs, dogs and human figures. Honolulu,

Oahu, Hawaii. Photo: Peter Faris, Oct. 23, 1020.

Kamehameha I prevailed and at the climax of the battle, caught between the Hawaiian Army and a 1000-foot drop, “over 400 Oahu warriors either jumped or were pushed over the edge of the Pali” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Nu'uanu) - the leaping mullet. This had been the last major challenge to Kamehaha I and afterword the combined islands were known as the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Dog petroglyphs, Nu'uannu, Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii.

The Nu’uanu petroglyphs consist of three sites along the Nu’uanu stream behind the Nu’uanu Memorial Park Cemetery and the Royal Mausoleum, near Alapena pool. They have a total of as many as forty carved images mostly human figures and dogs. The number of dog images is somewhat surprising as there are no wild canids on the Hawaiian Islands to commemorate, so they have to be representations of the domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris).

While the meaning of these dog images is not known for sure there are a number of possibilities in mythology listed in Traditions of O’ahu: Dog Gods of the Ko'olau Mountains. A number of the tales involve a supernatural dog named Poki. Seeing Poki was an ill omen and a traveler who saw the dog would be wise to return home to avoid disaster. In other tales Poki was the pet of an evil spirit living in the mountains.

Nu'uannu petroglyphs, dogs and human figures. Honolulu,

Oahu, Hawaii. Photo: Peter Faris, Oct. 23, 1020.

There is another interesting myth involving a dog. In this myth Kane, the chief god of the Hawaiian pantheon used to party with his companions at night in the mountains over Wai-pi’o valley and each drink of awa (the intoxicating drink known as kava in the Pacific islands ) was accompanied by a blast on their conch shell horns (pu). Kane’s horn, the famed kiha-pu, was of divine origin and possessed supernatural power, as well as being louder than any other. These loud sessions disrupted the whole countryside and kept the inhabitants awake all night. To deal with these disruptions King Liloa sent a dog named Puapualenalena to steal Kiha-pu, which subsequently became a prized possession of Hawaiian monarchs. (http://www.sacred-texts.com/pac/ulh/ulh22.htm) This Kiha-pu can be seen on display at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu.

One myth directly related to the Nu’uannu petroglyphs claims that they portray a mythical dog named Kaupe who had once been a human who had ruled Nu’uanu valley. During his reign he ate a lot of people and later Kaupe became a malevolent spirit in dog form that calls out to people at night to lure them to their deaths. (Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaupe)
Whichever story we choose to believe this concentration of dog petroglyphs seems totally unique and is off the beaten path so it may not be visited as regularly as more publicized sites.

References:

Traditions of O’ahu: Dog Gods of the Ko'olau Mountains, Asia-Pacific Digital Library, Kapi’olani Community College, (http://apdl.kcc.hawaii.edu/~oahu/stories/kona/doggods.htm).

Wikipedia

A PAINTED BOULDER IN SOUTHPARK, COLORADO:

Hereford, West face of the painted boulder, South

Park, Colorado. Photo: Peter Faris, 1994.

One day in the summer of 1994 I was driving down South Park in the Colorado Rockies on C-285 headed for Chaco Canyon when I came upon this idyllic scene. I do not know exactly what caused me to pay attention to this cow specifically because there is no shortage of cattle in pastures along rural roads in Colorado to observe. Something about this cow lying down in the field attracted my attention. A few seconds later I looked back in the rear-view mirror and saw the second scene. I pulled over and stopped on the shoulder of the highway before turning around and going back to take the pictures included here.

This erratic boulder in the field which so resembles in size and shape the form of a reclining cow had been (as you can see) painted to look like just that, and cleverly, whoever the artist had been, a different breed was used for each side. The east face of the boulder resembled (to my eyes anyway) a Holstein while the west face of the boulder was obviously a Hereford. They were certainly well enough done that they stood up to a casual glance and I was at least momentarily fooled by the scene.

Holstein, East face of painted boulder, South

Park, Colorado. Photo: Peter Faris, 1994.

To me this is a wonderful example of playfulness, whoever painted this boulder (and I assume that it was the rancher who owns the land it lies on) took the time and effort with no possible profit other than the joy involved. And it has been kept up as far as I know. The last time I saw it was just a couple of years ago and it was still painted although the paint looked much less fresh than when I first saw it. In its current incarnation it is not painted as two different breeds, at my last observation of it both sides were painted to look like the Hereford.

Each time I drive down C-285 I look forward to visiting my old friend, and it has been that way for the past sixteen years. My thanks to that anonymous rancher for adding a spot of joy to the world. Oh, and by the way, good job painting too!

A REVIEW - READING THE ROCKS:

A REVIEW: Reading the Rocks: Aboriginal Australia’s Painted History, by Samir S. Patel, pages 32 – 37 & 68, Archaeology, January-February 2011, Vol. 64, No. 1.

This article, excellently written by Samil S. Patel, a senior editor and writer at Archaeology, is about the researches of archaeologist and rock art specialist Paul S. C. Tacon of Griffith University in Gold Coast, Australia, at the amazing rock art site of Djulirri in the Wellington Range of Arnhem Land in northern Australia. Its setting is a visit with Tacon and the aboriginal owner of the site Ronald Lamilami to Djulirri which affords the opportunity to describe the site and its significance. Djulirri’s additions and overpaintings cover an immense period of time. Tacon traces its early images back 15,000 years and the last major additions to the panels were painted about 50 years ago.

Aside from good information, and a very interesting look at the Australian rock art tradition, the importance of this piece by author Samir S. Patel is that for a change rock art is being discussed as a valid part of the historical record and a source of cultural information. “Djulirri is among the top handful of rock art sites in the world, and in its layers of pigments and stained rock is an abundance of information about Aboriginal culture and how it dealt with the sweeping changes of the last few centuries.”

This article also includes valuable information on how the aboriginal culture understands the rock art record. “All the stories are here in the rock” says Lamilami. “Each year, a new concept would be drawn - what happened the year before that, it’s a time lapse.” Patel points out that “Other rock art sites, such as Lascaux in France, capture only a narrow period of time, and even the deepest archaeological deposits aren’t willful creations like this. Djulirri might be the longest continuously updated human record in the world.” In other words according to Lamilami, this site represents an annually updated record of what happened to his people over that span of time, much like the winter counts of many of the Native American tribes of the Great Plains of North America.

I feel that this six page article contains more real understanding and usable information than some of the books on rock art sitting on my bookshelf. Do yourself a favor; make sure you get to read this one.