Grand Canyon Area Rock Art. Cohonina Rock Art. Ancestral Puebloan Rock Art. A visit by San Diego Rock Art Association Members.

Joining forces with Rick and Sunny, I was able to find my way to a typically spartan evergreen forest cut by a shallow canyon near the south rim of the Grand Canyon.  I had just gone up in elevation from Sedona at around 4500' to the South Rim at nearly 7000'.  Thankfully, there was no snow on the ground here in early May, although the North Rim of the Grand Canyon at 8500' elevation would have several feet, in fact the road was not yet open.  There would be miles of snowdrifts to clear.  Still, even with the sun brightly shining, the chill of the blowing wind reminded me that it was not easy to live here, or even briefly visit here without solid equipment from REI--a luxury that the Native Americans did not have.  Even in May the night time temperatures were in the upper 20s [Fahrenheit]. 

Currently, while there was only moderate protection accorded by the crumbling limestone walls, perhaps, at best 20 feet tall, there was ample water in large pools that would probably make it through the summer or provide for farming even in today's climate.  Apart from that, there were scattered Pinyon Pines, frequent Juniper stands, widespread Indian Ricegrass and no doubt many other edible plants doing well in the drainage.  Perhaps the Archaic and Ancestral Puebloan cultures that lived here up to about 1250 A.D. used the area seasonally.  The Ancestral Puebloan cultures that lived in the area of the Grand Canyon have been classified by general geography, weapon points, shelter design and ceramic/rock art expression.  Such divisions may be somewhat artificial in that they do not necessarily correspond to significant cultural differences.  In any case the three groups are the Cohonina, the Virgin Ancestral Puebloan, and the Kayenta Ancestral Puebloan. 

According to Christensen, Dickey and Freers, the Cohonina and Kayenta groups coexisted in the Southern Rim area.  The small canyon that I am in contains an abundance of Cohonina pictographs.  As you can observe in the slideshow below, common themes to Cohonina pictographs include solid body anthropomorphs [some digitate and others not], snakes, footprints, hand prints and ungulates [basically, hoofed animals].  Dark red, orange and yellow seem to be the prevalent colors.  Most of the elements are quite small. In this particular canyon, there are not many deep rock shelters so the quantity of elements is limited.  In the one large rock shelter I located, the quantity of art was much higher.

My brief discussion is largely a condensation of a highly recommended, beautifully photographed and written, recent text by Don Christensen, Jerry Dickey and Steven Freers: Rock Art of the Grand Canyon Region; Sunbelt Publications: 2013.  This nearly coffee table sized book is very reasonable and one of the most readable publications to be printed in the arena of rock art. 

Please enjoy the slide show below.  I have used DStretch on several of the photographs and those photographs that are enhanced follow the "regular" photograph.  Thank you to Jon Harman for use of the DStretch program.



See you on the trail,
Don

Sedona - Paradise and the Systematic Destruction of Sinaguan Rock Art and Ruins. Sedona and Arizona Rock Art. Sinaguan Rock Art. San Diego Rock Art Society Members.

To my Fellow Hikers, Wilderness and Ancient Cultural Defenders aka Nature Lovers - this should be just about everyone, shouldn't it?  It is also addressing those responsible in Sedona for the exploitation of cultural sites including rock art sites.  I have to admit, I am not sure who holds the reins of power for this in Sedona.  As a matter of convenience, I address this to the Sedona Town Council so that they can be made aware of the problem.

For about 30 years now, we have been lucky enough to be able to visit the beautiful area around Sedona, in central Arizona.  Despite the inevitable assault on this relatively small area by millions of tourists from nearby Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles and just about everywhere else in the Southwest, there is still much beauty to be found among the red rock canyons, flowing blue creeks and bright green mesquite forests.  Decades ago, the commercial highlight to me, was Gordon Wheeler's Indian Trading Post that had a few hundred thousand treasures collected from Native American cultures and the surrounding desert they lived in.  Apart from Gordon's there were a few good restaurants such as Judi's, some authentically hospitable inns such as Sky Ranch Lodge [both are still around] and a plethora of "tourist kitsch-like" stores full of junk.  Today, there seems to be an increase in the affluent atmosphere of the commercial array of businesses offering their services to visitors and many new residents.  With the pressure on the land to provide for nearly out of control population growth, how could we expect anything different?  If this were the only assault on Sedona's magnificent ancient cultural resources, Sedona could have implemented protective programs such as stewardship and other site management structure such as that proposed by Ben Swadley in American Indian Rock Art 35:219-235 [2009] in an article titled - Actively Managing Rock Art Sites.  Such systems are in operation in many other areas of concentrated ancient cultures.

In my opinion it is not the occasional vandal that is the primary enemy of Sedona's cultural resources, it is the facet of government responsible for managing these resources in the Sedona area.  Below is a slide show consisting of a visit last week to two sites close to Sedona's official hiking routes. They are in good condition because they are nearly impossible to reach on foot and therefore cannot be fully exploited by the destructive conditions set in place by Sedona's cultural management.  Before rewarding yourself with a look at these two splendid rock art sites, both associated with Sinaguan habitation ruins, I want to share some of my personal experiences.

Nowhere else in the Southwest that I am aware of, has the organized exploitation of cultural resources such as Rock Art and Ruins been as developed by relentless and repeated organized touring groups for the purposes of profit.  On several different occasions over the past 30 years while visiting various sites that are extraordinarily high on canyon walls, we have been accosted by commercial helicopters taking tourists to see up close these "unreachable and hidden" ruins.  While their occupants blissfully shoot photo after photo, people that climbed to these ruins along with the ruins and the rock art are all subject to the sand blasting of "eye to eye" rotor wash from the hovering helicopters.  This sandblasting effect is repeated with regularity as these sites are visited, it appears, quite frequently.  When I have tried to spend even an hour at such sites in at least three very well known canyons, we have been subject to repeated visits.  The fragile pictographs were never designed to hold up under such stress and repeated destruction.

Several years ago after being subjected to 3 helicopter visits while on the Mushroom Rock Trail that had remarkable cultural resources, I wrote to the Sedona City Council.  While I never received a direct response, shortly thereafter, the Mushroom Rock Trail was closed and deleted from the only existing hiking guide while the helicopter visits were allowed to continue their destruction of both the ruins and pictographs.  In my personal life experience, this is one of the most egregious choices of cultural genocide of the spiritual resources of the Native Americans for profit.  In this case, the Native American heritage destruction is occurring less than one mile from Enchantment Resort in Boyton Canyon.

If I did not make it clear, one week ago, high on a ledge in Long Canyon, which is one canyon east of Boyton canyon and near the golf course, myself and two young women were subjected to two helicopter visits within 20 minutes.  The three of us had to try and keep our camera's covered, eyes and ears protected and try not to be blown off the ledge we were standing on while the helicopter just hovered there with the sand blasting away like a sand storm.  Obviously nothing has changed.  The Sedona governing bodies still hypocritically place their economy ahead of the Native American cultural resources they insist they are protecting.

If not by air, then by land.  One of the most widespread "jokes" about Sedona throughout the hiking and wilderness advocacy communities and the archaeologic professionals of the Southwest are the "Pink Jeep" platoons that endlessly traverse and invade the archaeologic sites of the area.  Whomever has the money to pay for a tour can visit numerous unprotected archaeologic sites as part of a tour and then return to the site on their own.  One of the protective elements of rock art and ruins is that they are difficult to find.  Once their location is made public to a large group of people, that protection is gone.  While such a prospective may appear elitist, the process of becoming involved in stewardship and management of rock art sites and then learning specific site locations, is a system that has worked well under real world conditions.  It balances the desire of an individual to see rock art with service within the rock art community.  Not only does the person get to see more rock art, they understand more of what they see.  They also feel compelled to protect and educate others about rock art.

On this same trip of one week ago, while returning from another rock art site, I passed near the poorly managed Palatki, where the rock art has been largely locked up out of site of the public despite organized, chaperoned and paid-for tours.  Not far from the inexplicable Palatki situation is another rock art panel that was, until recently, protected and on private land.  As I drove by, there were two pink jeep vehicles parked a few yards from this panel disgorging probably 15 or so people who were meandering all over the land that led up to the site.  The site, by virtue of it's past protection is in pristine condition.  How long it will last now as it functions as a means to provide revenue to the 100 or so jeep tour vehicles in Sedona?

So let us revisit the Palatki site for a moment.  Last year I wanted to show my wife the splendid rock art that exists there.  The site is now locked and you can only visit as part of a guided tour and are not allowed to visit the site on your own.  I can live with that.  What is amazing in context of what I have related above, is that they have locked away nearly all of the rock art from any public display even though the site is now fenced and highly guarded.  The guides now show you one watery alcove of faded rock art that is nearly invisible and consists of less than 10 rock art elements of any regard, while 100s of pictographs are locked behind a fence only a  few feet away.  Whatever the explanation could possibly be for this, I cannot imagine.  Here is a site that could inspire and educate people under careful management, yet it is withheld from the public.

Returning to the Long Canyon alcove of one week ago, when the second helicopter pulled away from the ruin and the pictographs, I expressed my concern to the two young women about the effects of the recurrent sandblasting of the rock art.  Honestly, I had assumed full hearted agreement with my viewpoint.  Surprisingly, they seemed very concerned, even disappointed,  that I would feel that way.  They told me that one of them worked for the one of the jeep tour companies and another worked for a motel.  They said they owed their jobs to enterprises like the helicopters and the jeeps.  From what I have seen, they have the support of the Sedona government.

Ostensibly, the Sedona government supports destruction of the ancient, spiritual and irreplaceable cultural resources for short-term monetary gain.  Even in today's society where timeless treasures that are hundreds or thousands of years old may not get all the respect or care they deserve, this outright destruction perpetrated by the Sedona governmental agencies entrusted with their care is remarkable in it's disregard.  Certainly, their must be someone or some oversight that is more interested or impassioned with their cultural resource survival?

I hope you are impressed with the rock art you see below taken from two sites close to central Sedona.  I would really appreciate it if each reader would take the time and make the effort to contact the Sedona Town Council regarding these issues and express your dissatisfaction.  The Sedona Town Council has a "Citizen Engagement Plan" that will let you express your viewpoint on this matter at:
http://www.sedonaaz.gov/Sedonacms/index.aspx?page=1046


Thank you and see you on the trail.

Don Liponi

On the trail in Southern New Mexico on Private and Public Lands: Mogollon Rock Art Styles and Apache Rock Art. An Overview for Friends Around the World.

Dear Rock Art Friends:

The last time we "talked", Rick Coleman and I were leaving the Sonora district of Mexico, driving through the border crossing at Nogales, Mexico heading into Southern New Mexico.  We went through many sites that our host had set up for us, including some on private land.  Most of these sites were small, but the Jornada style is remarkable nevertheless [see below].  However, there is one public site that anyone can see for 5$ and it contains several thousand petroglyphs in a few square miles and a beautiful, sparkling clean campground right next to the rock art area at Three Rivers Petroglyph Site.  All of this is just a few miles off of a modern freeway and a few miles north of the town of Alamogordo, New Mexico.  A little further away is the incomparable White Sands National Mounument, the Mescalaro Apache Indian Reservation and the beautiful town of Las Cruces that provides gourmet Sonoran food that can only be found in certain areas of New Mexico. If you are not driving and camping, you may fly into either El Paso, Texas, which is closer to all of the above, or secondarily, fly into Albuquerque, New Mexico, which is further northwest of all of these features.  Flying in and driving to Three Rivers would be about 2 hours from either entry point.  While it is difficult to beat Las Cruces for amenities, Alamogordo is closer to both White Sands and Three Rivers and has plenty of facilities.  OK, enough of the practicalities.  The bottom line is do not miss out on this world class Sonoran cuisine.

Southern New Mexico Rock Art. 

Three exceptional sources of overview material for the Rock Art of New Mexico are [1] Rock Art of New Mexico or [2] Indian Rock Art of the Southwest by Polly Schaafsma and [3] Signs of Life: Rock Art of the Upper Rio Grande by Dennis Slifer.

In Southern New Mexico the primary prehistoric culture Culture is Mogollon [pronounced Muggie Yone].   The Mogollon Culture of Southern New Mexico extends into Southeastern Arizona, Western Texas and into the northern reaches of Mexico's Chihuahua and Sonora regions.  Its origins are derived from the earlier Cochise Archaic culture in the Western highlands of New Mexico [Mountain Mogollon or MM],  and henceforth it spread into the Eastern desert regions of New Mexico [Desert Mogollon or DM].  The Mogollon culture extended from about 300 B.C. to about 1400 A.D.  From around 1000 A.D. there was increasing influences from the Anasazi to the North upon the [MM].  Rock art styles attributable to the MM include Mogollon Red [500 A.D. to about 1300 A.D.] in the San Simon and the Pine Lawn areas of southwest Arizona and the  Pine Lawn area of New Mexico in the Mogollon mountains.  In this later region the Reserve Style of Petroglyphs, named after the town of Reserve in the San Francisco-Tularosa river drainages may have been an Anasazi influence from around 1000-1300 A.D.

The Desert Mogollon [DM] area practiced their version of the Great Basin Abstract Style from about 1 A.D. to roughly 1000 A.D. followed in the  Jornada and Mimbres regions with the striking Jornada style [JS] from about 1000 A.D. to about 1400 A.D. when the region was abandoned.  The JS was adopted by the Peublos becoming known as Peublo or Ceremonial Art, then further adaptations in the last few hundred years by the Navajos and the Apaches.

Apart from their geographic range, the content of these four major styles can be differentiated as follows:

Mogollon Red [MG]: Generally small and simple sites consisting of stick figures, zig zags, dots or short lines/dashes, one pole ladders, bird tracks, and ovals or sunbursts.  Red pictographs of a more complex nature exist and belong to other types of non-MG styles.

Reserve Style: Often includes tracks of various animals especially the bear and images of a multitude of animals themselves.  Anthropomorphs have rectilinear or curilinear appendages often pointing upward or bent legged.  Often incorporated are curvilinear or rectilinear geometric or abstract element as well.  This style may have grown out of the MG under the influence of the Anasazi neighbors to the north after 1000 A.D.

Chihuahuan Desert component of the Great Basin Abstract Style which is widespread throughout the region and preceded the styles above through patination and superimposition.  While there is a prolific representation of abstract elements, realistic depictions of animals, animal tracks and anthropomorphs may be particular to the Mogollon region. 

Jornada Style: [JS] Beginning around 1050 A.D. in the Mimbres region, significant cultural influences began in the Casa Grandes area of Mexico to the south.  The culture there became strongly influenced by Mesoamerican cults of the Gods such as Tlaloc, Xipe Totec, Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl and Huitzilopochtli that each had its particular artistic elements.  Different elements of this predominant style can be found at Hueco Tanks, Alamo Mountain and Three Rivers Petroglyph site.  Masks and faces with almond eyes or google eyes are distinctive along with feathered or horned animals or anthropomorphs.  Flying or spread eagle birds, turtles, tadpoles, fish, corn, cloud terraces [stepped or stair like lines].  The style was carried over into Mimbres ceramics, into the Pueblo art after 1300 A.D., up to about 1600 A.D., and the Kachina Cult which seemingly borrowed heavily from the Tlaloc [Rain God] cult.  Without the existence of this art the massive influence of Central Mexico on the art of the Southwest region would be much less defined.  Even beyond the Pueblo and Kachina periods, the influence of the JS was keenly evident in the Navajo and Apache rock art that began about 1500 A.D.   As one travels from site to site in New Mexico, it is common to find JS sites in proximity to Pueblo art and in turn to Navajo and Apache art.  Since this was my first exposure to this progression, I often had difficulty attributing the rock art to the ethnography of the artist.

The discussion above is largely borrowed from Indian Rock Art of the Southwest by Pollly Schaafsma. School of American Research 1980.  This text is highly recommended to understand the material in more clarity and depth than the brief summary above.

Below are some slides taken from JS sites and Apache sites - I hope they help you clarify at least these two styles.  Keep your eyes peeled for one or two Reserve or Mogollon Red contributions.
As usual some of these photographs have been processed through either Adobe Photoshop or DStretch [thanks to Jon Harman as usual].
If you appreciate the rock art you see in this Blog, please get involved by volunteering to be a site steward with a local, state or federal park in your neighborhood or for the Bureau of Land Management.  If you need any ideas, email me and I can point you in a good direction.  We really need your help!  Thanks!
Don

Wandering into Sonora, Mexico - at Rancho Puerto Blanco in Caborca. Rick Colman and Don Liponi - SDRAA members - Rock Art San Diego to Mexican Rock Art

A few weeks ago just as the weather was warming up in Southern California, Rick Colman and I headed south through Lukesville, Arizona into the Sonora region of Mexico.  Just the two of us into an area that is classified as a world class Petroglyph site.  On the Rancho Puerto Blanco about 10 km west of the city of Caborca, we were gratefully established in the ranch house with a bed, bathroom and full kitchen.  The owner,  José Méndez Reyna, and his son, Jose Jr. were both very helpful and bilingual.   We were the only two visitors there at 25$ per night each and it was well worth it.  The whole time we were there, we saw only one other group of photographers. The rancho is great photographic experience where you have all the time in the world to set up your shots and appreciate the rock art. We came prepared with a map that showed the main rock art areas of which there are about six.  If you have a GPS of these six sites, it is really all you need.  You can get by without GPS, but it may take you a while to figure out where the main concentrations of petroglyphs are.  The owner, Jose, can help you, but it is better if he shows you.  There is at least one area that is on a neighboring ranch that is well worth seeing for a 15$ charge.  It is possible to get groceries in town and other supplies as well, but you will have more time to search if you come prepared.  Camera wise - a wide angle lens is essential, although bring something longer, say up to 200 mm for those rare shots.  Mostly, I used a 10-24 mm Nikon with a polarizing filter.  Flash will help although a gold light disc is even better.  There is endless climbing of rocky terrain so try not to get too overloaded.  Each site can take 3-4 hours to see fully or mostly fully so you can stash drinks and food in the car.  All the sites are drive up to the site and then start climbing and scrambling, boulder by boulder, petro by petro. 

The one English citation that I could locate is the following and highly recommended reading before going and while you are there:

Dominique Ballereau.  A Complete Survey of Petroglyphs from Cerros La Proveedora and Calera, Sonora.  Rock Art Papers [5]: 95-112, Hedges, Ken, ed.  San Diego Museum of Man, San Diego, CA.

This journal is available at the Central San Diego Public Library in hardcopy, although copies may be available online or through World Cat at your own library.

While this article does not point out enough location information to be useful in that regard, it does help the reader understand the context of the Caborcan rock art and some distinguishing characteristics.  Ballereau and her associates spent about 30 days in the field to complete the survey at the two main Carborcan sites and estimated that there were approximately 5000 petroglyphs.

In the slide show that follows you can get an idea of the type of petroglyphs that are commonly found at the two main areas, Cerro La Proveedora and Cerro Calera.

If you plan a visit, here is the ranch link, and Bruce usually handles it for Jose.  They are both very helpful and we felt perfectly safe.  We exited at Nogales to the east and it was smooth all the way.  Each route was about 2 hours.

http://ranchopuertoblanco.com/

Hasta la Vista,
Don Liponi

As promised - here is the slide show - [Part 1] from Rancho Puerto Blanco. Click on photo image to enlarge or slow down slideshow:

Gifts of the Desert Spring - Sheep and Lambs; Spring Annuals and Cactus Flowers - Kumeyaay Desert Territory - Nature's Art

Dear Readers:
I am so grateful to have many international readers - thank you for checking in on our local Native Americans.  I wanted to take a quick break from rock art, but more is one the way, to show you Kumeyaay territory at the apex of natural art in the early Spring.  So much has changed in the hundreds and thousands of years that the Kumeyaay have lived here.  One aspect of the annual life cycle that has not changed, is that each Spring as a consequence of late summer and winter rains, brought new life.  This past weekend, Donna and I, both SDRAA members, were met with a large herd of sheep that came straight down Indian Head Mountain on the west side, that is easily a 45 degree steep angle into the creek bed of Borrego Palm Canyon.  Both adult sheep and baby lambs were in a very playful mood and ran back and forth in front of us, along with jumping and lots of pausing to eat the new green vegetation.  Even, and this is rare, the mountain cliffs were accented in green against the magenta rock.  We stayed about an hour or more with the Big Horn Sheep, a prize game for the Kumeyaay.  Some of the steeper cliff areas have Kumeyaay built sheep hunting blinds that the late Bob Begole showed me how to find.  An adult male may weigh 100 pounds or more provided you can catch one.  When the sheep were more plentiful, one catch would provide a protein source for an entire village.

Out of the mountains and onto the alluvial plains that accept the rainwater run off from the rocks above, we were met with vast fields of Desert Primrose, Desert Sunflowers and Poppies.  Again the magenta, orange and yellow annuals contrasted with the white, crystalline sand, the Coyote and Santa Rosa Mountains.  Further sound in the alluvium of the Palo Verde Mountains where ancestors of the Kumeyaay left the foundation of their homes, now affectionately known as sleeping circles thanks to Bob Begole, are found several distinct cacti.  At this time, the Barrel cactus and the Beaver Tail cactus were both in bloom with bright green-yellow blooms and scarlet blooms respectively.  Ocotillo, almost always in flower, had also responded to the few inches of desert rain this year with their fiery red orange flower tips.

Springtime in Kumeyaay lands - for all of you who come visit the blog and cannot see the beautiful land that was respectfully tended to by these Native people for thousands of years, this is what it looks like.  In the past, as we noted, there was more rain, and so the Spring nature show must have been even more evocative of a Garden of Eden and the new born Lamb.

We are also so grateful to the hundreds of people who worked on their hands and knees in the heat and cold to remove by hand the invading Mustard plant that had overrun the flower fields in Henderson Canyon.  I am sure that these diligent workers must have pulled thousands and tens of thousands of these invading plants in order to allow the natural flowers to return to their past glorious display.  They have kept at this tedious work for several years and this year is the first time that the rain has blessed their work with a beautiful display.  For all of you that cannot be here, here is the land of these ancient gardeners in Springtime.

See you on the trail.  All photos copyright 2015 Don Liponi. Please do not reproduce without my written permission.  Click on to enlarge.

Discovering Tipai - Kumeyaay Rock Art in Baja California from La Rumorosa to beyond the El Topo Ranch in the Sierra de Juarez Mountains. Kumeyaay Rock Art. Southern California Rock Art. San Diego Rock Art.

Last weekend, friend, fisherman and guide of Baja California, Jose Morales planned a wonderful trip for us at the beautiful El Topo Ranch [ranchoeltoposierradejuarez@hotmail.com].   They are also on Facebook with some wonderful photographs of people having fun at the rancho: 

https://www.facebook.com/RanchoElTopoSierraDeJuarez

This horse and cattle ranch is about 25 miles south of La Rumorosa [the town] in the Sierra de Juarez Mountains.  You follow one 2WD road south from the western end of La Rumorosa that heads down to Laguna Hanson.  El Topo is about 10 miles before Laguna Hanson, and about 10 miles Northwest [as the crow flies] of Canyon de Guadalupe. There are regular signs along the road to El Topo Ranch.  After about  22 miles on the road to Laguna Hanson, there will be a large sign and a turn off to the west for El Topo Rancho.  This road is also 2WD, however, both roads might be impossible to drive during or just after a rain storm as they are dirt and clay, not gravel.

The purpose of this trip was to view some new rock art sites that Jose had located.  All of the sites were several miles from the Rancho, but El Topo was a good center point so that everyone could do what was of interest to them.  El Topo has at least 20 horses and they are beautiful animals that love to get out on the trail.  Ricardo loves to ride and even his grandson who looks like about 8 years old is a good wrangler.  Everyone on the ranch could not be more friendly.  When not laughing, the mood is the most pleasing serenity with a warm breeze blowing through the Pine trees.

This trip included many rock art fanatics from around the U.S.  My camping neighbor was the innovative rock art author, Dennis Slifer from New Mexico via Virgina.  We had a great time on the back roads of Baja.  We also had along John Pitts and Siobhan Hancock, Ned and Edna Clem all from New Mexico, Brian Swanson from somewhere in the Southwest,  Jose Morales and the incomparable trekker, Christy Tweedy and yours truly.  My poor Donna was stranded at home working on a Webinar.  Jose and Christy located the Tipai - Kumeyaay pictographs before they invited us down, so we were able to spend more time enjoying the area.



Our Hosts at the El Topo Ranch in the Sierra de Juarez Mountains of Baja California - Don Ricardo and his wife, Veronica.  I am smiling as I just had some of Veronica's Huevos Rancheros for breakfast!

New Site discovered by Jose in a large tunnel like rock shelter about 15-20 miles south of La Rumorosa.

New Site discovered by John about 20 miles from La Rumorosa near the end of a very long 4WD road.  The trees are manzanita that are very, very healthy with bright red wood.

 

Revisiting a rock shelter south of La Rumorosa - Note the middle photo with the hand print and a possible figure with "feathers" where his arms might be.  There is a well known Shaman association with birds and flight.

 

The two photographs above and below this line contain elements that are each only a few inches across and are all on a wall of a small rock shelter.  The entire panel is less than 2 x 2 feet.  The bisected circle and a few red dots are about all you can see with your unaided eye.  While small in size, I think this panel is amazingly artistic in quality.

 More of the new panel discovered by Jose after six previous visits looking for new art in this area south of La Rumorosa. The red body "sheep" is very unusual as is the other figure.  All of the figures from this shelter and most of the other ones have been processed with Dstretch [acknowledgment to Jon Harman] to amplify the colors of black and red.

See you on the long desert trail!
Don Liponi - Copyright all photographs 2015.

San Diego - Riverside Rock Art in Luiseno-Cahuilla Territory, Southern California. Neighbors of the Kumeyaay. Luiseno or Cahuilla Rock Art. Puberty Related Rock Art. Southern California Rock Art.

My friends, Joel and Rick, told me about this site and they warned me that it was a difficult and potentially dangerous hike involving steep drop-offs and a climb out, but that the rock art was extraordinary.  Well, they were correct on both accounts. The only difficulty I didn't have to overcome was Diamondback Rattlesnakes, thanks to the cold temperatures at night.  Scorpions, ticks, spiders, or centipedes may have been around the dark and dank shelters or the vegetation choked creek bed, but I did not have any interactions with them.  I did walk with some hesitancy to the sites thinking about all of these creatures!  One of the shelters is about 7 feet up a granite wall and is about 2 feet tall in most places.  The light is too low to shoot without flash.  Even a 10mm lens hardly did the rock art justice as the focal plane, at times, was about a foot.   Another feature that is unusual to me is that the paintings are on dark rock and to make them visible, unfortunately, requires a lot of computer work.  A prime example is the second pair of photos below - the one on the left is "as is" and the one on the right is DS.  Even with Photoshop and Dstretch [thank you to Jon Harman], I could barely pull out the figure.  As you can see, most of the rest of the rock art is made up of dots, zig-zags and intertwining or braided lines in white and red.  The blue is a DS artifact. 

Admittedly, I know very little about this area.  The Luiseno were known to have rock art paintings associated with young women puberty rites and these paintings below have elements that are related to such rites of passage.  It is difficult to ascribe this rock art to either the Luiseno or the Cahuilla.

Click on a photograph to enlarge it.  Photos are copyright by Don Liponi 2015.  See you on the trail!

Lots of Dots, Zig Zags and Braids.  The rock art itself is red, but both photos are DStretched.

Pre and Post DStretch - I am not sure if the right photograph actually shows an anthropomorph or not?

The blue elements are actually red - this is a Dstretch rendition.

Above are some Abstract elements - DS is used to bring out the faded red designs.

 

 

A DS version of this art, although the paint is a faded Red

 

The lower photographs are multicolored Braiding designs on the ceiling of a Rock Shelter.




 

 

 

 

 

Cahuilla Native Americans - 10,000 years at the Cary Ranch Site. Sam Diego and Riverside County Rock Art. Neighbors of the Kumeyaay and Anza Borrego Desert State Park Rock Art.

A small group of SDRAA desert rats recently visited the famous Cary Ranch near Anza, CA a few hours from San Diego.  Dick Cary was our amicable host who walked around the property with us.  It was a cattle ranch that has been in his family since 1938.  Before that, his family lived in the valley with other famous "old timers" including the legendary "Ramona".  More than 200 years ago the ranch was a "camping site" for Juan Bautista de Anza during the mid-1770s and many Spanish artifacts have been found in the valley.  Dick's parents knew Ramona and he has a photograph of her that his father took in the early in the 1900s.  If you plan a visit with Dick Cary, he is a great story teller and historian.  We really enjoyed talking with him at length and sharing the local history.  He does tours for small groups like us or for the Boy Scouts.

This is the land of the Cahuilla Native Americans, neighbors to both the Ipai and the Tipai Kumeyaay, the Luiseno, the Serrano and the Quechan groups.  How long they have lived here is a matter of some controversy, but, according to Dick, more evidence is pointing to a habitation of about 10,000 years.  Our host took us around to a few of the pictograph sites in the area.  While some of it appears to be abstract, other elements appear to be renditions of either anthropomorphs or partially realistic creatures.  Most of the elements we saw are black paint on dark rock in rock shelters and were a challenge to photograph.  All the photographs below are enhanced by Dstretch with thanks to Jon Harman for the software.

For more reading on the Cahuilla Native Americans, I recommend:

Mukat's People: The Cahuilla Indians of Southern California by Lowell J. Bean
The Heart Is Fire: The World of the Cahuilla Indians of Southern California by Deborah Dozier

Click on photos to enlarge and all photographs are copyright by Don Liponi 2015.  Please do not use without written permission from me.

 

 

 

 

 

Kumeyaay-Tipai Unique Rock Art Element - A Yellow Fish [?]. A Desert Centipede[?] San Diego Rock Art. Kumeyaay Rock Art. Tipai Rock Art.

As a group of El Centro BLM site stewards and SDRAA members continue to walk the deserts and mountains of East San Diego and Imperial Counties, we continue to be amazed by the diversity of Tipay/Kumeyaay rock art that we are finding.  While this panel was discovered many years ago while on a simple walk, it has not been seen since and is unregistered.  No photographs of this panel existed until a few days ago.  This flash photograph belies the darkness of the shelter.  You have to crawl in on your back and then try to sit up to see the yellow art.  The space is very tight, making focusing a problem.  The original discoverer called this picture a "Yellow Fish" and it's hard to argue with what appear to be rib bones.  The round head is not compatible, so we are left with yet one more mystery that literal interpretations of La Rumorosa style rock art are fraught with limitations.  I had one Tipai friend look at the photograph below and he responded immediately - its a desert centipede!  Thanks, Frank, I had completely forgotten they existed.  Frank is more in touch with the land, obviously.

 

 Most art panels probably have spiritual meanings which were known to the artist and, perhaps, to their contemporaries.  It is not known outside of Tipai culture if anyone alive today understands the meaning of these paintings.  From what little we do know,  the artist was having a spiritual connection during or before executing the painting, something we can all aspire to.  Perhaps it is this sacredness that we all seek - to live in harmony with the spiritual world.  From what Tipai friends have told me, at least in the past, there was the unifying principle of the world, that all things possessed a spiritual nature.  In other words, all things were sacred. 

 

This principle of animism has been discussed by many investigators in the literature including Polly Schaafsma  [AIRA Volume 21 #3] and, more recently, by Doug Peacock.  According to Peacock, in his recent text, In the Shadow of the Sabertooth,  our dichotomy of a spiritual and physical world has allowed the Europeans/White Americas to propagate all kinds of rapacious behavior.  As whites, we have mostly tried to dominate the world and it's peoples and change everything to be compatible with our world vision.  We did not live in acceptance and harmony with nature.  Rarely, does the power structure of mankind behave or act on spiritual principles.  Clearly this strategy has had it's temporal advantages. 

 

We Westerners have been in the Americas for 500 years.  The Native Americans lived alongside nature for closer to 15,000 years [accepting a pre-Clovis culture].  We had/have lessons to learn from these people, but we did not listen.  Now, many scientists believe it is too late to stop the inevitable  climate cycle change that has already been set in play.  It has happened many times before, in just blinks of past geologic time.  It opened and closed the door to the Americas only thousands of years ago.  If it is too late, maybe next time, the survivors will get it right?

 

Photograph copyright Don Liponi 2014 - see you on the trail.  Click on photograph to enlarge.



 

 

 

 

Tipai-Kumeyaay Rock Art Site - A Little Known Baja, California Site Along the Road to Mexicali, East of La Rumorosa.



As I had done many times before, I was driving down the long grade of Quota Road 2 in Baja California.   This time my friend finally convinced me to stop and look.  There are many reasons not to stop:  It is a short steep climb;  There is graffiti visible on the rocks, though most of it is not on the pictographs;  Once you start driving down the grade, there is no turning back towards the direction of Tecate for many miles;  You must pass through two military check points as part of the drive.  Beyond these usual reasons not to stop, today it was getting dark - we would have to use flash and we couldn't see what we shooting at.  Finally, there was no time to preview the area using D stretch to find pictographs.   If we did this we would be climbing down the boulders in the dark.  While struggling up the trail I though of one more reason: there probably wasn't anything good up there anyway. 

 

Big thanks to hiking partner and fellow SDRAA member Rick Colman, because he made me go up the ravine anyway.  Now that I have recovered I am so glad that I went.  Here are a few images of the well defined anthropomorphs and some other unusual designs amidst perhaps one hundred morteros and basins.  Even today the area is abundant in Mesquite trees.  Many of the overhangs are rich in soot.  The yellow "flying" man or shaman shown below was barely visible under a thick layer of soot and located within a few feet of the highly mortared rock, also shown below.  While the point of this trip had been to visit another area, this site turned out to be the jewel of the trip. 

 

Rather than make up excuses not to do this hike, we are now anxious to return in the daylight and see all that we were bound to have missed.  If you are looking for opportunities to expand your interest in rock art, consider joining the San Diego Rock Art Association.  Our meetings, service opportunities, field trips and networking will help you.  Please see our link on the first page of this Blog. 

 

All photographs are copyright Don Liponi, 2014.  Click on photo to enlarge or to watch as slide show.  Dstretch courtesy of Jon Harman.

 

See you on the trail!