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! 

 

Tipai/Kumeyaay Pictographs in a Rock Shelter located on the Eastern Slopes of the Sierra Juarez Mountains, Baja California.

Fortunately for modern day explorers and archaic inhabitants, both hot and cold springs find their way to the surface on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Juarez.  The 3500 foot plateau drops into the Laguna Salada area as seen in the first photograph below.  Archaeologists on both sides of the border have initiated the formal examination of the pictographs and petroglyphs in this area relatively recently.  Publications about the area began appearing in the 1960s.



A few of the hundreds of cluttered black pictographs can be seen on the ceiling of the rock shelter whose main entrance seen here opens to the north.

Only a handful of clearly discernible areas of the very congested areas of painting.  Jon Harman iterated at least 3 separate "styles" in this shelter:  a painted on black, a charcoal network of fine lines, and an older and faded red pigment painting style.  All of the work responds to subtle enhancement by D Stretch and it is easy to over saturate the complicated mural turning it into massive, amorphous areas of black and red.

Again, one of the few edge areas that is not repeatedly repainted, allowing the viewer to see some of the interesting and separate elements.   This figure is about 5" tall.

 

Another edge area that appears to show a figure riding an animal?

One other rather spartan area of the panel demonstrating a variety of black elements over some red, structured geometrics and at least one realistic shape resembling a sun or star?

A close-up of a delicately painted geometric that was resurrected by D Stretch.  By selectively emphasizing the red and eliminating black pigment areas, this well executed element has it's beauty restored.

This 2 x 3 foot area that spalled at some time in the past created a nearly white or ivory colored canvas that has been repeatedly painted in black.  By inverting the colors and tweeking the color curves, a few very faded elements are pulled out of a largely unformed black morass.

Another spalled area that may contain a Spanish cross with triangle tips and base.

A view from deep in the back of the shelter.  By emphasizing narrow sections of the spectrum and eliminating others, some structure is pulled out from the vast black areas that have little to identify to the naked eye.  Above the boulders are a few prayer sticks and then the south opening of the shelter.

The same ceiling section in the above photograph brought out through a different treatment with Photoshop, Camera Raw and D Stretch.

Photos are copyright by Don Liponi 2014.
See you on the trail.  Click to enlarge.

Arizona Rock Art - The Amazing Petroglyphs in the Area of the Petrified Forest. Rock Art of the Palavayu Region. Anasazi Rock Art of the Little Colorado River Region.

For a number of reasons, traveling in Arizona during the Monsoon months requires very good fortune with the weather.  While I had a two week trip planned, after eight days of fairly clear weather I had to scramble out of Arizona.  The skies turned black and the rain began sheeting down so hard that my window wipers could not keep up with it.

For those familiar with the scorched earth of the Painted Desert, it is nearly impossible to believe that the ground has seen water in our lifetime.  But after a rain the mud and the clay can bring any 4WD effort to a halt.

Many of the petroglyphs are in narrow river beds clogged with silts, drop-offs, and tamarisk forests, presenting physical challenges in the best of weather.  Accessing these deep canyons always involves the potential dangers of prolonged slides or falls.

The ground is often "dry pan" and covered with lots of little pebbles that act like marbles on a hardwood floor.

The petroglyphs can be so outstanding that these obstacles become just a part of the experience.

In my mind, the hardships are not the only challenge brought by the Monsoons - it is also the loss of color, intensity and the vibrancy.  Orange rocks turn black, blue skies turn gray.  The magentas, pinks, and violets of the ground all tend to become brown.  In short photography degrades to a pointless exercise in recording a site that has lost its aesthetic appeal.

An extensive treatment the rock art in this region can be found in Pat McCreery's and Ekkehart Malotki's book “Tapamveni” which is still widely available.  According to Malotki, the peak of Palavayu rock art expression came during the Pueblo II - Pueblo III periods or about 950-1300 A.D.  Essentially this expression of culture came to an end around 1400.  The people we know as the Anasazi probably dispersed to the Hopi Mesas and the Zuni River Valley where their descendants live today.  After just seeing a few of the sites found in this book I have enormous respect for the effort of 20 some years that it took to compile the record captured in this publication.

Below are a few of these amazing artistic efforts.  Despite the use of a Polarizing filter, most photographs still required Photoshop to control the overwhelming scattered light.

See you on the trail - feel free to contribute a post - there are no geographic limitations.
Photographs copyright Don Liponi 2014.  Click on photograph to enlarge it a little and see in a slideshow format.

Early Kumeyaay/Tipai Painted Ollas - Ceramic-Pictograph Rock Art of the Kumeyaay. Collection from the Imperial Valley Museum. D Stretch Rock Art on Ollas. Kumeyaay Rock Art. Olla Rock Art. San Diego - Imperial County Rock Art.

For those of you that missed the August 4th meeting of the San Diego Rock Art Association, Ken and I had two separate photographic record sets of ollas that were embellished with painted designs.  This is somewhat uncommon.  It is estimated that only around 5% of all ollas have such designs.

Ken had a collection of photographs from the archives of the Museum of Man which included many examples of ollas discovered in the context of archaeologic studies or excavations.  What was so compelling about those ceramic pieces was that their designs were similar, in some cases, to pictographic elements found in rock shelters or other wilderness localities.  Ken was able to locate several specific examples of this in panels throughout Kumeyaay territory.

In contrast, the collection below includes a few selections from the archives of the Imperial Valley Desert Museum in Ocotillo.  This museum has changed dramatically from the first few lean years into a beautiful and air-conditioned sanctuary for desert archaeology.  The history of this collection indicates that these pieces may have been made for collectors or tourists, perhaps during the Depression Era.  Both Ken and I have heard directly from Kumeyaay women that Tipai basketry and pottery were nearly always marketable and could be exchanged readily for necessities as food and clothing.

Since we were on a schedule at the museum, we were unable to photograph all "sides" of each olla.  Certainly there are many unique designs that I have not observed in collateral pictograph or petroglyph panels within the area.

Out of curiosity, I manipulated some of these images using D Stretch in order to attempt to enhance the patterns.  It worked well in most cases.  Because of the nature of the clay texture, I would recommend very low settings in D Stretch along with minimal contrast enhancement.  Dstretch courtesy of Jon Harman.

We had a very interesting evening and I want to thank all the people who stepped up to help and for all the good camaraderie.

One very significant announcement was made that SDRAA will be taking over the management of the Museum of Man annual rock art symposium from this year forward. This can be a wonderful opportunity for us. If you would like to help, please contact us through the main web page of SDRAA.  While there is some work to be done, your participation can mean so much to retain and expand this globally attended event.  It will be better than ever and a lot of fun.

From the archives of the Imperial Valley Desert Museum in Ocotillo - see you next time!
Photos copyright Imperial Valley Desert Museum. Do not duplicate without permission.

Don Liponi, 2014

Tipai Kumeyaay Pictographs - Beautiful pictographs from the Baja California, Mexico. San Diego Country and Southern California Rock Art - pictographs.

My friends Jose and Ricardo succeeded in helping me finally locate a site that had eluded us in the past.  Both of them were born in the general area and Ricardo actually played in the immediate area as a child.  I was so glad we located it!  I was not sure that we would find it despite having an accurate and marked map and GPS coordinates.  There are too many twisting, winding 4WD roads in this area.  And the ones that look the least promising are the ones you have to take.  Even if you locate the correct area, it is in an old mining district and that means rocks by the millions.  Led by Ricardo, we were able to locate at least 3 panels within a few hours and there are probably more.  Many of the pictographs are faded but they really comes to life with D stretch processing, as the photographs below will demonstrate.  Some areas contain multiple colors which make it difficult to capture using D Stretch.  I wonder how many years D Stretch has "given us" before it will all be gone?  Please support your local or regional Rock Art organizations, BLM or state and national parks.  Millions of rock art sites need to be discovered, accurately documented, and protected.  We could all use your help and what better way to expand your love of rock art? The first 4 photographs are as the images appear after some enhancement in Photoshop CS 5.  Dstretch courtesy of Jon Harman.

The below images are with D Stretch enhancement courtesy of Jon Harmon's software.

 

 

Anyway, that is it for now - from the wilderness of Baja.
Copyright on all photos in post Don Liponi 2014