A few images from La Rumorosa, Baja California - Kumeyaay Rock Art. San Diego Rock Art Association Field Trip



Just a few peeks from the San Diego Rock Art Association field trip to La Rumorosa, Baja California last week-end.  Some photographs are as untreated and the others are D-stretched.  La Rumorosa is a State Park of Baja California and is managed by Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History [INAH].  We saw literally hundreds of elements and some panels are amazingly dense with multiple layers of pictographs.  The fourth photograph is of Diablito, also known as the Sun Watcher.  The small figure was determined to be a solstice marker in a published study by Archaeologist, Ken Hedges [please see Rock Art Papers, Volume 4: 17-32; 1986].  There are at least 3 of the "three headed" like anthropomorphs at the site, which, as far as I know, are unique within Kumeyaay pictographs.   We would like to thank our hosts, both of INAH and the Kumiai Community Museum in Tecate, Baja California, which is an amazing tribute to this culture housed in a beautiful setting of its own.  Click on photo to enlarge.  These photographs are copyright by Don Liponi, 2014.



 

 

 

 

 

 

Wonderful day with SDRAA at La Rumorosa, Baja California. Baja Mexico Rock Art of the Kumeyaay.

San Diego Rock Art Association Field Trip to La Rumorosa - Baja California Rock Art - Kumeyaay Rock Art

 

Members of the San Diego Rock Art Association about to begin a field trip to the Rock Art sites of La Rumorosa, Baja California, led by Archaeologist Ken Hedges.  Ken is a major contributor to a variety of research performed on this magnificent site.  La Rumorosa is not only the largest Kumeyaay site of the La Rumorosa style of rock art, the site contains many elements not found at other sites within Kumeyaay territory.  After episodes of vandalism, the Mexican government has taken steps to restore and protect this world status prehistoric rock art gallery.  La Rumorosa is an easy trip from Tecate, Mexico via a modern toll road.  All trips are guided and this State Park contains a picnic area and modern bathrooms with immediate access just north of the toll road.  Some photos taken of the pictographs during our visit will follow this post.

 

 

Rock Art Speculation: Kumeyaay Rock Art, Southern California Rock Art, San Diego Rock Art

Several years ago, this was the first pictograph panel I found in a survey area that must have been seasonal home to several hundred or more Kumeyaay Native Americans that have occupied most of land now known as San Diego and Imperial Counties and Northern Baja California.  While most of the existing pictograph panels are thought to have been painted within the last 500 years, few, if any of the desert panels have been dated by new, more reliable dating methods.  I always wonder if the Kumeyaay artist/shaman who renders an individual panel is still living in "pre-contact" days - before the Spanish and before the other Europeans essentially committed genocide on these people.  Then they weren't Native Americans, they were just the Kumeyaay.  In a land where few modern men could survive, they had achieved a great knowledge or respect of nature that allowed them to meet their physical and economic needs.  At the same time, the Shaman, whose work survives on this granite wall paints what might be a story of physical to spiritual transformation.  The anthropomorph on the left is just a simple painting of a man, while the being on the right may be a scintillating spiritual form.  This being may be what the Shaman must become, to lead his people by contact with the spiritual world.  Unfortunately, as what usually happens in our world, then, as now, spirituality is crushed by men who are too scared or greedy to live that way and condemn any who are, to be locked up in prisons or reservations, or to a physical death.

Close up of panel using D-Stretch.  Click on to enlarge.  Copyright 2014 by Don Liponi.
Interpretation of writing [if any] is on my list of things to do.  Any Kumeyaay feel free to contact me through SDRAA if you know what the writing means.  Thank you.



 

 

See you on the trail.



Famous Malcolm Rogers Panel - Southern California Rock Art - California Rock Art.

Malcolm Rogers rediscovered this panel, probably in the 1930s in Imperial County close to several "tanks" or water pools.  The panel is rarely in the sun and is protected from the rain.  Thankfully, some of the panel is still visible although portions have faded away or have been lost to rock delamination.  The panel is very difficult to reach involving exposure, climbing and distance.  Please click on photo to enlarge it.

 

I increased the contrast and clarity of the panel in Photoshop.  D-stretch was not used.
Copyright 2014 Don Liponi.  Do not reprint without written permission.  Thanks.