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.