Surprises Among the Cliffs

By: Becca Kilgore

My fun filled, carefree joyride through senior year of high school came crashing to a close when my parents sent me to boot camp in Idaho, the summer before my freshman year of college. All right, well maybe it wasn’t quite boot camp, but there were still no showers, no running water, and I had to eat my meals out of a Billy-can for three hot weeks in July. I never expected to find any art amidst the tumbleweed, rocks and sage bushes on this rustic adventure, however, my group stumbled across some Native American rock paintings one day on one of our 20 mile hikes.

The paintings I saw were done in a red pigment, and they were of human like bird creatures, about a foot long. They seemed precious, and I asked my instructor if they were protected by a state park, he said that they were not. I asked him how old they were, and he did not know the answer to that question. This is what first sparked my interest in Native American rock art, and the following information is what I have learned about it through a bit of research.

Native American cultures have flourished in America’s southwest region for thousands of years, producing many different kinds and fascinating depictions of what is called “Rock-Art”. Utah alone contains most of America’s rock art, with over 7500 sites that are known of. It must have just been coincidence that I had the opportunity to see some rock art in Idaho, because there are no real know sights to be found there according to my research. Some familiar cultures that produced some of this art are the Pueblo, Anasazi, Fremont, Ute, Paiute, Shoshone and Navajo peoples. The most interesting rock art images of these cultures are mysterious, and even haunting. Fortunately, this is not a completely forgotten art, as public interest and appreciation of these fascinating sites is rising, and I’m a perfect example of that. Rock art, however, had not received much professional attention in the southwest until a few decades ago. This was because the dates of the paintings were almost impossible to determine, and the pictures had unknown meanings. Basically, there are two types of rock art – petroglyphs and pictographs. Petroglyphs are pecked, carved, or abraded images, whereas pictographs are images painted onto rock surfaces with natural pigments. Pictographs are most often found in caves or under a protective ledge of some sort. Petroglyphs are typically found on rocks, sandstone, or basalt that has a dark surface. The pigments used to paint pictographs, are made naturally, using white or yellow clays, charcoal and copper minerals, which could produce a palate of white, yellow, red, black, blue and green. The binders used to mix these minerals were made from combinations of fluids such as plant juices, egg, animal fat, saliva, blood, urine, or water. There are many suspected reasons for making rock art. Some of these include marking territory, and marking important trails, springs, and shrines. Other reasons would have been to record special events like rituals, visions, dreams, successful hunts or battles, to ensure rain, for bountiful harvests, fertility, or for creating something of beauty. Most rock art is found in places of power or importance. Many sites were selected because they were considered to be inhabited by spirits. In some cases, rocks that perhaps struck by lightening would be chosen as a good sight as that would be considered and obvious source of power. In many cultures, the surface of the rock was seen as a veil separating this world and the supernatural realm of the underworld, which was believed to lie behind it. Some of the prevalent symbols seen in such locations are lizards and snakes which were believed to represent spirit messengers who entered the spirit world through the cracks in the rocks. Some petroglyphs are thought to have been used repeatedly, in order to contact the earth spirits. Some rocks with deeply worn grooves were probably ritual sites.