Native American Dreaming Rocks

    If you ever decide to take a trip to either the southwest United States, mid-west United States, or Canada, you will find just some of the most beautiful works of art called rock art.  It can be found right on the rocks that you see out in nature.  Rock art is created by many Native Americans and is an immense collection of paintings and carvings, or otherwise known as pictographs and petroglyphs, respectively.  These images are referred to as sacred places marked with ancient art as Dreaming Rocks.  The reason that they are referred to as Dreaming Rocks is that they are an intimate expression and appreciation of the spirit of the land by the legacy of the Native Americans (1).

    The look of North American rock art varies from region to region and across prehistory.  These pictographs and petroglyphs are constructed by tribal beliefs. So the imagery of Pueblo villagers would never be mistaken for the art of the salmon-fishing tribes of the northwest Pacific, or that of the trance-inspired hunters of the sub-Arctic.  A single, satisfactory definition of rock art can never be devised.  Its origins are diverse and its images are as infinite as the imagination.  But, despite this complexity, there is a simple interpretation, and that is, rock art is an integral part of the sacred earth (1).

    Throughout history, tribal groups have divided the land that became the United States and Canada into a series of interlocking, sacred landscapes.  These sites can be as simple as a single painting on a sheer cliff, or as complex as thousands of designs filling the walls of a box canyon (1).

    For example, on the northeastern edge of eastern Canada, Micmac artists of Nova Scotia left finely engraved, almost scratched, images on slate-like bedrock along inland lakes.  Their Algonkian cousins to the south in Maine preferred to carve native spirits into boulders and tide-washed outcrops (1).

    While cliffs, canyons, boulders, ledges, and sloping bedrock surfaces provided the majority of rock art settings, related ancient images include designs drawn by scraping the surface of lichen-covered stone walls, carvings or paintings within caves, and secretive art hidden from view (1).

    The majority of Canadian and United States residents are within a two-hour drive of a Dreaming Rock.  However, thousands of these uncounted rock art sites lie partially hidden in lake and forest wilderness areas and backcountry canyons.  But, other sites can be found in state and provincial parks, which are more accessible.  The distribution of rock art is sparse in some regions and inexplicably abundant in others.  These dream-like painted and carved images challenge our interpretive abilities.  To most of us these deliberate actions of native visionaries are mysterious creations (1).

    For instance, a Sioux tribal rock in southwestern Minnesota helps us to recall the wisdom of Black Elk and the sacred pipe.  Similarly, our scrutiny of Writing-On-Stone in southern Alberta can only be understood be reference to the Great Plains tribes, such as the Blackfoot warriors who roamed the eastern Rockies on horseback (1).

    In order to find some of these spectacular images you can go further west where the complex artistic traditions of the northwest coast are so strongly rooted in coastal British Columbia and flow down the western shores of the continent well into Washington State.  This goes on through the ancient whaling village of Ozelle and into the Columbia River valley.  The rock art of the Columbia leads us inland to the plateau tribes of the northwestern United States, where Coyotes shaped the river.  Upon arrival at the quiet banks of the Columbia River between Portland and the Dalles, we will find America’s prehistoric Mona Lisa (1).

    In California, spectacular examples of Chumash rock art, left in the dry hills above Santa Barbara, tell us about the world of Shamanism and trance experiences.  This is where we will find Chumash Indian caves filled with psychedelic dreams.  Also, the north shore of Lake Superior you can find beautiful rock art (1).

    Many petroglyphs and pictographs are found accidentally by canoeists and hikers.  Some have been recorded, but few are rare rediscoveries of truly forgotten images.  The density of rock art sites varies from region to region, with the general increase of rock art as you travel west across the continent.  The presence of Indian populations in the southwestern United States accounts for part of the concentration (1).

    Rock art is composed of natural pigments, which is obtained from unlikely sources.  The tools used to create petroglyphs were probably as varied as the techniques employed.  Petroglyph images exist in a broad range from true carvings with wide and deep lines to pecked surfaces and even lighter, engraved designs (1).

    Rock art endures a lot of exposure from extreme weather conditions.  In order to understand how they can endure such conditions we have to consider the pigment most commonly known and used by artists and archaeologists, red ochre.  The tribal world use colors as a major symbolism.  For example, red was a sacred paint for numerous Native American groups.  The legends say that wuhnumin, red paint, came from the blood shed by giant beavers that, in far off dream time, changed the shape of the land.  Other colors were used from tribes collecting a fungus found on hemlock trees and earthen ochres for red and brown paints, and coppers clay to create a blue paint.  White pigments were produced by digging up white earth, or by burning deer bones.  Wood charcoal was ground into a black, powdered paint.  All these elements for the colors were mixed with deer grease or similar binders and heated prior to use.  Plus, certain plants, whose blood-red roots contained an abundant color and used for painting on stone (1).

    Among the Chippewa and Ojibwa First Nations of the upper Great Lakes, about 98 percent of the pictographs were created in red.  The Shamans used white pigments, which was available from pure clay beds.  Furthermore, there was Indians who used the white pigment as paint for personal adornment (1).
 Rock art is more than just paint, it is a metaphor imitating the colors nature provides to animals.  Animals marking provide power, just as a rock’s paintings acknowledge and enhance its spiritual power.  To the Ojibwa, rocks express life and soul just as trees, plants, water, and all animals do (1).

    In order to interpret the meaning of rock art, one has to have an open mind.  For the most part, there is no real proof of the meanings.  Those who truly believe that the meanings are true and express what they believe only believe it (2).

    Some examples of what certain symbols mean will now be explained.  An arrow is used to suggest the negation of the power of a shaman or animal in conjunction with a mythological metaphor.  The badger is an animal god that shows its curing  powers, especially among the Hopi.  This is because the badger lives and digs in the ground and knows roots and herbs, which suggest healing.  The bear was also used often because of its importance of strength and courage.  The Pueblos believed that the bear track stands for the curing power of the bear and equal in power to the mask of other deities (2).

    Other examples, are the bird symbolism, which often is believed that the soul leaves the body and takes the form of a bird.  Yet another, are the blanket designs.  These are well known for its decorated block designs.  Unlike the other examples, these show some signs of mathematical content.  Some show forms of what appear to be strong suggestions of four-corner tassels of blankets.  Although the majority does not show any symmetry, some do.  For instance, some may have horizontal or vertical symmetry, meaning that they are either exactly the same on each side of the horizontal or vertical line.  And the only way to really depict this is with straight edges or circles.  But, for the most part, the objects that are created are natural and have no symmetry, such as animals.  Plus, when these were drawn they weren’t drawn with the technology that is used today to make things virtually perfect and symmetrical (2).

    Repeated patterns are also found in rock art and this has somewhat of a mathematical idea.  Art historians have found the regularity of images and have tried to unravel their meaning by comparing similar recorded examples.  An example of this repeated pattern is of a pair of moose found at Darky Lake painted by Ojibwa in Quetico Provincial Park, Ontario.  Some believe that this pairing of animals depicts mating-related posture or possibly birth (1).

    Rock art is beautiful and sacred, one must realize that “The earth is large, and on it live many animals.  The earth is under protection of something, which at times becomes visible to the eye.  One would think this would be at the center of the earth, but its representations appear everywhere, in large and small forms – they are the sacred stones.  The presence of a sacred stone will protect you from misfortune” (1).  Also, when visiting a sacred site it requires a focus.  “Rock art comes from dreams, thoughts, and sensory experiences.  After a while, we need to leave behind the self, the present moment, and our questions.  We must let nature have its way.  In the presence of the greatest rock art sites, we come to understand that time and generations are merely passing intervals” (1).
 
 

Conway, Thor.  Painted Dreams. Native American Rock Art.  NorthWord Press, Inc.
            1993.

Patterson, Alex. A Field Guide To Rock Art Symbols of the Greater Southwest.