>> Of Interest

Rock Art
Throughout ancient history man has carved or painted on rocks and caves leaving traces of his time and world. Here in the Southwest United States, rock paintings and petroglyphs are known to have a history of about 3,000 years of artistic endeavor by Native American Indians. 

Rock paintings are usually found on light-colored surfaces such as cliffs or beneath overhangs. Colors were determined by resources available or by rituals. Petroglyphs are more common throughout the Southwest and are made by pecking, carving or scratching into the surface of rock containing desert varnish. Rock or desert varnish is a layer of minerals that become attached to a rock’s surface in dry climates. When certain airborne minerals settle on a rock’s surface, commonly highly patinated sandstone or basalt rocks or cliffs, a dark layer is formed. The result of pecking or carving into the dark surface is a contrast with the underlying light rock. 

Bird, Turtle, & Dragonfly

Cat-like Animal

Spiral of Life

In the Southwest, pertroglyph styles are often similar in a certain time period, geographic area or Native American tribe. 

• Archaic Style – All the Southwest approx. 5000 BC – 300 AD
• Freemont Style – Central and Southern Utah 500 – 1400 AD
• Anasazi Style – Four Corners Region where Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. 300 – 1300 AD 
• Hohokam Style – Central and Southern Arizona 300 – 1400 AD
• Rio Grande Style – Central and Northern New Mexico 1300 AD to present

Rock art is important in understanding the sacred dimension and cultural practices of the past. In many cases rock art is a visual communication and documentation system that can be divided into four styles. Representational art which depicts life-forms such as human figures, spiritual beings, birds, snakes and other four-legged animal forms. Abstract art usually represents no life form or resemblance to the real world and often the meaning has been lost. Native Americans sometimes recognize purposes and meanings of petroglyphs for designs that are apart of their tribal heritage today.

Macaw

Possible Birth Scene & Turtle

Petroglyphs do not stand for a certain word or sound in a language but they convey meaning. Petroglyphs were usually made in specific places of cultural significance for a certain reason. Some petroglyphs recorded history and events such as migrations of a clan or a hunt and even Europeans on horseback. Some Native Americans had a person designated to monitor the sun’s position and other sky observations. Petroglyphs of deer, bighorn sheep and other large game animals are frequent in rock art and possibly were used to encourage fertility of the animals or to indicate good hunting sites. Some petroglyphs were made to mark a trail, indicate water, territories or some other cultural or natural feature. Also, some religious or other supernatural beings in rock art have been identified by Native Americans or researchers. Shaman trances are often depicted with figures surrounded by dots or as human-birds. Petroglyphs may also illustrate legends or characters in stories. 

Rock art provides evidence of trade, history and cultural communication in ancient times. Many of the designs that are seen today in Native American Indian jewelry are found in the rock art of their ancestors. 

Kokopelli
One of the most intriguing wide-spread images found in the Southwest is the humpbacked flute player. He is easily recognized by his flute, humped back and prominent phallus. An aura of mystery surrounds Kokopelli: Was he a fertility symbol, roving trader, rain priest, magician, trickster or a seducer of maidens? We know he is quite significantly one of the few prehistoric deities to have survived in recognizable form from the Anasazi times until today. His image appears in prehistoric rock art, ceramics and murals. Most Kokopelli rock art is found within the Anasazi territory in the Four Corners area on the Colorado Plateau. 

Kokopelli’s origin may be lost in time but his legends live on. Some people believe he may have come from ancient Mexico or South America as a trader carrying his goods on his back. In Pueblo stories, Kokopelli carries in his hump seeds, babies and blankets to offer to the maidens he seduces. In the upper Rio Grande pueblos, he is said to have wandered between villages carrying his bag of songs on his back. Some believe he was a fertility symbol welcomed during the corn planting season and by barren wives.

From the thousands of rock art images of Kokopelli we know without a doubt he was very important in the lives of the prehistoric people of the Southwest. Today, Kokopelli can be found depicted in rugs, baskets, paintings, Native American jewelry and decor.

A man traveled through this country with a bag of corn seed over one shoulder. His shadow against the desert looked like a deformity. He would stop at every village and teach the people how to plant corn. And then when the sun slipped behind the mesa and the village was asleep, he would walk through the corn fields playing his flute. The seeds would flower, pushing themselves up through the red, sandy soil and follow the high-pitched notes upward. The sun would rise and the man would be gone, with corn stalks the height of a young girl shimmering in the morning light. Many of the young women would complain of a fullness in their bellies. The elders would smile, knowing they were pregnant. They would look to the southwest and call him “Kokopelli.”

- Terry Tempest Williams
- “Kokopelli’s Return”