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Rock Art
By Jennifer Korth
Hiking through the savage
beauty of the Southwestern desert, one may be lucky enough to
come across ancient, cryptic engravings upon the red rock. Petroglyphs,
they are called, relics of the Native American shamans and their
commune with the supernatural world. Most rock art was made by
shamans, and they almost always describe their otherworldly journeys.
The shaman was often portrayed with animals in these pictures,
but these are animals of the spirit world—helpers and guides
for the shaman. The shaman is frequently seen with prominent,
large eyes, representing his heightened power to see beyond the
physical. The appearance of birds in particular represents the
flight of the soul to higher planar realities. Sometimes this
symbol will be taken farther, and the shaman himself will appear
as a winged being.
Energy emanates from these
ethereal images, vibrating with inexplicable power. At night,
these inscrutable images seem not disturbing, but eerie. They
seem to glow of their own will, hinting at a hidden power within.
Perhaps the shamans infused a part of their mysterious power into
these images of mere paint and rock, giving them a life and soul
of their own. Spirits not captured by, but rather melded with
the rock, a part of the living landscape. They seem to move of
their own accord, dancing in eternal harmony with the natural
beauty that surrounds them. In the petroglyphs, we see two worlds
at once, as they bring the supernatural into the light of day,
giving us a glimpse of the world beyond.
Supernatural power was
associated with caves, rocks, and water, like lakes and streams.
These places of energy were often chosen as vision quest sites.
Shamans would paint the story there, right on the rock, the next
morning. It was believed that a shaman who forgot his visions
would sicken or die. Thus, rock art serves as a record of an intangible
journey, a one-time experience, known only to one man.
Animal spirit helpers figure
prominently in these vision quests. As far as animals go in the
spirit world, dangerous equals powerful. Thus, the rattlesnake
and the bear were regarded as particularly helpful to have as
guides. Once an animal spirit appeared to the shaman, the shaman
became then as one with the animal, taking on its characteristics
and actions. Animals hunted for food were rarely spirit helpers,
as shamans were forbidden to eat the meat of their animal spirit
counterpart.
Visions could vary by culture
and by individual shaman. They were heavily dependent on the shaman’s
expectations, which in turn were primarily determined by his cultural
conditioning. Thus we see a rich variety in rock art across the
country, from tribe to tribe.
The trip is more than visual—a
trance is comprised of four possible neurological reactions: aural,
somatic, and visual hallucinations, as well as a dissociative
mental state. These factors all combine to produce one experience,
which the shaman holds in his mind as he translates it onto rock.
According to the model
by David-Lewis Williams and Thomas Dowson, visions were controlled
by two factors—the personal beliefs and expectations of
the shaman, naturally, but also the optical system. The basis
for the designs is unified through human anatomy—the eye
is prone to see a number of specific patterns, the primary seven
including zigzags, parallel lines, dots, spirals, nested curves,
meandering lines, and grids. They are called entoptic patterns,
literally “within the eye,” which are spontaneously
generated in the optical system. As the vision deepens, these
designs amalgamate into familiar forms. The basic patterns serve
as building blocks for the shaman’s imagination, as well
as denote the commonalities seen in rock art across distant cultures.
This explanation also casts light on the origin of many rock art
motifs.
In addition to generating
these forms, the eye can manipulate it as well. A hallucination
can take those prime shapes and subject them to fragmentation,
integration, superposition, juxtaposition, duplication and rotation.
This tendency explains many of the inscrutable qualities of rock
art, for example when a buffalo is rotated inexplicably so that
he runs down wall instead of across it, or why two different animals
seem to be joined together, etc.
How the individual interprets
those patterns determines all the meaning. This neurological model
explains why many of the images appear as they do, superimposed,
fragmented, or strangely integrated. However, it gives no direction
in determining the meaning with which the artist imbued it. While
vision questers share a biological premise for their visions and
art, the forms and meaning that emerge are as individual as the
shaman.
Concealed
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