This is a beautiful little site in Joshua Tree National Park that I first visited years ago. I’ve left off writing about it because I kept meaning to find out more about the rumors that this site has a “ray of light” pointing towards one of the elements on the summer solstice.
Well, I have some information about that for you too! Here, I will spend a post just looking at this site. While going back over my photos of the site, taken on multiple previous visits, I was struck by how pretty the site really is.
The site is under an overhang up off the valley floor on the north-eastern side of a massive granite outcropping in the Wonderland of Rocks. There are many sites in this part of Joshua Tree National Park – this area was quite an extensive habitation site at some point. Illustrating the point, at the time of my visit there was still a few sherds collected by visitors left on a ledge in the site. Many more have been carried off over the years.
A thought about the sherds scattered in the desert: some nomadic tribes broke pottery on purpose when they moved on, in order to give the land something to remember them by. They believed that the land would remember them as long as their pottery sherds remained. This makes the loss caused by casual gathering – and scientific gathering – all the more poignant.
On that note, let’s look at the pictographs, which still remain.
The pictographs are on the back wall of the overhang. If you walk towards the edge of the slab and look back on them you get a nice overview of the whole shelter.
I enhanced the image with DStretch so I can easily point out the different elements, most of which are visible in this overview picture. On the left is a circle connected to a rounded W symbol, with some small circles connected with a line to the right of them. Next up but not visible from this angle, there are some elements on a rock face facing towards the diamond patterns, then the diamonds themselves. The curved symbol, thought to depict the sun, is next, and the alcove in the lower right contains several hash marks that we’ll look at later.
By shifting position slightly we can see the previously hidden panel of pictographs in a scalloped part of the overhang.
Past visitors have collected a few pottery sherds from who knows where and deposited them on this ledge in the shelter.
The eponymous pictographs. Aren’t they gorgeous? Some things to note: the symbols found in the lower center ( partial rounded W and the circle and dot connected with a line ) repeat elsewhere at this site. Also, the right side of the panel is more faded than the left, probably due to rain run-off. The diamond shapes are pretty uniform, and this combined with the dabs of pigment next to some of them leads me to believe most of them were stenciled in using some guiding shape – perhaps an article or piece of a garment, or some ritual object.
Just to the right of the diamonds we find a curved line with 14 hash marks, said to be a sun burst that a ray of light points to during the summer solstice.
I decided to show the same image with DStretch even though the pictographs are still very vivid.
A really close look at the rightmost five diamonds, where you can see the outlines suggesting use of a stencil, and how the elements were tucked in very close to the crack in the rock face.
While examining this panel I turned around and noticed this single, tiny lambda-like symbol on the rock face facing it.
Here’s a good look at that alcove I mentioned earlier. This is low to the ground as you approach the main shelter. There are many red hash marks in this lower alcove.
Twenty-nine, to be precise. That is an exciting number because it can match up with the lunar cycle.
This shot gives some depth and perception to the layout of the site. The tally marks are under that overhang in the lower right, behind “weird butt outcropping”, and the main panel is visible close to the center of that outcropping.
Here’s an unusual perspective showing the panel from the alcove with the sun burst symbol.
We’ll look at the pictographs peeking out in the background, behind the diamonds, next.
There is another diamond motif here. This time the diamonds are connected to each other and to a horizontal bar.
Since these are the most faded elements at the site, some DStretch comes in handy. Three of the rows have three diamonds apiece. The other has two. Maybe the disconnected dot is a diamond falling from this row? You can also see one of the elements that repeat at this site: small circles connected with lines. In the background there is another of these. We’ll look at it next.
Small, precise circles connected with a line. This is a very common pictograph and petroglyph element, usually with the circles a bit larger than this.
DStretch suggests there may be a little more to see here! Do you see the three faint tally marks above the line and circles, and the faint, elongated X symbol to the left?
Finally, the elements at the far left of the shelter.
In this case, DStretch confirms that it is pretty much just what we saw with the naked eye that was painted here. There is a small extra line of pigment, which was also visible in the photo of the previous element, but nothing else.
Let’s take a minute to talk about the purported imagery of the site, even though I talk more about the part specific to the solstice in another post that shows what happens at this site during the solstice.
There are two dueling interpretations for this site: one holds it might be fertility site, the other that it is a solstice site.
For the first interpretation, it is well-known that diamond patterns in red were painted by girls as part of their puberty initialization rites in this part of the world. Though this is only definitively chronicled for the Luiseño, south of here, this same practice could have existed here, in Cahuilla territory, too. In that case the diamond motifs and some of the other symbols at the site that might be interpreted as vulva forms are clear evidence of this site’s usage as a puberty rite site.
For the second interpretation we would need to observe the site throughout the year and see if anything particular happens around the solstice that doesn’t happen at other times of the year. But we can also look at the pictographs themselves for clues. The 29 tally marks in the alcove is evocative: the Cahuilla did use the lunar cycle as a way to mark time. A shaman might have observed the phases of the moon, adding a mark for each day until the phases started repeating. The “sun burst” shape has 14 tally marks, not 13, or we might have thought that it in turn represented a year’s worth of lunar cycles.
We could also dig into the creation myths of the tribes in the area. I’ve told part of this story before, but as the legend goes, Mukat the creator drew the sun forth from his heart and found it hard to control, so it slipped through his hands and to his feet. From then on, shamans struggled to control the sun and make sure it stayed on its path between the two solstice extremes. If they lost control of it it would spell disaster for the people, since it controlled the growing and harvesting seasons.
Building on this story, researchers have speculated that the diamond images might represent a kind of net, containing the disc of the sun within it ( the one circular object in the main panel ) and lifting it up, towards its place in the skies. Like many other tribes the shamans of the Cahuilla had ceremonial objects, called bundles, that they used in their rituals. These could take the shape of a mat, in which were rolled up ceremonial objects from various lineages within the tribe. The Serrano ( a tribe who shared this territory ) made their bundles from cactus fibers, which could take on diamond-shaped pattern when dried. Furthermore, Luiseño mythology holds that such an object, a sacred net, was used to cast the sun up into the sky. Thus, it can be argued that this site represents the common strands of these mythologies: controlling the sun and placing it in the sky at the appropriate time to ensure the seasons function as they should.
Keep these stories in mind if you visit this site: it isn’t merely a quick tour, a curiosity to check off in your list of places to go. Whether one or neither of these stories are true, rock art sites held meaning, sacred meaning, for the people who made them. Do not visit them lightly. At the very least, go with a sense of history and a sense of respect for the cultures who made and used these sites.
Let’s wrap up with a few more photos.
One of our visits was during the rainy season and we got to see water steadily dripping down the rock face and onto the shelter floor, many days after the last rains.
I usually try to be very selective with the photos I post, showing only one in ten or so of the photos I actually snapped, and I try not to repeat any. This is a near repetition of a previous view, but take a moment to appreciate the elegant curves and scallops of this shelter. It is a beautiful place. Also take a moment to appreciate that bazooka of a camera lens in the lower right. We’ve hauled that piece of glass on our backs all over the desert! “Hefty” barely begins to describe it.
We conclude our tour with a last glance back at the shelter and its pictographs.
This site is becoming better and better known all the time. I first found and visited it way back before it seemed like everyone knew of it. On recent visits I found the pictographs still undamaged ( thank you to everybody who helped keep it that way! ) but I’m sad to report that some thief has come by sometime in the past year and stolen the pottery shards that used to be on display. I hope that someone came by and hid them, or scattered them again nearby, or maybe that the Park Service collected them, but I’m afraid that most likely they stuck to the fingers of an entitled thief.
The pictographs still remain, and they are still pristine. Let’s all strive to keep it that way. The wonder we felt when we first visited can only be felt by those who come after us if we do our part to make sure we leave no sign that we ever visited.
I didn’t believe the solstice claims about it either. Until somebody proved it to me…
Nice post. One of my favorite sites in JT.
This a great site, isn’t it? It may be one of my favorites as well. One of the very first sites I ever found in fact. I took the same route to it initially that you did, squeezing through that manzanita and scrambling over rocks. I have another post coming up with pictures of the sunrise on the solstice. Keep an eye out for that!
Somewhere around here, I have documentation relating to the solstice portion of this site. When I find it, I’ll share it with you.
Thanks! I’d be very curious to read it!