Rock Art: Transference of Power

Rock Art: Transference of Power to Sacred Space and Sacred Objects

Southwestern Native American rock art is not simply means by which a tribe can communicate its beliefs in an alternative symbolic language upon natural surfaces. The creation of such art is itself a symbolic act of transference of power, of the native artist on behalf of his or her community. The artist crafts his or her images onto specific areas in the natural world, outside of the daily dwellings of the tribe. The artist goes to a sacred space or locus of power to engage in a creative act that is central to the community's history, iconographic language, or system of beliefs. Although the images created by the artist in communion with nature may contain physical reflections of the artist's and the tribe's everyday life and common symbolic images present on such secular vehicles as textiles, the action of ritualized artistic creation it itself equally if not more significant as the images present in the art, and amounts to a religious act as well as a form of communication.

The rock images themselves may also have great or extraordinary significance beyond the everyday in the life of the tribe, and many seem to reflect something outside of ordinary life. For example, in one site of rock art, that of Blue Bowl Cave there are images that depict half-bird, half-human shamans. The depiction of such figures both shows common images and ideas particular to the religions of the tribes that created such works, like flight and the connection between animals and humans. But beyond such a symbolic reading, it may be argued that the act of simply painting such images was deemed to be religiously significant, and an investiture of the power of the spiritual life of the tribe, through the vehicle of the artist, into the sacred space of the cave.

Not all of the powerful images of rock art are necessarily fantastic -- one tribe, that of the Hohokam, drew pictures of pregnant game animals that might be read as a plea for fertility and food during hunting. In contrast, another Navajo rock art site depicts major historical events of the tribe, like the Navajos wars with the Spanish. Rock art does not have a singular function in the physical images or meaning of the object -- it may be religious or historically commemorative, or use extraordinary or ordinary symbols, depending on how the tribe wishes to make its mark upon the surface of nature, and the type of transfer of tribal power that is being conducted in the specific circumstances.

The main unifying theme in all of the various potential acts of rock art, is that the act of leaving the tribe's mark upon the rock is in itself a rite performed, and adds additional significance to the meaning of the images, whatever that meaning may be for the tribe. Although rock art can provide a variety of symbolic, commemorative, and spiritual functions, and it may involve symbolic images very particular to a tribe or region (like the Mexican rain dog or like suns or spirals in the art of the Southwest), icons particular to the daily life of tribe (the Anasazi basket-weaver), mark religious or ceremonial acts (like the taking of hallucinatory drugs or seasonal rites in areas where tribes did not take up permanent residence), ceremonial spaces (like graves), or historical acts (like a battle), in all of these diverse circumstances, the very act of creation was as integral to the actual meaning of the images or events.