Snake River Petroglyphs

May 22 2013



Some 32,000 years ago, Lake Bonneville formed, covering most of northwestern Utah (the Great Salt Lake is a remnant). About 15,000 years ago, it broke out of its natural dam near present-day Pocatello Idaho, creating the Bonneville Flood - possibly the second largest ever on the planet. For 8 weeks it flooded out at maximum, carving canyons and falls, ripping out huge, car-sized boulders from canyon walls, and depositing them along the river.

Today, geologists call these big boulders "melon gravel" because of their resemblance to big watermelons. Rolled and smoothed and polished and tossed around by the great powerful floodwaters, some of these boulders became canvases for Native American art.

By 12,000 years ago, humans were living on the Snake River Plain. (The earliest evidence from a cave near Dietrich, Idaho, are tool flakes and a basalt knife 14,500 years old.) The petroglyphs carved on many of the tens of thousands of boulders along the Snake are evidence of their early habitation. Many petroglyphs are probably from the Early Archaic (5000 to 7800 years ago) and Middle Archaic periods (1000-5000 years ago), though most are from the Late Archaic period (340 to 1000 years ago). Many of the petroglyphs along the Snake resemble Shoshone Indian art found in California and Nevada.


The Snake River petroglyphs can be accessed by following a maze of dirt roads, or knowing where the locals access trails. We used a shortcut starting up on the flats, taking a steep cliff trail down to the river basin.


Petroglyphs are scattered on boulders for miles along the Snake River (you might be interested in the book Understanding Meaning and Purpose of Rock Art, by D Russel Micnhimer).

 
On the north side of the Snake a couple of miles upstream from where we rode is Celebration Park, Idaho's only archaeological park. On the south side, downstream on BLM land, a large collection of the rock art is grouped together, and is well-preserved, likely because of its non-advertised, not-so-easily accessible location.


We looped through the art gallery, both horses and humans contemplating the meaning of the art, and wondering about the people behind the imaginations that created it so long ago.

[slide show here]


or link:
https://picasaweb.google.com/TheEquestrianVagabond/SnakeRiverPetroglyphs5202013

What About the Indians?

Friday November 6 2009

We looked at the Utter Disaster story from 1860. I just rode over the trail where the event happened near the Snake River. Here in Murphy, the county seat of Owyhee, is a monument for the massacre of the Utter wagon train pioneers, erected by the Sons and Daughters of Idaho Pioneers in 1935.

My question: What about the Indians?

If you have read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, you know the story. If you haven't read it, that's one book you should read in your lifetime. But here's the short of the story:

White man comes to America with the need to discover, to escape tyranny, to explore, (or to explore and conquer), or with noble self-righteous goals of 'helping the poor savages'.

Indians don't always see this noble White intention as salvation. Sometimes they fight to keep what is theirs. (Can this really be surprising.) White Man wants the land. White Man needs the land. White Man has more and bigger guns. Indians die. They lose their land. (Except for the dreariest and crappiest places in America for their Reservations the White Man so kindly and generously gave them.)(Unless the White Man changed his mind and wanted those places too). The End. Epilogue: White Man gets the plaques.

John Winthrop, who led a group of Puritans from England to their new home in Massachusetts in 1630, was convinced that part of their mission was to help the native Indians, who wanted and needed their help.

In 1845, journalist John O'Sullivan talked of America's "manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our multiplying millions." (Ah - now there's much more of the truth - 'We's got too many peoples and no room - so scootch over!').

I get it, Manifest Destiny and all that Hoohaw.

Now, I myself am from Sorbian stock (Slavic immigrants from Lusatia, an area in eastern Germany) - Texas Wends - who fled oppression, discrimination, and religious tyranny in the 1850's; and while my ancestors ensconced themselves in a rather peaceful corner of Texas (very likely the Indians had already been run off), I reckon they would have done the same thing to claim and keep their new home, as did the Whites who moved from East to West, taking over their great new land. So you can say my Euro-White Man ancestors did the same thing - came to the New World for a new life, and everything included in that quest; and they probably would have fought and died for that right. And we would have put up plaques for them.

I seem to have the Vagabond gene I must answer to (I know I'm meant to be in the West), and probably would have done the same thing in 1680 and 1860 that I'm doing now (though I'd'a refused to wear those Little-House-On-The-Prairie dresses, thank you very much), so I would have Manifested my Own Destiny, whoever was in my way, too.

Now, back to Owyhee, Idaho and the Utter Massacre (and all the others):

I'm not pointing fingers, I'm not accusing, I'm not acknowledging this was not a tragedy (for both sides), I'm simply reciting history, and I'm just sayin'.

What about the Indians?