The summer months find the GCAS all over the place partaking of events aplenty. Our field trips are no exception; by the close of the first week of July we will have enjoyed a total of three field trips in five weeks.
On June 2, 2019, the GCAS’s very own Marilyn Markel led our monthly field trip to two sites located near each other. Our first stop was to Spirit Canyon in the upper Mimbres Valley area. Spirit Canyon is a unique rock art site monitored under the New Mexico SiteWatch Program. About a half-mile walk up the canyon trail and carefully avoiding the lush growth of poison ivy, our group encountered a series of red ochre pictographs that reportedly depict either Apache Mountain Spirits, or the Apache ceremonial dancers who represented the Mountain Spirits. [Featured photo by G. Conlin; all others M.Smith.]
One particular pictograph seems open to more interpretations than more common rock art images. This elongated design appears to be superimposed upon an earlier, very faded, pictograph. These two layered images have been described by various people as a corncob, a corn deity, or a human representing a corn deity by wearing a costume that looks like a corncob. Others opine that the pictograph(s) may depict a large net used for snaring game, because below the bottom horizontal line of the net-like design the older, more faded, red pictograph seems to show the four thin legs of a captured deer. Slightly above the bottom of the net-like design, the deer’s head appears to be sticking out of the left side of the net.
What are your own interpretations?