I caught up to the group, who were standing on top of another large rock, perhaps twenty feet by ten feet wide and four feet off the ground. It had the shape of a large sofa and faced southeast. They were looking down and studying the petroglyphs on the horizontal surface near the eastern edge of the rock. “You see these glyphs,” McGlone said, pointing to a circle with a cross and an arrow extending toward the east. It looked almost like a compass. “That’s it, folks. That’s the target. Stand back to sight the arrow to the horizon, and that’s where the sun rises today on the equinox.”
When at last the moment of sunrise came and the sun gradually rose, sure enough the arrow pointed directly to that spot on the horizon.
After the excitement had abated later that morning, I remarked, perhaps out of place, “Sighting the sun to the horizon using a carved arrow leaves wiggle room. It’s hard to distinguish one or two days or even a week from the equinox on the Sofa Rock, don’t you think?”
Fig. 6.7. The Sofa Rock alignment. The directional petroglyph marker aligns with the equinox sun on the horizon. Accompanying the compasslike glyph on the horizontal surface was a petroglyph design that resembled an animal (see also color insert for photos of the Sofa Rock alignment).
“You’re right,” McGlone replied, and I smiled. “It’s not that precise, as many are nearby. Not all alignments are like Newgrange or Chaco Canyon (in New Mexico). These simple ones probably were used for ritual or general calendrical purposes. They could have been more for planting crops. But the point is that ancients made a practice of marking the equinox, and this is but one of these remembrances. Now let’s go see how the Boy Scouts did this morning.”
When we got back to the farmhouse, it was about 9:00 a.m. McGlone was getting on in years, and he was not able to climb or even hike much without pain, so he had organized some local Boy Scouts to assist in his rock art research at a nearby site. He had asked them to climb the mountain above their camp to observe and photograph a newly discovered rock art panel as the equinox sun was coming up, so they spent the night camped near it. This was to avoid crossing the river in the predawn, a practice I would soon adopt and use many times on my own explorations.
Bill Tilley, a local rock art enthusiast, soon arrived at the farmhouse. He had discovered Pathfinder while hiking and looking for rock art in 1996. Naming it “Pathfinder” in honor of the Boy Scouts who had assisted in investigating it, he pointed out that, that unlike most of the rock art in the area, it was located high on a canyon wall below the capstone. After Tilley told McGlone about the large panel, McGlone found a long way around to drive to it. It took over an hour and was a difficult trek in the predawn dark.
Now, with the sun climbing in the cloudless but still hazy morning, we left the ranch in a caravan of three pickup trucks and headed farther up the dirt road that followed the Purgatoire River. Within several miles we came to a crossing used by ranchers going to the south side. The water was low and rose only to the top of the wheels of the trucks. From the river crossing we followed cow trails for several miles before coming to a large hill. After opening and closing a cattle fence, our group arrived at the base camp where the group of Boy Scouts was packing up.
“Did it work?” shouted McGlone upon our arrival at the Boy Scouts’ camp. Excitedly, they showed us a handheld video recording of the sunrise event they had filmed earlier. After a little discussion and words of appreciation to the Boy Scouts, McGlone became excited. “That’s really something, just as we predicted, an equinox morning alignment. Perhaps tomorrow morning you’ll come up here?” he said, looking at me. “Why don’t you and Bill Tilley take a look now?”
From where we had parked the vehicles, I followed Tilley up a cattle path and climbed the steep hill toward the capstone. The last one hundred yards to the top was steep and left me winded. As we hiked around the capstone and approached some large boulders near the top, I could begin to see a large petroglyph on a southeast-facing flattened surface, where a vertical rock among the adjoining boulders had created a cavelike enclosure.
Upon approaching the large rock art panel I was drawn to a three-foothigh, heavily pecked howling dog petroglyph. I named him “Eight-Dog” after seeing the eight prominent spots on his body. I then began to study some of the many dozen other images.
Because of the envelopment of the petroglyph panel by the upright rock, it was not possible to fully observe the panel from any particular vantage point. Moreover, the constricted area and light conditions, most of the glyphs toward the inside were quite small and difficult to observe, so I just wandered about, trying to take in the enormity of the pristine pictorial site. I found subtleties and forms that I didn’t readily understand, but over the next several years, by taking the time to draw them, the images and the stories they told became clearer.
Fig. 6.8. Pathfinder. The petroglyph panel is on a flat twenty-fourfoot by twelve-foot vertical sandstone rock with a southeastern face. An adjoining boulder creates a cavelike structure.
Fig. 6.9. The Pathfinder howling dog petroglyph that I named “Eight-Dog.”
Fig. 6.10. A drawing of the Pathfinder howling dog petroglyph with its associated glyphs.
Although the Pathfinder site is without any historical graffiti or vandalism, many of its glyphs are fragile. As a result of thousands of years of flaking and erosion, mineral leaching has discolored some of them, and others have a white, chalky appearance where the protective patina has been worn off.
McGlone and I had a number of discussions concerning the preciseness and therefore the authenticity of the Boy Scout video. The shadow fit precisely into the equinox morning target glyph, but there was an irregularity in the fit at the top, so we decided that erosion had already taken a toll.
Fig. 6.11. Looking into the Pathfinder enclosure. The floor of the rock enclosure resembles a cave with an incline, the deepest point being located at the southern end of the panel.
Fig. 6.12. Drawing of petroglyphs on the twenty-seven-foot-long Pathfinder panel. I observed three subpanels, each telling a story.
Fig. 6.13. The equinox sunrise shadow cast on a Pathfinder petroglyph. This equinox sunrise alignment was created on the largest Pathfinder glyph, a vulva shape serving as a calendar marker. (See also color insert.)
Fig. 6.14. Drawing of the equinox sunrise alignment on the apparent vulva glyph. The shadow so closely followed elements of what McGlone called the “leaf-shaped glyph” that he considered the alignment deliberately made to operate on the equinox.
In his last remaining years, McGlone and Phil Leonard had organized a dedicated team, which I joined, to help document the morning equinox alignment. We provided numerous drawings and photographs, many of which were included in McGlone’s sadly posthumous 1999 Archaeoastronomy of Southeast Colorado and the Oklahoma Panhandle that he coauthored with Phil Leonard and Ted Barker, both of whom will be described in more detail in succeeding chapters.
MEETING THE HUNTER AND THE GODDESS
I spent the rest of that day looking over the Pathfinder site and photographing as many of the petroglyphs on the panel as I could. Following the vertical rock art panel to the west, the area became more confined between the panel and the boulder, creating a cave no more than several feet wide at points. To view the panel, I had to crawl up the sheltered incline. In this prostrated position, I came face-to-face with small, finely pecked glyphs at the back and lower corner of the panel, and later, in the deepest part of the cave, I found a handsome but worn glyph of a hunter holding a spear.
Below the hunter and toward the bottom was a six-inch-high feminine-looking glyph that appeared as if it was reaching out to touch a representation of a tree. The tree image resembled a tree of life glyph. I could see how the inner circle of the glyph, the Earth, was penetrated by the tree and was broken. A notch at the top of the outer semicircle was clearly the doorway to a world above. The finely pecked image looked like a tree, with roots that became rivers flowing to nourish the buffalo and deer petroglyphs that populate
the panel.
Fig. 6.15. The thirteen-inch-high hunter is the first glyph from the back of the Pathfinder enclosure.
Fig. 6.16. Detail drawing of the back of the Pathfinder enclosure. The hunter, a feminine image, a tree of life, a deer, and buffalo petroglyphs are protagonists in the mythology of Pathfinder’s creators.
Located above the major protagonists which include the hunter, the feminine image, a tree of life, a deer, and buffalo petroglyphs is an almost undistinguishable collage. It is difficult to see toward the top of the narrow cave with poor light, complicated by apparent mineralization that has washed out the upper petroglyphs. Over years of looking at it I concluded it ressembles a woman giving birth.
But there was more. What were the many crescent-shaped glyphs? “Hoofprints” is how archaeologists refer to the horseshoe-shaped/hoofprint/ moon glyphs that are common at Pathfinder. James D. Keyser and Michael A. Klassen emphasized in their 2001 book Plains Indian Rock Art the visual similarity between these hoofprints and female human genitalia. They wrote, “The two functional explanations for ‘hoof print’ tradition rock art—symbols of fertility and hunting magic—are actually quite complementary. Clearly, female fertility and game animals (especially bison) are linked at many sites, often by symbolic association between hoof prints and representations of human genitalia.”3
Fig. 6.17. Drawing of the Pathfinder hoofprint glyphs, which perhaps represent a lunar count.
Fig. 6.18. Variations of the Pathfinder hoofprint glyphs, which are often considered to represent vulvas.
In the middle of the Pathfinder panel, a row of nine hoofprint glyphs may represent nine months, which is the human gestation period, and this is consistent with the birth theme of Pathfinder. Brennan had previously made the connection to these types of glyphs as representing a lunar count. Accordingly, a moon glyph represents one womb period, a lunar month.4
Given the diverse forms in which the hoofprint or moon glyph motifs appear at Pathfinder it is a mistake to suggest a single universal meaning. At Pathfinder, some of the different varieties and shapes appear to relate to counts; for example, the series of nine vertical hoofprint glyphs that perhaps relate to calendrics, to the female womb, or to copulation.
A SECOND PATHFINDER ALIGNMENT
After a long absence that followed McGlone’s death, on a spring equinox excursion in 2004 I was revisiting the Pathfinder site. Around noon, I was again sitting on top of the Pathfinder rock complex. The rock on which I meditated was the roof of the enclosure containing the petroglyphs. It was positioned between the flat vertical rock art panel and another boulder, creating the enclosured cave with several holes in the ceiling that allowed some light in. From my perch I could see the rock art panel below through one of the holes.
There, to my amazement, I observed a sun dagger moving across the panel. A “sun dagger” is a ray or wedge of light cast on the rock surface that comes to a point. The triangular shape is created as the sunlight enters through a hole or rock formation and gradually progresses with the sun’s movement, interacting with petroglyphs at some sites, including Pathfinder. I was excited by the prospect of a new equinox alignment and returned from my perch to go back into the Pathfinder, where I had previously been working. As a reward for being observant I was able to photograph this unusual noontime alignment, which proved to be a sophisticated heliolithic animation. Heliolithic animations are light shows on petroglyphs set in motion by the sun’s movement. They take advantage of the moving light-and-shadow interplay on fixed petroglyphs to create moving stories that unfold on specific days.
The first equinox noontime “target” was the Suncatcher glyph. This glyph has explicit sexual connotations and apparent association with human genitalia and the act of copulation. On the equinox, the point of light of the sun dagger and the tip of the Suncatcher glyph precisely line up, which only occurs on or a day before or after equinox.
Fig. 6.19. Pathfinder noontime alignment of the Suncatcher glyph. The wedge in the upper left is the approaching sun dagger. (Photo enhancements by author)
The next target of the descending sun dagger was an abstract human-looking anthropomorphic figure whose elements were at first difficult to discern. However, a later analysis of my digital photographs revealed a spread-legged figure with a protrusion inside her body cavity, as if she were pregnant. The figure held a disc in one hand, and her left foot rested near the head of a clearly pecked serpent. As I watched, the point of light descended through the panel and, after passing through the Suncatcher glyph, it intersected with the genital area of the spread-legged figure in such a precise manner that its meaning could not be missed.
Fig. 6.20. Detail of the anthropomorphic figure identified by author as Changing Woman. On the equinox, the sun dagger proceeded from the Suncatcher glyph to strike the spread-legged figure in the genital area. The prominent placement of a large vulva glyph below the anthropomorphic figure reinforces the fertility theme by connecting the female womb and the male equinox sun dagger.
This Pathfinder light-animation sequence entails the sun dagger precisely intersecting with at least four petroglyphs. Over a ninety-minute period, after beginning with the sun dagger striking the tip of the Suncatcher glyph and traveling through the spread-legged anthropomorphic figure, it engulfed the Snake petroglyph at her feet, and finally struck a second anthropomorphic figure near his phallus.
After passing through the first anthropomorphic glyph, the head of the serpent below her feet becomes illuminated by the sun dagger. As the ray of light moves across the panel, first the head and then the entire body of the snake becomes engulfed by sun. The occurrence of the pecked serpent and its inclusion in the Pathfinder noontime equinox heliolithic animation reinforces the ancient worldwide association between snakes and the equinox, which is also seen at the pyramid of Chichén Itzá (chapter 5), at Fajada Butte in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico (chapter 16), and in the Light Serpent animation at a California site (chapter 10).
Fig. 6.21. Drawing of the Pathfinder equinox archaeoastronomical alignment and light animation. The noontime sun dagger path is illustrated by arrows on the left, and the morning alignment shadow on the edge of a vulva form is shown with arrows on the right.
The fourth target of the alignment is an anthropomorth holding in one hand high above his head a large animal while touching or petting a quadruped (four-legged animal) with his other hand. The sun dagger strikes a large divot between his legs before continuing on to the floor over the next fifteen minutes.
The Pathfinder noontime animation is quite precise. The “throw” of the sun dagger, the distance from the rocks creating the dagger and the point of light on the petroglyph panel, reaches seventeen feet to the serpent glyph. This means that each day before and after the equinox the point of the sun dagger moves significantly above or below the point at which the sun dagger strikes the petroglyphs on the equionox. This reinforces both the preciseness and intentionality of the equinox sun dagger animation.
DIVINE SEXUALITY—THE STORY OF CHANGING WOMAN
Later in 2004, after viewing my photographs, Phillip Leonard (who is profiled in chapter 8) made a rather profound suggestion, proposing that the Pathfinder equinox could be a reenactment of an ancient story found in Native American mythology. He told me, with confirmation from Sam D. Gill and Irene F. Sullivan’s Dictionary of Native American Mythology, that there was a Yavapai-Apache story about Changing Woman, the Mother of Mankind. She personified the Earth and symbolized the cyclical path of the seasons. And most important, she was penetrated by the sun and in many stories conceived twins.5 Gill and Sullivan noted, “A common and rather widespread story has Sun impregnating a woman [Widapokwi] who gives birth to warrior twins. . . . At sunrise, water from a spring had dripped into her vagina just as the sun rays touched her.”6
In another Native American version she became pregnant when touched by the rays of the sun and drops of water, followed by the birth to twin boys. 7 In a Navajo story about Changing Woman it is said:
Changing Woman is the goddess created at the start of the fourth [present] world. She matures quickly, is impregnated by the Sun and gives birth to warrior twins, Monster Slayer and Child of the Water. They travel to their father to gain the power to rid the world of monsters. Changing Woman gives corn and animals to the humans. Later she is persuaded by her son to move to an island in the west, induced by the promise of a wonderful house, and great power over creation, and finally by the threat of war.8
These fertility themes at Pathfinder, along with their connection to Native American creation mythologies, are consistent with ancient myths and stories in other cultures. To name two, early Greek myths involved Zeus’s impregnation of Danaë in a shower of gold, and the same basic story is also found in a Hindu tradition involving Vishnu, who descended into Devaki’s womb as light and was born as Krishna.*15 Even today, an impregnation ritual is practiced in Hindu marriages, where on the day before the wedding the bride is made to look toward the sun to be exposed to the fertilizing solar rays.9 Thus, this universally acknowledged moment of creation recreated at Pathfinder is a union of light and shadow, petroglyph and sun that is, quoting Brennan, “celebrating the cosmic and sexual unions between man and woman, heaven and earth, spirit and matter.”10
Secrets of Ancient America: Archaeoastronomy and the Legacy of the Phoenicians, Celts, and Other Forgotten Explorers Page 11
