CALIFORNIAN ROCK ART

The idea that therock artof California might plausibly be linked to shamanism was revived by David Whitley in a paper entitled “Shamanism and Rock Art in Far Western North America” and developed in detail in his volumeThe Art ofthe Shaman:Rock Art of California(2000). Whitley revisited ethnographic records, including those on the Shoshone, and established that certain metaphors in these documents referred to thetranceexperiences of shamans. In the rockartof the Coso region in the desert of interior southern California, bighorn sheep predominate, yet they were not a major food source, indicating that the rock art was not produced for “hunting magic.” Whitley argues on the basis of ethnographic records that the prevalence of bighorn sheep engravings is an indicator that the region was viewed as supernaturally potent. Examples of sheep depicted as dead, dying, or being killed may be interpreted as metaphors for trance. The sheep themselves may have beenhelpersassisting shamans to control the weather, among other tasks. According to Whitley, shamans produced rock art as the concludingperformanceofvision questsin order to represent their visions and experiences in a graphic medium. As such, the rock art depictsspirithelpers and such performances ashealing, initiation, rainmaking, andsorcery. Rock art sites were alsosacred sites, with cracks in the rocks being used as entrances to the spirit world. Whitley has applied this shamanistic interpretive framework to a wide range of sites throughout the Great Basin, and while there has been criticism from antishamanism rock art researchers, this shamanistic interpretation is widely recognized as the most consistent and reliable to date.