Zuni Rock Art Blogging

Steve and Matt love birds (as do I!) and I have been wanting to share one of my favorite petroglyphs - the owl seen above - with them for some time. This petroglyph is located near Zuni Pueblo in west-central New Mexico and is in a cluster of panels of prehistoric petroglyphs and very striking historic pictographs. I took photographs of many of them years ago and recently had them digitally scanned so I can share them in future posts.

A more detailed run-down of Zuni rock art can be obtained in this book by M. Jane Young.

According to Zuni informants, a common folk-tale describes the owl as a friend of the Zuni, who would fly at night to spy for them. The zig-zag line seen to the right of the owl above is said to represent the path of his flight as he flies over the enemy Navajo and returns to tell the Zuni of their numbers and location.

Another image on the same panel located a couple of feet below the owl is this corn plant with

the single ear standing up. I have always thought that this semi-stylized portrayal was elegant and charming.

As I said earlier, now that I have some of these images scanned, I will drop more in from time to time.