Historic and ethnographic accounts tell us that a swordfish dancer played a prominent role in a number of Chumash ceremonies. The swordfish head-dress pictured above, was found by archaeologist David Banks Rogers in 1926 in a site at Winchester Canyon, about three miles west of where I sit writing this. This was found in a burial: a male buried in fetal position lying on his left side was wearing this on his head. The swordfish eye was rendered as was a cape with iridescent Haliotis (abalone) shell plaques. This was obviously the sort of head-dress worn by those dancers.One of the powers of the swordfish, and one of the reasons that the Chumash venerated them was that they were believed to drive whales ashore. The beached whales provided the Chumash with lots of food. Whales (and beached whales!) are fairly common here as both gray and humpback whales migrate through the area near shore.
Swordfish also appear in Chumash rock art. The example below comes from Swordfish Cave, a rock shelter at Vandenberg Air Force Base, that Connie and I visited last May.
This pictograph is hard for some people to pick out in a photograph. It is a black fish on a red background - the tail is to the right and the fish's bill is to the left.
On the same rock face, about four feet below the painting of the swordfish, appropriately enough is this pictograph of a whale.
I will leave you with question that many have asked and that no one quite knows how to answer. Look closely at the pictograph of the swordfish. The dorsal fin is at the bottom of the image. Why is the swordfish upside down?
5 comments:
The swordfish is upside down because he is dead. Something ripped open his stomach and you can see the entrails and blood gushing up and out. See it?
That's entirely possible. I and others that have seen this interpreted that as pectoral fins. Look at this picture of a swordfish and see what you think.
http://www.csun.edu/biology/nmfrp/swordfish.htm
The swordfish is in the rock. Peek between, it is balanced with the nether world which is above.
It depicts a sky entity. The curved dorsal fin is at the top. Its dorsal tip is Polaris and it curves with the stars of the handle of the little dipper. The tail fin lines up with the two Big Dipper stars which line up to point to Polaris (the North Star). The other tips are other stars in the area.
I have never heard of the sowrdfish representing both the big dipper and the little dipper . It is possible , but most Chumash speak of the big and little dippers as to beings , the Guardian Bear [ big dipper ] and Sky Coyote [ the Nourth star is his heart ] . Perhaps the diference could be from location . Not all Chumash lived on the coast , some lived inland .
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