Rock Art images dating from approximately AD 1000
Preserved by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources - updated 4 Feb. 2004
Thi-ca'-thu (Osage "Rattle") in Washington Park Site A, near Highway 21
">
Either a plumed (feather decorated) or firey mace from petroglyphs near group B
A'hiu-ta-ta (Osage "Sacred Mottled Eagle") and associated designs from Washington Park Site A,
. Wa-zhin-ga ci-gthe (Osage "bird tracks") from Washington Park Site A.
Sign board drawing of sacred birds/wakon (Osage "Spirits") and ancestral lodge. Washington Park Site A
Sign board drawing of sacred eagle and shamen at Washington Park Site A
Park Sign in 1979
Park Sign in 1979
Park Sign in 1979
Park Sign in 1963 (H. Lee Hoover)
Mace petroglyph in 1973
Bird tracks in 1963 (H. Lee Hoover)
Sacred Birds, ca. 1983
Mace & Ballpayer in 1979
Mound map in 1979
Petroglyphs in 1973 (scale in ft.)
Petroglyphs in 1979
Maces in 1979
Sacred Eagle in 1979
Interpreting the meaning of ancient rock art and assigning a date to the images is very difficult. Some anthropologists take the position that the original meaning of the rock art is lost with the death of the artist. Subsequent groups may reinterpret the designs in new ways and modern anthropologist/archaeologists can make only bad assumptions about the original meaning and subsequent meanings. If you agree with the latter assumption, then you probably will not like my radical interpretation of certain petroglyphs as mounds, plazas, and palisades.
I believe that the Native American oral traditions, especially among the Osage, have not been fully utilized by the archaeologists trying to interpret Mississippi Period and Post-Contact Rock Art in the Ozarks region. Archaeologists working in Arizona have found that real history is embedded in the oral traditions of the Hopi, Zuni, Hualapai, and Navajo (Anyon et al. 1996:14-16). I am using the Osage Dictionary of Francis LaFlesche (1932) to postulate possible words for the petroglyphs imagery (somewhat in the fashion of epigraphers working with ancient Maya glyphs and modern Maya dialects). Other word choices in Osage are also possible. At least the Osage phrases remind us that the petroglyphs were made by non-English speaking artisans. It is possible that the artisan spoke Chickasaw and not Osage, but the iconography and oral history point towards the Osage.
A traditional, conservative analysis of the site was written
by Diesing and Magre (1942:8-15). O'Brien and Wood (1998) do not offer
an analysis of the site in their recent synthesis of Missouri Archaeology.
Chapman (1980:229, Figure 6-5) places the site in the Ware Phase and illustrates
the photograph of his comparison with the chipped stone maces from Spiro
Mound (Hamilton 1952:Plates 38 and 39), but basically ignores the site
in his two volume publication. Carl and Eleanor Chapman illustrated examples
of the petroglyphs from the site in Indians and Archaeology of Missouri
(1964:79). They (specifically Eleanor?) offered the following explanation
for function of the site in their popular account:
"The Washingtron State Park petroglyph site was probably the junction
of game trails and war trails, and was possibily a consecrated spot where
young men were initiated into secret society rites and were taught the
mythology associated with the initiation. The rock carvings may have been
memory aids for songs and rites that were part of the ceremony. The symbols
probably had magical as well as religious meaning, and participation in
the ceremonies at the sacred spot could have been the means of imparting
the powers of the symbols to the participants."
Chapman recognized that certain iconographic details in the Washington
State Park petroglyphs belong only to the Mississippi Period (ca. AD 900
to 1400) in Missouri. Shell tempered pottery sherds, Scallorn points,
Cahokia Notched points, and stone box graves (Diesing 1955:Figures 6 and
7) associated with the rock art site confirms the dating of the designs.
Morse and Morse (1983:256) do not mention the Washington State Park rock
art site, but they do make passing reference to several rock art sites
along the southern foothills of the Ozarks that they date to the time
of Mississippian Consolidation (A.D. 1000 - 1350). They observed that
the petroglyphs of this period include sun symbols, footprints, arrows
and human figures.
Carol Diaz-Granados and Jim Duncan (2000:113) analyzed aspects of the
Washington State Park Site in their recent study entitled The Petroglyphs
and Pictographs of Missouri. They identified the following themes
in the rock art at the site: Ceremony, games/sport, myths/oral tradition,
fertility, and narrative.
My first reading of the Ne ke a (Osage, "Sayings of the Ancient
Men") sparked my interest in the possibility that some aspects of the
rock art at Washington State Parkcould reflect the Osage oral tradition
(as recorded during 1910 to 1914 by Francis LaFleshe of the Smithsonian
Institution). That would seem especially true of the panel that is labelled
"Fertility and Rain" by the Missouri Park Department
The Da'do-ca-ni mo-gthi tha bigi (Osage, "Creation
story") includes an episode where the Osage Hunka (Earth People)
leader attempts to ascertain why a non-Osage people behave in an evil
manner. The latter are identified as the Hunka Uta-nontse (Isolated
Earth People) that are afflicted by an evil spirit associated with their
permanent settlement. The Osage leader proposes that his people adopt
the Hunka Uta-nontse and they agree. The Isolated Earth People
bring corn as their offering to the Osage for the generous act of adoption.
The life symbols of the Isolated Earth People included Spider, Buffalo
bull, Bull snake, Spreading adder, Black snake, Rattlesnake and Red Boulder
(La Flesche 1995:37). Several snakes appear in the rock art at Washington
Park Site.
It is possible that the two figures in the "Fertility and Rain" panel
might relate to another Osage myth related to origins of corn and squash.
The supernatural being called Buffalo Lift Your Head tossed his body against
the earth three times. Each time he produced colored corn and squash.
The Osage classified corn as a male plant and squash as a female plant;
these important food sources were wedded by the actions of Buffalo Lift
Your Head (Burns 1984:192). The footprint petroglyphs at Washington State
Park might also be related to the Corn Songs that include references to
women's footprints on the hills of corn (Burns 1984:59).
Look closely at the image of two human-forms, the object jointly held
by the two figures, and the symbols that I interpret as village house
structures and a temple mound. Maybe this is an example of rock art by
the Hunka Uta-nontse! The scepter style mace and other Mississippian
Culture motifs in the rock art point to an artisan originating from the
mound centers such as Cahokia, St. Louis Mound Group, Lilbourn, Towosaghy,
Campbell, Snodgrass, etc.
The petroglyph of a mound with associated astronomical
sighting poles is paralleled by actual discoveries at Cahokia Mound 72
(Fowler et al. 1999) and Lilbourn Mound 2 (Chapman and Evans 1977:83,
Figure 23).
Bibliography
Anyon, Roger, T. J. Ferguson, Loretta Jackson, and Lillie
Lane
1996 Native American Oral Traditions and Archaeology. Society
for American Archaeology Bulletin 14(2):14-16.
Burns, Louis F.
1984 Osage Indian Customs and Myths. Ciga Press, Fallbrook, CA.
Chapman, Carl H.
1980 The Archaeology of Missouri, II. University of Missouri Press,
Columbia.
Chapman, Carl H. and Eleanor F. Chapman
1964 Indians and Archaeology of Missouri. University of Missouri
Press, Columbia.
Chapman, Carl H. and David R. Evans
1977 Investigations at the Lilbourn Site 1970-1971. The Missouri Archaeologist
38.
Diaz-Granados, Carol and James R. Duncan
2000 The Petroglyphs and Pictographs of Missouri. University of
Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
Diesing, Eugene H.
1955 Archaeological Features in and around Washington State Park in Washington
and Jefferson Counties, Missouri. The Missouri Archaeologist. 17(1):
12-23.
Diesing, Eugene H. and Frank Magre
1942 Petroglyphs and Pictographs in Missouri. The Missouri Archaeologist.
8(1): 8-18.
Fowler, Melvin L., Jerome Rose, Barbara Vander Leest,
and Steven R. Ahler
1999 The Mound 72 Area: Dedicated and Sacred Space in Early Cahokia. Illiinois
State Museum Reports of Investigations 54.
Hamilton, Henry W.
1952 The Spiro Mound. The Missouri Archaeologist. 14.
La Flesche, Francis
1932 A Dictionary of the the Osage language. Smithsonian Institution
Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 109.
1995 The Osage and the invisible world: from the works
of Francis La Flesche. Edited by Garrick A. Bailey. University of
Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Morse, Dan F., and Phyllis A. Morse
1983 Archaeology of the Central Mississippi Valley. Academic Press,
San Diego.
O'Brien, Michael J. and W. Raymond Wood
1998 The Prehistory of Missouri. University of Missouri Press,
Columbia.
Wyatt, Ronald
1959 Summer Fieldwork at Washington State Park, Missouri. Missouri
Archaeological Society Newsletter 134:7-10.
Designed by Neathery and Michael Fuller, St. Louis Community College,
Updated on Oct 4, 2002.