00:01.27 Alan Welcome back gang. We're here at the ah rock art podcast episode 96 we're pressing towards the millennial Mark the Centennial Mark um we have Linda Hilkema as our guest scholar this ah episode this is segment 2 and I think we're going to start talking about some of the things that were featured in the American Rock art research Association La Pintura newsletter Linda you were just about to tell us about some of the extraordinary sites that exist I think in Arizona correct. 00:34.28 linda Southern Arizona so one of our trips is going to be to Coco Rock a butte in the ironwood forest national monument and this particular site. 00:37.99 Alan Yeah. 00:52.20 linda Has one of the largest known selections of Bell Rocks in Southern Arizona um I believe and I I believe those are rocks that have certain acoustic properties and um. 01:03.68 Alan You know what that you know what they're called Linda theyre called lithophones and lithophones are acoustic archeology. Yeah acoustic archeology. They're they're rock gongs. They had him in youtt's country in the Southern San San Joaquin Valley as well. 01:12.62 linda Lit the phones. 01:22.82 Alan I Don't know if they're common or uncommon. But I guess when you hit a lithophone a gong rock with ah another rock it produces a ringing sound and so ah, that's your archeoacoustic lecture right now and I believe that they were. Ah, ritually or ceremonially important to ah certain cultures or they were perhaps perhaps used in certain ceremonies or other ritually significant events. Um I do know that I do know that you find them. Ah, you know? Yeah please. 01:51.69 linda I would imagine this will be my first time seeing those and the area where these are. 02:00.38 Alan The area go ahead Linda sorry. 02:05.80 linda Oh no, that's okay, the the area where these these rocks are there's ah apparently ah in the immediate area like over 2000 petroglyph elements on boulders around them. So it's obviously you know a very important was a very important. 02:14.00 Alan Oh my word. 02:22.76 linda You know area at 1 time and. 02:23.40 Alan Well one of the things that of course indigenous people believed and this is sort of the native American perspective on this is that all things both things that we would consider inanimate as well as Aimate. Have what we call agency and so what I mean by agency is they believe they're alive and they have a force and they have a sentience and a knowledge and they can make choices and they can act as human kind So when a lithophone was found a rock gong. Obviously it was speaking. 02:43.16 linda Ah. 03:00.38 Alan As though it was emanating from the rock and so you know when they talk about the rocks begin to speak or talking stones etc. That's what this is it has it has a force. It has a knowledge. It has a sound and I think. 03:09.17 linda Hoof. 03:18.87 Alan Some of the things that I was taught I did only 1 article on archaeoacoustics and it was um with one of the originators of that that whole discipline of archaeo-acoustics. Um, and ah. He was of the belief that go ahead. 03:36.12 linda Well, it's very fascinating to me and I've I've I was very.. It's very fascinating to me and I've I've never really um, experienced them before So I'm I'm looking really forward to not only just seeing them and hearing them. But you know looking at how. They're yeah, ah perched on the landscape and how they relate to everything else that's going on around them. 03:59.61 Alan 1 of the hypotheses that those that are involved with archaeoacoustics. Believe is that certain rocks or certain land forms were selected because they had acoustic properties. So in other words. If there was an area that was ecophonic or was a natural amphitheater that would echo one's voice that the rock art would be emblazoned or would be situated such to take advantage of that phenomenon. So ah. 04:21.27 linda And. 04:35.23 linda Do you think they were for. Do you think they were first signaling or do or do you think they were. 04:36.67 Alan Yeah, so so I think that go Ahead. No No I I don't think they were used in any sort of conventional way or for communication I think it was ah perceived that there was life in the rocks and as they were ringing. That they were communicating something some nature some some sort of message from them and I'm not sure what that message was but I would say that it would it was involve something that was powerful. Ah Also the the native people. 05:11.85 linda Ah. 05:15.66 Alan Tended and tell me if if you think this is intuitively correct when I've known native people and spoken to them. Um, it appears to me that speaking is less important than listening. So. 05:30.17 linda Who yes. 05:34.10 Alan Sound sound becomes critically important listening to so the sounds of the world nature. Um, what someone else perhaps is saying is far more important than what you're going to say or how you're going to communicate and. They tend to relate best to those people who in turn are listening to sounds rather than wanting to speak or communicate at great Length. So. In other words I wouldn't be someone who who perhaps would find many kindred spirits. And native Americans because I love to talk so much. But but if I if I listen and if I listen to them or listen to the sounds of an environment or what the environment is telling me then that is much more akin to the way in which. Native people grok the universe they they tend to be much more ethereal and much more associated with the land. The landscape the natural world. Whatever is around them. Do you agree or no. 06:49.24 linda Oh I Totally agree and I and I can relate to that because when I go hiking or when I'm camping um I never wear Headphones I Always want to hear and I sometimes really just enjoy sitting and listening to you know. Whatever the birds are doing or whatever the wind is doing um and it drives it drives me crazy when I see people ah hiking. You know in the foothills up here and they've got they're either blabbing away really loud or they've got headphones on and they're not listening and. 1 of my favorite things to do is when I'm you know out somewhere is to just sit and listen so the you know the world will really speak to you if you listen and and. 07:36.58 Alan I took 2 native americans um into little petrickliff canyon and they began you know, walking the canyon with everyone and then all of a sudden. They both sat down and I go and I go what's going on. 07:42.90 linda Ah. 07:52.28 linda Ah, her. 07:54.40 Alan Said said we want to sit here. We don't want to walk any further and I go Why is that says because we want to listen, we want to hear the hear the images and hear what they have to say and process this place and we can't process the place if we're constantly walking and talking. 08:02.90 linda Naha. 08:12.69 linda I can relate to that I can understand that and to sit and also absorb the scents or the smells of a place as well. Like if you're somewhere out after a rain and you have the smell of the earth and the sage. 08:13.26 Alan And so I said okay well what. 08:18.49 Alan Yeah, yes. 08:28.81 linda And if you just sit there and listen and smell you have all these different sensory experiences and it's it's It's very illuminating. 08:37.60 Alan I Think for the most part when I've connected with native people. They're far more kinesthetic than than many of us are I'm very visual or I don't think it may be sometimes even auditory, but but visual is the main. Ah, sort of element that I connect with but I believe that native people and those that are that relate to native people most effectively are heavily kinesthetic. Do you agree. They. 09:09.78 linda I Think so I know I I I agree. 09:14.81 Alan Feel they feel the world. They they want to sense they want to move slower. They want to touch and sense and feel and connect and and listen and listen and so that's ah that. 09:26.97 linda Exactly No I I understand that I agree with that completely because sometimes it is just best to just sit and listen and it's Amazing. How much you see and hear and can learn when you're just sitting and. Watching over a landscape for a period of time. 09:49.60 Alan And and listening um right I went with e-viewing I was out in Utah and I um she and I are both avid rock art passionate researchers. She has published a bit and. 09:59.69 linda Um, ah. 10:06.35 Alan Taken a hundred trips into the great mural rock art in Baja on the top of a mule and um she and I both went to this petrickliff site and she always sits down and begins to look at it. 10:20.81 linda Yeah. 10:26.11 Alan And me I'm all over it. You know, wondering here and there and anywhere. So but I sat with her and as I sat with it. Yeah, please go ahead? No no want to hear from you. 10:29.81 linda Well when I was in Utah I I remember? Yeah oh no, go ahead. Okay, well when I was in sago canyon just looking at those. Incredible figures I actually sat down too and I was just looking at them. But you can't take your eyes off of them. But at the same time you you start to hear the birds and you just it's just amazing if there's a presence they have ah they have a presence. And you can feel it. 11:05.28 Alan Um, yeah when I was so the the first sort of anecdotal story is when I sat down and and waited and sat with her and began to look. Began to process the images in a way I hadn't processed them before and I began to see things that I hadn't seen before and began to see the connections and began noting things that I hadn't noted before and I know that Ellenie Moore who's a. 11:29.74 linda And. 11:36.13 Alan Rather famous rock art artist who replicates rock art sites is exactly the same way. She sat down and viewed the panels and paintings in that enormous cave the largest cave of rock guard. 11:37.94 linda With her. 11:55.73 Alan In the great mural area and spent weeks months years just going over and over and over looking at the same images again and noticing every jot and tittle regarding the things that she gets to see and I know that I've done the same thing with the photographs. I have of Coso rock art every time I've gone back and viewed them again and looked at them Closer. Don't you know I see new things I see with New Eyes I I Represent I begin to see other relationships and things that I hadn't seen before. 12:19.66 linda Ah, her. 12:32.95 linda And it's different every time and you're always seeing something something new which is why you know a place like little pet Canyon or the great Mural. It's always you know, fascinating to go back there because you see something different every time or you process it differently. Ah, that's ah could be another thing is maybe you you process it differently than the last time you were there. Um I listened to a ah, really interesting lecture Lunchtime Lecture. Oh I'm sorry um. 12:52.98 Alan Um, right right? when I when I was in that Huge Canyon Please yeah when you were in your turn. 13:07.87 linda Thinking of ah pictographs the great neural I was listened to an ah a lunchtime lecture from ah shumla and forgive me I don't know the acronym off the top of my head but I can get it for you but it was on preparing the pigments for the pictographs and. 13:17.55 Alan Sure. 13:24.24 Alan Who. 13:27.49 linda It was and it's an extremely involved and lengthy process to gather the so the pigments themselves and to process the binder whether it's um. Cactus juice or whether it's whatever it is. They're using for a binder but just the whole process of making enough pigment. You know going to get it processing it making it storing it. Um, it just. That process alone and then you look at some of the large figures and if you've ever painted a picture. You know how much paint it takes to paint something so it's not just a matter of you know going out and painting something There's a tremendous amount of work that has to be done. Much like making a basket. You don't just pick up. You know, plants and start making the basket you have to collect them at the right time and you have to you know process them and dry them and you know it's a whole It's a whole very involved process and I had never thought of pictographs in that way before. That it may take a year or more to you know process enough pigments to do you know an image that you are going to do. 14:47.19 Alan So the preparation is is an element that one should consider when 1 sees one of these elaborate multicolored just jaw-dropping paintings that we see. 14:58.71 linda Right? And I would imagine that the ritual of preparing the pigment is every bit as important. Well I'm projecting I would imagine that it's just as important as important as the image itself. 15:06.44 Alan I would get yeah I would guess so ab absolutely well. Well when we think of pigment I do know from ethnographic information and the reading that I've done when they talk to avocca who is of course was the um. Rain shaman who was responsible for the ghost dance in 1890 pigment red pigment was what he would send to people and ask them for donations and he would get donations from indian tribes all over the country and around the world. 15:29.39 linda Um, and the hair. 15:43.91 Alan Because they felt that that pigment that red pigment that he would send them was alive and so powerful and so important to the nature of who they were and what they were doing to have life. It was alive. And it was a um, a critical element to the nature of the trade and the nature of sort of gathering something that really was a piece of Land. Go ahead? Yes, yeah, because it means blood it means blood it means earth. 16:10.40 linda And I wonder if it had to do with the fact that it's the same color as as blood as oh I'm sorry I yes. 16:21.32 Alan Means life. So the color red to the nummick to the great basin paot shoshone meant the land red was the land red was life red was blood red was red was this this particular most powerful ah color. 16:31.73 linda Ah, her. 16:39.52 Alan And it also meant joy and happiness. So all of that sort of you know, colorful language and associated symbolism was all wrapped up in that particular element. Well we're out of time on the second segment see y'all the flip flop gang. 16:40.10 linda Okay. 16:54.78 linda Okay. 16:55.58 archpodnet Yeah. 16:59.36 Alan Wow.