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<< Text Pages >> Painted Rock at Tule River - Rock Art in United States in The West

Submitted by AKFisher on Friday, 11 August 2023  Page Views: 672

Rock ArtSite Name: Painted Rock at Tule River Alternative Name: Tule River Pictograph, CA-TUL-19
Country: United States Region: The West Type: Rock Art
Nearest Town: Porterville, CA
Latitude: 36.032070N  Longitude: 118.71509W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
3 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
3 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
no data Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
4

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Rock Art in The West

Painted Rock is located on the Tule River Indian Reservation, above Porterville, in the Sierra Nevada foothills of central California (Figure 1). This site, also known as CA-TUL-19, is a rockshelter associated with a Native American Yokuts village. The site, located immediately adjacent to the Tule River, includes bedrock mortars, pitted boulders, midden and pictographs. The pictographs are located within the rockshelter, and are painted on the ceiling and walls of the shelter. The pictographs include paintings of a male, female, and child Bigfoot (known as the family), coyote, beaver, bear, frog, caterpillar, centipede, humans, eagle, condor, lizard and various lines, circles, and other geometric designs (Figure 3). The paintings are in red, black, white, and yellow.

This rock art site is unique; not only because it contains a Bigfoot pictograph, but also because of the traditional Native American stories that accompany it. There are no other known creation stories involving a Bigfoot-like creature in California. As far as can be determined, there are no Bigfoot creation stories anywhere else in the west. There is also no evidence of any other Bigfoot pictographs. Most states, including California, keep a database of all recorded sites located on federal, state, county, city, or private land. Based on that information, there is no other known Bigfoot pictographs or petroglyphs anywhere in California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, or Idaho.

This paper will describe the rock art, the known history of the site, the traditional Yokuts Hairy Man stories, and the association of the rock art with other Penutian language groups.

Pictograph Description:
The most dominant pictograph at Painted Rock is that of the Hairy Man, also known as Mayak datat (mi!yak datr!atr!) or sunsunut (shoonshoonootr!). Hairy Man measures 2.6 meters high by 1.9 meters wide, and is red, black, and white. It has what appears to be long hair and large haunting eyes. The Yokuts identify the lines coming from the eyes as tears (because Hairy Man is sad according to their creation story). The pictograph is in very poor condition due to weathering and vandalism. A Hairy Man petroglyph is present at the site as well. Petroglyphs are very rare in the Sierras.

Probably the most unusual feature of this site is the presence of an entire Bigfoot family. Besides the male Hairy Man, there are also a female and child "bigfoot." The mother is 1.8 meters high by 1.2 meters wide, and is solely red. The painting represents a 6-foot high, two-legged creature with her arms open. She has five fingers and little other detail. Immediately adjacent to her, and directly under her right hand, is her child. The child measures 1.2 meters high by 1 meter wide and is also solely red. The painting represents a 4-foot high, two-legged creature with small arms and five fingers. The figure has an unusually rounded head, suggestive of a sagittal crest.

Clewlow (1978) estimated that the paintings were made around A.D. 500, but could be as old as A.D. 1 or as young as AD. 1200 (2000 to 700 years old). Latta (1949) noted that year-round occupied villages were placed at important places, either where paintings were or at some place where Indian ceremonies were performed. Archaeologically, the village at Painted Rock was occupied in the late prehistoric, around 500 years ago. Since it is believed that the paintings were present prior to the village, the paintings are likely 500-1000 years old.

Ethnographic History of Painted Rock:
The Yokuts Tribe occupied the San Joaquin Valley and foothills of California. The band of the Yokuts that lived at Painted Rock were called the O-ching'-i-ta, meaning the "People of Painted Rock". A village at Painted Rock was called Uchiyingetau, which means "markings." Painted Rock itself was called Hocheu (Powers 1877).

The Tule River Indian Reservation was established in 1873 on 54,116 acres. The reservation lands are heavily timbered and include several Giant Sequoia Groves. The reservation is surrounded by thousands of acres of national forest system lands. It is rare for an Indian tribe to own a site they believe they were created at, and records seem to imply that the location of the reservation was chosen to incorporate Painted Rock for that reason.

Painted Rock is first described by Mallery in 1889. Mallery (1889) stated that the paintings were "famous and well-known in the area." He described the paintings as created by being pecked, painted, and then pecked again to ensure a "long lasting effect." Mallery also described the Coyote Eating the Moon, and a large bear-like creature covering one wall. He stated that the locals called the creature, "Hairy Man." Steward noted the paintings in 1929, and stated that a Tribal elder, living at the location in 1900, had identified the large painting as the "Hairy Man."

Latta (1949) detailed the site by stating: "The Indians readily recognize the characters which represent animals, but they offer no other explanation for the geometrical designs and line drawings than to give the Indian name for circle, triangle, square or other common figures. They do identify drawings of. . . a few mythological characters" such as Hairy Man and the Coyote Eating the Moon.

No explanation of what the Yokuts or researchers thought "Hairy Man" was is provided in these early references. Everyone seemed to understand that "Hairy Man" meant just that, "Hairy Man." This is in direct contrast with the Coyote Eating the Moon. A great deal of effort by researchers was spent on trying to identify the reason Coyote was Eating the Moon, and what humans did to deserve such a fate. Latta (1936) stated that he thought Hairy Man was maybe related to the "Giant of Ah-wah-Nee" stories, but that idea was not accepted.

Finally, in 1973, Hairy Man was associated with the "white" term of "Big Foot" and since then, it has been accepted that Hairy Man and Bigfoot are and have always been the same creature. Johnstone (1975) noted that Hairy Man had always been described by the Yokuts as "a creature that was like a great big giant with long, shaggy hair" and since Bigfoot also meets that description, the two are the same.

Traditional Stories:
Gayton (1976:89) was one of the main ethnographers of the Yokuts. She studied their traditional stories and came to the following conclusion:

The prehuman era was that of a world created and occupied by birds and animals of superanimal and superhuman powers. To Eagle, with his bird and animal assistants and companions, was attributed the building of the world, the institution of certain cultural, social, and physical features of man and his way of life. This prehistoric period, described in a fairly full but not elaborately detailed stock of stories, came to an end with the creation of mankind by Eagle and the subsequent transformation of these bird-and-animal people into their present known forms. All this happened beyond the memory of man, but the past continued into the present in the immediate ubiquity of the animals themselves. Beliefs about them were being constantly reinforced by daily happenings in the circumjacent wilds.

Simplified, this means that when the Yokuts observed animal behavior in the wild, they incorporated those observations into their traditional stories. The more they observed, the most elaborate the stories and details. Following are several examples of traditional stories, collected by the author unless otherwise noted, and the observed animal behavior represented in the story.

Hairy Man is described in this story as human-like; he walked on two legs and gave that gift to humans. Hairy Man was also smart enough to trick the cunning coyote in order to get his own way.

Bigfoot was thought to be nocturnal and mainly stayed in Giant Sequoia groves or forests. His intent was not to come into contact with humans and would only go outside when they were asleep. Since Gayton (1976) already stated that Yokuts stories about animals involved real observed behaviors, and all the behaviors attributed to the other animals in this story are consistent with what we know about those animals, it is logical to assume that Yokuts directly observed Bigfoot behavior and incorporated that behavior into this story.

The importance of a Bigfoot being attracted to the sound of acorn pounding should not be missed here. Again, this is likely an observed Bigfoot behavior incorporated into a traditional story. It may also help explain some behavior attributed to Bigfoot now, such as wood pounding as it may be an attempt by a Bigfoot to emulate a sound heard so often in prehistoric times. It is also worth note that an indirect observation was that the Bigfoot was smart enough to know that pounding meant food, and to wait until the food was ready to eat before stealing it.

Hairy Man appears to have a spiritual or religious aspect as well. Kroeber (1925) noted that animals could be totems to various Yokuts bands. Hairy Man, however, was never a totem, because by this time, he was viewed as a monster. According to tribal elders, doctors or shamans with supernatural powers, called Tip'-ne, could own Hairy Man, and use him as a bringer of dreams. A Hairy Man Shaman would create an amulet of his power animal and swallow it to keep in his body. Hairy Man Shamans are extremely rare and very unusual in Yokuts culture. There is only one brief story that elders had of this type of Shaman and it involved Hairy Man coming to a house, throwing off his hair, becoming a man, and offering a healing power to the Shaman. Hairy Man insisted that the power he gave the Shaman could only be used to cure and not to kill.

This is a very sensitive issue, and further details about what kind of powers the Shaman would receive from Hairy Man could not be obtained from tribal elders. It is very likely that since this type of doctor is very rare, no one knows what powers are associated with a Hairy Man Shaman.

It is not likely that a Yokuts directly observed a Bigfoot giving a Shaman magical power. To really understand what behaviors were indeed observed, we would have to know more about what powers were conveyed to the Shaman. Typically, Medicine Men possess great strength or endurance and that is likely observed Bigfoot behavior incorporated into this story.

Lastly, Hairy Man has an "evil" aspect to him. Latta (1949) was told that the life-sized character at Painted Rock was a bad spirit. It is unclear, however, if the informant meant Hairy Man or Coyote Eating the Moon. While doing research with Tribal elders many years ago, I was often told that while on the reservation, I should never go outside if I heard whistling. When asked why, I was told that Hairy Man used whistling to lure Indians out into the night for various bad reasons. The details on what Hairy Man would do to someone going outside is unknown. Here is a story detailing Hairy Man's "bad" side. This story is taken from Johnstone (1975).

The Hairy Man pictograph was noted and called "Hairy Man" by non-Indians in 1889. It is well documented that the painting has been referred to as Hairy Man since 1889 and continuously to modern times. Bigfoot behavior is represented in traditional Yokuts stories, including nocturnal hunting, association with Forest environments, wood knocking, whistling, and being an omnivore (animals and plants); and Bigfoot is in both Yokuts culture and the Penutian language stock, suggesting a very old source story.

The presence of a Bigfoot pictograph and numerous stories in the Yokuts culture is not only unique, but also significant to North American Great Ape research. By analyzing traditional Native knowledge and stories of Bigfoot, it helps establish that this creature was not created by "white culture", but instead is a long-time occupant in these people's lives. Stories and paintings of how the creature looked and behaved are only present in these Native cultures because of direct observation of a flesh and blood creature.

References:
Clewlow, C. William, Prehistoric Rock Art. In: Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 8, California, Robert Heizer, ed., pp. 619-625. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.

Dixon, Roland B., and Alfred L. Kroeber, Linguistic Families of California. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 16(3):47-118. Berkeley.

Gayton, Anna H., Culture-Environment Integration: External References in Yokuts Life. In: Native Californians: A Theoretical Retrospective, L.J. Bean and T.C. Blackburn, ed., pp. 79-98. Ramona: Ballena Press.

Johnstone, Elizabeth Bayless, Bigfoot and Other Stories. Tulare: Tulare Board of Education.

Kroeber, Alfred L., Handbook of the Indians of California. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 78. Washington.

Latta, Frank F.

California Indian Folklore, as Told to F.F. Latta by Wah-nom-kot, Wah-hum-chah, Lee-mee (and others). Shafter: Shafter Press.
Handbook of Yokuts Indians. Bakersfield: Kern County Museum.
Mallery, Garrick, Picture-writing of the American Indians. Pp. 1-882 in 10th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology for the Years 1888-1889. Washington.

Merriam, C. Hart, Dawn of the World: Myths and Weird Tales Told by the Mewan Indians of California. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark.

Powers, Stephen, Tribes of California. Contributions to North American Ethnology 3. Washington: U.S. Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region.

Steward, Julian H., Petroglyphs of California and Adjoining States. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 24(2):47-238. Berkeley

Revision History:
This article was originally published on the Bigfoot Information Project website (www.bigfootproject.org) on August 13, 2004. The article has been edited for brevity and posting on this Megalithic Portal website. Published under Creative Commons license with full attribution to the author, Kathy Moskowitz.

Further reading and information:
Bigfoot Information Project
http://www.bigfootproject.org/articles/mayak_datat.html
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painted_Rock_(Tulare_County,_California)

Directions:
From Porterville, CA via Reservation Dr., 24.1 mi.
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Painted Rock at Tule River
Painted Rock at Tule River submitted by AKFisher : Petroglyphs at the Tule River, California. Photo courtesy Dr Greg Little, author of the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Native American Indian Mounds & Earthworks (2016).  (Vote or comment on this photo)

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