Maya Pontone | Hyperallergic
A Quarter of Wyoming’s Rock Art Has Been Vandalized, Report Finds
The state is home to hundreds of Indigenous petroglyphs and pictographs dating back centuries.
Wyoming is home to hundreds of Indigenous rock art sites, spanning petroglyphs and pictographs dating back centuries spread across the state. But approximately a quarter of these sites have been targeted by vandalism and defacement, according to a new report.
On May 1, Wyoming State Archaeologist Spencer Pelton presented these findings to the Select Committee on Tribal Relations in Fort Washakie. This year, legislators are prioritizing issues such as the protection and preservation of Indigenous rock art sites — drawings, engravings, carvings, and stencils on rock shelters, formations, boulders, and caves considered to be sacred cultural heritage to their creators and communities. The World Heritage Convention has characterized rock art sites as “among the most vulnerable on the World Heritage List” due to their susceptibility to climate change and vandalism.
The Wyoming Cultural Records Office created a list of 666 sites across the state to provide a preliminary assessment of damage to rock art. Out of this list, 157 sites — 24% — were indicated as either vandalized or defaced. A total of 88 sites are located on federal land, whereas 15 are situated on state land and 47 on private properties.
In a case study conducted at Pine Canyon, located in Wyoming’s southwest region, state officials noted four types of vandalism consisting of inscribed names, initials, and dates; painting; or firearm damage. The initials, names, and dates were almost always carved into the rock face, whereas firearm destruction was usually present where “a logical target” was found, as in the case of a bison petroglyph that was riddled with bullet holes.
“An additional form of vandalism is removal of rock art images from panels through chisels and explosives for commercial sale or collection,” Pelton told Hyperallergic, noting that this destruction is generally uncommon, but “probably the most severe form of vandalism that can occur.”
Pelton noted that the next step will be strengthening rock art legal protections through state statutes.
“That’s a long process, but I am encouraged that we have lawmakers interested in pursuing it,” Peloton said.
Currently, protections for rock art are dependent on the Antiquities Act of 1906, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979, and the 1966 National Historic Preservation Act, which established the National Register of Historic Places and the State Historic Preservation Office program. In 1935, state legislators also passed the Wyoming Prehistoric Ruins Act, which provides protections for prehistoric natural features in the state. It also requires permits for any excavation of prehistoric ruins and ancient markings on any state or federal land.
“Once we have some stronger statutes, I could foresee a large collaborative effort between State, Federal, and Tribal governments to document rock art vandalism and develop some site-specific measures for long-term preservation,” Pelton said, adding that while there are no definitive plans for this project yet, he believes “there’s enough momentum behind the effort to see it happen in the next several years.” https://hyperallergic.com/918491/a-quarter-of-rock-art-in-wyoming-has-been-vandalized-report-finds/
We Are Ancient
Really old petroglyphs were an important form of pre-writing symbols, used in communication (Neolithic and late Upper Paleolithic) maybe 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Then 7,000 to 9,000 years ago, other writing systems such as pictographs and ideograms began to appear. Petroglyphs have been found everywhere, in all parts of the globe except Antarctica, with the highest concentrations in parts of Africa, Scandinavia, Siberia, southwestern North America, and Australia…
BELOW: New England’s Mashpee and Nipmuc Tribal Members (old photos)
National Traveling Exhibition, “Portraits in Red: Missing & Murdered Indigenous People Painting Project,” will open at The Museum at Warm Springs on June 5, 2024
(WARM SPRINGS, Ore., May 22, 2024) — “Portraits in Red: Missing & Murdered Indigenous People Painting Project” — a national traveling exhibition — will be on view at The Museum at Warm Springs from Wednesday, June 5 through Saturday, September 7, 2024. The exhibition features 40 paintings by Nayana LaFond focusing on missing and murdered Indigenous relatives.
The public is invited to the opening reception on Wednesday, June 5, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Light refreshments will be served.
Behind each of the paintings is the voice of an Indigenous person who has suffered the impact of violence. Ninety-eight percent of Native people experience violence during their lifetime. Native women face murder rates 11 times the national average. These crimes are under-reported by the media and under-prosecuted by law enforcement. LaFond’s project brings visibility to this ongoing crisis.
LaFond’s painting project began in 2020 with one painting, “Lauraina in RED,” created for the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Native Women and Girls, which is observed on May 5 and now known as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day. Since 2020 she’s painted more than 50 commissioned portraits. As of February 2024, there were 110 completed paintings. Every portrait is of someone who is missing, was murdered, survived, a family member or friend, or an activist/hero fighting for the cause. LaFond hopes to make sure the missing and dead are never forgotten, to raise awareness about this serious issue, and to provide help with healing to the families.
LaFond is a full-time multidisciplinary artist and activist who resides with her child in Western Massachusetts. She attended Greenfield Community College for Fine Art and Massachusetts College of Art for Photography and then dropped out to become a full-time painter. Her paintings and sculptures can be seen in galleries and museums around the world. Her project, “Missing & Murdered Indigenous People Painting Project,” has gained her international acclaim and is currently on display in museums around North America, including a Pacific Northwest Coast tour, a tour through the Institute of American Indian Studies Museum and more. LaFond has also been a curator and community arts organizer for more than 20 years, including serving as the former founding chief curator for The Whitney Center for the Arts (Pittsfield, Mass.). She also sits on the boards of several arts organizations, including as executive board member of Artist Organized Art in New York City. LaFond is a citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario, Canada.
The Museum at Warm Springs is located at 2189 Highway 26 in Warm Springs. Phone: (541) 553-3331. For more information, visit https://www.museumatwarmsprings.org/.
The Memory of Being HUNTED:
BOUNTY
We are citizens of the Penobscot Nation. For this film, we bring our families to Boston to read our ancestors’ death warrant, the Phips Proclamation. This abhorrent edict, enacted in 1755 by the colonial government, paid settlers handsomely to murder Penobscot people. It declared our people enemies and offered different prices for the scalps of children, women, and men. Bounty proclamations like this persisted for more than two centuries across what is now the United States. The memory of being hunted is in our blood. We know this to be true, and the science now affirms that trauma can be passed from generation to generation. In Bounty we step into the future together with our children, into the colonizer’s hall of injustice to read their hateful words and tell the truth about what was done to our ancestors. We exercise our power by sharing the horrors of this hard history as an act of resistance and remembrance and a step toward justice.
TOP PHOTO: https://sowamsheritagearea.org/wp/bounty-film-documents-attempt-at-native-genocide-in-maine/
CAPTION: “We are citizens of the Penobscot Nation. For this film, we bring our families to Boston to read our ancestors’ death warrant. In BOUNTY we step into the future together with our children into the colonizer’s hall of injustice, to read their hateful words and tell the truth about what was done to our ancestors. We exercise our power by sharing the horrors of this hard history as an act of resistance, remembrance, and a step toward justice. Ultimately the message of this project is best summated by the Penobscot co-directors of the film who proclaim: We are survivors. We are still here.“
Members of the Penobscot Nation in Maine have produced an educational film in 2021 addressing how European settlers scalped—killed—Indigenous people during the British colonial era, spurred for decades by cash bounties and with the government’s blessing.
“It was genocide,” said Dawn Neptune Adams, one of the three Penobscot Nation members featured in the film, called “Bounty.”
Issued in November 1755, it gave “His Majesty’s Subjects” license to kill Penobscots for “this entire month.” The reward was about $12,000 in today’s dollars for the scalp of a man, and half that for a woman’s scalp. The amount was slightly less for a child. Settlers who killed Indigenous people were sometimes rewarded with land, in addition to money, expanding settlers’ reach while displacing tribes from their ancestral lands.
All told, there were more than 70 bounty proclamations encouraging white colonists to kill tribal members in what is now New England, and another 50 government-sanctioned proclamations elsewhere across the country, the filmmakers’ research found. Colonial governments paid out bounties for scalps of at least 375 Indigenous people across New England between 1675 to 1760, they said.
Sometimes history is not old… sometimes history is today…
Well, I am well but still (STILL) working out my tooth issues/jaw pain. We lost four souls at our condo complex in a few short months, and one funeral is this morning.
Hug your families. I send you love…
Lara/Trace
Lara Trace Hentz 
So sad, my dear friend. So sad!! 😕😪
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The dark history of the settlers needs to constantly be read today as a reminder. And the vandalism of the rock/cave art is a tragic crime. Sorry to hear that the teeth/jaw issues are still ongoing.
Best wishes, Pete. x
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