Petroglyph Site #5

 

"Great canyon walls towered above me, and I drank of their coolness.  Then I emerged on a high plateau where a long wind stole softly across the open levels fresh with sage and sego lilies."--Louis L'Amour from his novel, Silver Canyon

Petroglyph location: Southwest Utah

The Legend of the Indian Blanket

When passing on the freeway, if you know what you're looking for, one can spot a red-painted pictograph high on the cliffs. The glyph is sixteen feet across and four feet high, resembling the shape and design of an Indian blanket. It beckons to an earlier day before the freeway existed, and to a world much different than that of today.

The paint has been dated at 250 years old. If that is true, then the glyph could possibly be associated with the Pahvant, a band of the Paiute tribe. The legend itself does not come to us through the Paiutes, but through the local settlers that arrived in the 1850's.

According to the legend, many years ago a group of Paiutes were traveling through the area on their way to a winter camping area when the baby of one of the ladies passed away. Sadly, the mother had to bury her baby and move on. During the winter she was troubled with the thought of her baby being alone in the cold. She returned to the burial site during the spring and painted a blanket on the rock face. This way the baby could use the blanket when she was lonely and cold.

The following is a another depiction of the legend, written by Kathleen Lillywhite for the St. George News:

“According to legend, many years ago a Paiute Band traveled to a winter camping area. The frozen winter sun slipped behind a row of tamarisk shadows, and a baby girl was born. One little breath, then the wind swooped up the baby's cry. The mother held her close, wrapped her in a shawl and stroked the tiny body until it was cold.

“Using a dead branch that hung from a cottonwood tree, she dug a shallow grave at the base of a towering wall. The river babbled music to the weeping mother's sad song. The water gushed by as she slipped her baby into the earth and pushed cold dirt into a mound and covered her.

“Not many moons elapsed before the mother took up her basket of little clay paint pots―a pigment mixed of hematite mineral for the color red and blood, milk and honey as a binder. Combining urine to make a medium of liquid paint, she brushed colorful strokes to paint the blanket on the rock partition above her baby's grave. The loneliness was covered by a blanket to keep her baby warm.” ♠

Photo from across the canyon.  Arrows point to two different painted blankets.

Sources

Lillywhite, K. (2016, September 25). Ancients day; 100 hands of Moqui at Fremont Indian State Park. St. George News. https://www.stgeorgeutah.com/story-series/days-series/ancients-day-100-hands-of-moqui-at-fremont-indian-state-park/article_016aa8d0-93e9-5817-8de2-7d360d29628a.html

State of Utah Office of Museum Services. Sheep Shelter [brochure]. https://site.utah.gov

Petroglyph (pictograph) Site #4

 

Same as glyph above, except bottom is altered to uncover older layer.

"The moon was rising and the canyons were gathering deeper shadows. The river caught the moon's reflection and gave it back to the sky.  He built his fire up and listened, but there were no sounds in the night."--Louis L'Amour from The Haunted Mesa.

Petroglyph location: Central Utah

Petroglyph (pictograph) Site #3

"The night was still.  My fire flickered against the boulders, and the stars were very bright.  Somewhere a stone rattled, fell, then hit another rock much further down.  I was carrying a ground sheet and one blanket.  Near the fire was a stretch of sand, and I smoothed it before spreading my bed.  A blanket around my shoulders, I added cedar to the fire and finished my second cup of coffee.  Far away a meteor streaked across the sky, flared briefly, and vanished."--Louis L'Amour from Frontier. 

Petroglyph location: Southeast Utah

Petroglyph Site #2

"It was very still. Turning, he looked back the way he had come.  The road was empty, just a narrow, winding way among the boulders, brush, and outcroppings of sandstone.  Uneasily, he looked around.  He had always loved the desert, its vast distances, the silence, the creatures that knew how to survive, for if nothing else, the desert was a place of survival.  Everything that had lived in the desert had found some pattern for survival, some means of adapting to the heat, the cold, and the lack of water."--Louis L'Amour from The Haunted Mesa.

Petroglyph location: Southwest Utah