I'm clinging to a granite cliff, which bellies out toward a wild, unpredictable and deep blue inland sea.
I have a very narrow foothold on a ledge that slopes sharply toward the ice-cold water, and it is as slippery as a freshly waxed dance floor.
There is no guardrail. The deep lugs of my hiking boots are caked with earth and pine needles and, as sturdy as they are on the trail offer no grip at all on this surface. Above my head writhe fantastic creatures from out of shamans' dreams. The largest has a spiny back, long horns of gleaming copper, and a long tail that lashes the waves and overturns canoes.
It wasn't as though I hadn't been warned.
But the temptation to view ancient pictographs was not to be resisted. Not by a painter.
The pictographs are delicate, easily missed if you cast your gaze much higher than a man can reach.
Painted in red ochre and sturgeon oil for thousands of years, up until just prior to living memory, they were hidden from the world - their exact location known only to a few Natives and fisherman, and mentioned in Longfellow's "Song of Hiawatha" - until 1958. Winter ice storms and powerful waves have stolen many over the centuries, but some, mostly from the 17th and 18th century, are still visible to us as we pick our way cautiously along the shelf of rock in Agawa Bay, Lake Superior Provincial Park, Ontario.
The most famous painting here is a depiction of the animal manitou, Mishipeshu, the Great Lynx, or Underwater Panther. Although he is always depicted as feline, he possesses reptilian characteristics, such as a spiny, stegosaurus-like back. I think he is very like a dragon. He has horns of copper because he is the guardian of the metal, found in the Lake Superior area. He can be evil, stirring up sudden, violent storms, waves and whirlpools with his tail, cracking ice and upsetting canoes. Many lives have been lost to Mishipeshu. It is best to make an offering of tobacco to him before setting out on a canoe trip of any significant length. The beautiful and fearsome painting of Mishipeshu at Agawa Rock is thought to have been painted by Shingwaukonce, the Ojibwa chief who told his stories to ethnologist Henry Schoolcraft in the early 19th century. It was painted to commemorate a war party after Shingwaukonce fasted and dreamed for four days at the rock.
"Lo! how all things fade and perish!
From the memory of the old men
Pass away the great traditions,
The achievements of the warriors,
The adventures of the hunters,
All the wisdom of the Medas,
All the craft of the Wabenos,
All the marvellous dreams and visions
Of the Jossakeeds, the Prophets!"
-from "Song of Hiawatha" Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1855
11 comments:
WOW! Great colors and painting!!! Super. Interesting story!
If you've never been there - GO! It's one of the most beautiful parks I've ever been in. Great trails, too. Very rugged.
I love those Shaman Dream creatures! I've never been there.
I'd love to go (I keep going abck and looking at the pictures!)
The park is located about two hours north of Sault Ste Marie. If you go, and you aren't a backcountry camper, stay at Agawa Bay Campground and get a site right next to the Lake. You'll have unbelievable sunsets, and avoid the noise from nearby Highway 17. It's a very necessary lifeline for the tiny towns on the North Shore of Superior, but quiet it ain't.
If Superior is very calm, you can even take a kayak or canoe and see the pictographs from the water. Put in at Sinclair Cove and it is about a 20 minute paddle out to the glyphs. However, there is absolutely not a soul anywhere around to help you if you get into trouble, so take care! I didn't go because I would want to go in a small group - not alone. I'm brave, but not that brave.
As we were leaving the colors were just turning. I imagine they are as if on fire by now. I hated to leave.
Wow! And I love your new paintings!
My son just directed my attention to this new IMAX film, playing now at the Detroit Science Center:
Mysteries of the Great Lakes
I LOVE your art. But this post was the entry point. I read this post about a place I make a yearly pilgrimage to (the park, not agawa rock in particular) and your write up was stunning. And you're an artist. I was intrigued, so I looked at your art, AMAZING. Myths and magic intrigue me, we are losing so much of our collective memory, so fast; your art makes it all live and breath. Whew, just wanted to say all that.
Thank you so much, Kaslkaos! I thought the park and pictographs were astonishingly beautiful and inspiring.
Thank you for your kind words about my artwork as well. It's important, isn't it, to leave our mark somewhere in the world. We all must tell a story before we leave and we do it in different ways.
Thanks again for looking!
Vine Deloria mentions stegosaur glyphs in "Red Earth, White Lies". Amerind oral traditions describe Mishipishu as having red fur, a cat-like face, a sawblade back, and a "great spiked tail" which he used as a weapon, i.e. a stegosaur. The horns which you see on the glyph at Agawa Rock were added by some Indian touch-up artist at a much later date, the guy simply figured a creature that large needed them.
Since we have many extant examples of Mishipeshu in various forms, on woven bags as well as drums, almost all of them with horns, my opinion is that this creature was most likely painted with the horns in this depiction. There are some in the Detroit Institute of Arts, clearly recognizable, in which the Cat's tail winds around and around like a maze, impossibly long. The Underwater Panther legend stretches from the Mississippi up through Canada, so it wouldn't surprise me if it was described in a variety of ways to a researcher who may or may not have mastered the different Algonquin dialects. There could also have been some variety according to locale. And every artist adds his or her own details and interpretations. Indians were and are no more monolithic in their artistic output than any other culture. Everyone has their own way of painting their dreams. Thanks for your input!
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