Chumamash Rock Art Research Paper
Chumash Rock Art
When exploring coastal California there are many sites to see, especially since the coast runs a good deal of the length of North America. This large area that tourists flock to all year was once inhabited by a Native American tribe by the name of the Chumash. While the Chumash were in contact with one another through trade, they were not a tribe in the typical sense of the word. Each town had its own system of government and their own Shamans. These Shamans that were particular to each town would venture into the wind blown caves surrounding the camps and perform secretive work for the sake of the supernatural powers that were thought to govern the lives of the Chumash. One of the pieces of work that the Shamans …show more content…
It is here that the rock art of the Chumash can be viewed in its natural state. Chumash rock art is distinctive due to the shapes and the consistency with the drawings. All Chumash rock art is found in caves far from the towns in remote caves that would not have been used for living quarters. While no method for decoding the art has ever been established, the art itself is easily identified as Chumash due to the style of the paintings. Most of the paintings are of the animals that lived around the towns and things that are seen in nature. Unlike other petroglyphs the Chumash rock art has hard lines, geometric shapes, and appears to have been painted over one another several times. They all have the same theme: geometric forms associated with mental imagery such as grids, stars, dots, and meandering lines or fantastic creatures, birds, and horned anthropomorphs. The inside of the objects are light but are traced by darker pigments around the outside. These rock art paintings of the Chumash do not tell a story and were not used for conveying a message to the public. Since the art is so contrived and jumbled together with no rhyme or reason, it is believed that the art was used during ceremonies performed in
When exploring coastal California there are many sites to see, especially since the coast runs a good deal of the length of North America. This large area that tourists flock to all year was once inhabited by a Native American tribe by the name of the Chumash. While the Chumash were in contact with one another through trade, they were not a tribe in the typical sense of the word. Each town had its own system of government and their own Shamans. These Shamans that were particular to each town would venture into the wind blown caves surrounding the camps and perform secretive work for the sake of the supernatural powers that were thought to govern the lives of the Chumash. One of the pieces of work that the Shamans …show more content…
It is here that the rock art of the Chumash can be viewed in its natural state. Chumash rock art is distinctive due to the shapes and the consistency with the drawings. All Chumash rock art is found in caves far from the towns in remote caves that would not have been used for living quarters. While no method for decoding the art has ever been established, the art itself is easily identified as Chumash due to the style of the paintings. Most of the paintings are of the animals that lived around the towns and things that are seen in nature. Unlike other petroglyphs the Chumash rock art has hard lines, geometric shapes, and appears to have been painted over one another several times. They all have the same theme: geometric forms associated with mental imagery such as grids, stars, dots, and meandering lines or fantastic creatures, birds, and horned anthropomorphs. The inside of the objects are light but are traced by darker pigments around the outside. These rock art paintings of the Chumash do not tell a story and were not used for conveying a message to the public. Since the art is so contrived and jumbled together with no rhyme or reason, it is believed that the art was used during ceremonies performed in