Saturday, December 1, 2012

Enjoy A Bit Of History When Viewing A Rock Carving Alberta Boasts

By Lenore Bolton


If one wants to see a historical record of the events around the Blackfoot people in the mists of times, one might go and see a rock carving Alberta region has at their natural reserves. These people recorded special events, hunts and tributes to their gods on the cliffs surrounding the Milk River. There were two styles that were used the first being that they painted on the stone using a mixture of red ocher, which is sometimes considered as a sacred item, animal fat and water. This method of painting is called pictoglyphs.

Etchings embedded into the stone were not written words of any language. They were pictures of people and animals such as Bison, deer and horses. These pictures are called Petroglyphs. There are etchings with people holding hunting paraphernalia and these depict hunting stories and war stories. Of course as there was no written language, interpreting petroglyphs is the only way to preserve the history of the Blackfoot people of Canada.

The cliffs were made from sandstone which was because the area was a large inland sea right in the mists of time. When there was no longer a sea, sand was left which then fossilized into sandstone. It is easier to etch and carve sandstone because it is a softer stone which is similar to limestone.

This enforced the religious beliefs of the people of the time who believed that the powerful spirits lived in the hoodoos at the time. These outcroppings are where most of the petroglyphs are concentrated carrying the meaning that these were a type of communication to their gods or a tribute to them. As time went by, there were advances in technology such as the shields.

They believed that all things were imbued by living spirits and that the Hoodoos, in and around the Milk River were special places for prayer and introspection. They believed that powerful spirits lived within the cliffs. The theory is that the geometric shapes are a form of communication or a tribute to the spirits that lived in those cliffs.

There are stylized stone etchings that show people holding shields in front of them and others where people were sitting on horses. Horses were used at a later stage in the history of these people for hunting and traveling. Other etchings include pictures of Bison, bears, snakes, deer and even insect life and these were done in various sizes, possibly as a depiction of signs or other spiritual rituals around their daily life.

As it was unlikely that the language had a written aspect to it, these are the only way that one could have a glimpse of the past. These petroglyphs are thought to have been etched as far back as three thousand years in the past, but they are difficult to date. There are more recent petroglyphs which depict the use of guns, metal, horses and other traded things which could be dated to about 1790 AD when the frontier was being westernized.

Rock carving Alberta Canada hints at a heritage of the Blackfoot nation that spans for thousands of years. The sites that have these marvelous petroglyphs are situated in caves, inside shelters or even on exposed rock faces that are impossible to access. Stone erratic's which are boulders of stone that was deposited from the glaciers on the prairies have a distinctive rib pattern petroglyph. These are called Buffalo Rib stones.




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