20 | WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18, 2012 | GULF ISLANDS DRIFTWOOD

PEOPLE AND COMMUNITY

FIRST NATIONS

Rock paintings reveal song and visual dream messages

Salt Spring historian Chris Arnett shares results of research

BY TANYA LESTER DRIFTWOOD CONTRIBUTOR

The Nlaka'pamux rock art displayed in the mountainous “college” area of the Stein River Valley for centuries was discussed by Chris Arnett at the Salt Spring Historical Society’s meeting last Wednesday.

Arnett, a Salt Spring author who is doing doctoral research in the University of British Columbia’s Department of Anthropology, spoke about one elder referring to the mountains surrounding Lytton, B.C. as being the Naka’pamux “college”, where their community members trained to be shamans: the First Nations doctors and spiritual leaders.

Using a slide show of photographs to illustrate, Arnett pointed out that the rock art tells the same stories as does the painting on garments and people’s faces in traditional First Nations cultures. They are the result of dreams that are spiritual messages sent to the dreamer in song and visual images.

Many of the Stein River Valley paintings were recorded by Arnett in a book to which he contributed along with Richard Daly and Annie Zetko York. Entitled They Write Their Dreams on the Rock Forever: Rock Writings of the Stein River Valley of British Columbia, the book contains a series of interviews between Dalv and York, an educator and elder, who knew how to interpret the paintings. In the book, available from the Salt Spring Island Library, there is one rock painting illustration that features a hunter’s figure with a cup. York said this represented a man who was spiritually directed to go up into the mountains and pray. There he experienced his power which he would drink from the cub

An image that York interpreted as a helicopter was surprising, according to Arnett, until it was understood that the rock art can contain images based on prophesy. Hundreds of years before helicopters were created, First Nations people were telling about the eventual existence of this machine.

When York was asked by Daly to explain what the image of a cross meant, she said it was used by the First Nations people as a sign that whatever was buried under it was protected from evil. She said the cross was always used to indicate where something dead was before Christianity used it to represent Jesus’ crucifixion.

Another rock painting in the book, with many illustrations of animals, depicts how the dreamer was shown where the animals were so thev could be hunted to stave off his peoples’ starvation.

The rock paintings, meant to communicate messages through pictures and not art for its aesthetic beauty, is done in red ochre. Arnett said academics are interested in discovering what else was mixed with the ochre to ensure the longevity of the art. In recent years, a Kamloops student mixed a salmon eggs solution into the ochre, painted with it and found the resulting rock art remained intact for a lengthier period than the ochre alone would have, he said.

Arnett explained that a new process, called “DStretch,” which works to enhance digital camera images, has greatly increased the photographic clarity of rock paintings that have eroded over the centuries.

The First Nations anthropological exploration done by Arnett and his colleagues is a federated interpretation of the First Nations’ spiritual beliefs and the Western physical realm-based ideas, he concluded. Both are considered equally valid.

At the meeting, SSHS president Bob McWhirter announced that the British Columbia Historical Society’s annual provincial meeting will be held in Campbell River this year. He also mentioned that the Gulf Islands Driftwood is now digitized from the 1960s to 1980 on the society’s archives website. (http://saltspringarchives.com/driftwood/index.html)

McWhirter said the SSHS probably has its larg- est membership to date, numbering at 81. He said the next SSHS meeting will feature members of Salt Spring's Hedger family, who have long been residents on the island. It will be held at Central Hall on Wednesday, Feb. 8 at 2 p.m.