PICTOGRAPHS OF RIDERS ON HORSEBACK

An unusual Chumash pictograph site in the Santa Monica Mountains is focused on four riders on horses and/or mules.  I recently visited the site and had an opportunity to photograph the site.  It is formally known as LAn-717 and is one of the most interesting and brightest rock art sites in the mountain range. 

An academic analysis of the site by Gregory A. Reinhardt, entitled “Pictographs with a Historic Component: LAn-717, A Los Angeles County Rock Art Site,” appears in Messages from the Past: Studies in California Rock Art, Monograph XX, Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, n.d.

The panel is done nearly entirely in red pigment.  The riders are arranged in a line - one after the other as though they represent a particular group of equestrians and a particular event.  Because of the consistency of style that is shared by each image, it obvious that all four figures were painted by the same individual.  The horses are accurately depicted, as are the riders in relationship to the horses.  The artist, then, would appear to be an eye witness - not someone simply depicting an event passed by word of mouth from one person to another.  At least three groups of ritualistic figures seem to face the equestrians from below - in awe of what they see.  The panel is focused on the riders as though their passage represents a major event in the life of the Chumash observers.  The panel, at least most of it, was certainly composed during the historic period.  The composition may celebrate the first encounter with people of western European culture and the horse or mule.  So, who do the equestrians represent?

Most likely the rock art panel depicts one of the Portola expeditions, i.e., of 1769 or 1770.  Portola’s first expedition left San Diego in early summer of 1769 to meet with the packetboat San Antonio at Monterey Bay.  The land force, which included Fray Junipero Serra, passed north of the rock art site on August 10, 1769, and sent scouts south to explore for a possible coastal route to Monterey. 

Portola missed the San Antonio, which did land at Point Conception about 125 miles west of the Malibu on its return voyage.  They inquired about the Portola expedition and were informed through gestures about how the expedition had passed through the area on horseback going north and then about their return.  The Indians acted out the scene by sitting astride water casks, which had been brought ashore, and made appropriate gestures to indicate horsemen.

Juan Rodriques Cabrillo had traveled up and down the coast by ship in 1542-43 as well as Viscaino in 1602.  Both sailed in open, undecked vessels.  There is no record to indicate that they had any horses or mules. 

The Anza expedition came through southern California in 1774.  However, Anza traveled well north of the Santa Monica Mountains. 

Another explanation is that the pictograph panel was painted during the mission period as magic against the Spanish/Mexican intruders.  If this were the case, one might expect more than just four riders and many other motifs of Spanish/Mexican life.  The four riders, as previously stated, seem to depict an event.  However, it is still possible that a group of formerly friendly Chumash Indians returned to this old place of  “power” to call upon adverse power to rid the land of the now unwanted invaders by controlling their spirits. 

Finally, one is tempted to refer to the equestrians as the “four horsemen of the Apocalypse,” a story that could have been relayed by priests in the missions.  This seems unlikely since the biblical horsemen carried a bow, a pair of balance scales, and a sword.  Only one equestrian at LAn-717 seems to be carrying anything.  We are, of course, always quick to put things in our own frame of reference.

So, my money is on the depiction of the Portola expedition.  How could the Indians know that the event would lead to the utter destruction of their culture and the death of 75-80% of their population within three to four decades.  A universe collapsed and another took its place.  How sad for us all.

                                                                        Mike Kuhn