Wyoming Dawn

Dinwoody Tradition, Interior-Lined Figure ?1000 A.D. to 1700 A.D. Fremont County, Wyoming

This strange wide-eyed figure is located in what must have been a place of great spiritual significance.  Large boulders carved with beautiful strange creatures surround a string of lakes in a glaciated valley.  I discovered this sacred landscape or “visionscape” while eating a peanut butter sandwich and dipping my feet into a glacier-fed lake.  High on the cliffs a figure similar to this one caught my eye.

Dinwoody petroglyphs portray fantastic beings, often animals with claws, big owl eyes, and interior-lined bodies.  Sometimes secondary figures are inside of a larger figure.  The underground beings are carved under rocks, inside cracks in cliffs or hiding in caves.  The sky creatures perched high on rocks and cliffs resemble eagles, owls, dragonflies, butterflies and humming birds, often with large eyes, wings and claws.  What is the narrative stringing together this complex cosmology?

Currently, these beautiful petroglyphs are protected by ranchers who cherish the rock art on their private lands and the Arapahoe and Shoshone Tribal Nations who refuse to allow energy development on their reservation and close their sacred lands to most non member visitors.