EVENT EXPLORES NATIVE ROCK ART VIRTUALLY
Museum wants to raise funds, encourage indigenous youth to pursue archaeology
With the hopes of inspiring indigenous youth to pursue careers in archaeology, the Imperial Valley Desert Museum and Kumeyaay Education Council are hosting a virtual event on the region’s La Rumorosa rock art Saturday.
Led by author Don Liponi and Museum Director David Breeckner, the March 20 event will be an online gallery viewing of prehistoric cave paintings created by the Kumeyaay and their descendants over the past 10,000 years.
Liponi is one of the researchers behind “La Rumorosa Rock Art Along the Border,” a series of books showing images, meanings and the history behind rock art. The third volume of the series is currently in the works, and some of the art materials planned for it will be included during Saturday’s presentation.
The images can be found throughout Southern California, northern Baja California and southwest Arizona, and Liponi said the best preserved paintings are in caves within a dry climate.
San Diego and Imperial counties alone are home to at least 165 historical rock art sites from Kumeyaay and Luiseño ancestors, some of which date back 10,000 years, Liponi said. Some of the images can be found in the Blair Valley and Indian Hill areas of AnzaBorrego State Park.
Many of the images were drawn during rites of passage ceremonies as people approached adulthood, while others are thought to have been drawn by shamen or spiritual leaders as they sought answers from the spiritual world to solve the problems their communities were facing.
“The shaman would go off to a vision quest site, someplace solitary — either a cave or a mountain. They would concentrate very hard and they would go into a trance to enter the spiritual world,” Liponi said. “To memorialize that experience (and) to show respect for that experience, after the trance, which usually went all night or several nights, they would paint the experience.”
The talk starts at 6 p.m. and can be joined online at https://zoom.us/ j/94643386543.
Although the hour-long event is free, any donations collected will be used to support the Kumeyaay Internship Program for high school students. The 10-week, paid internship program is an educational tool to teach Kumeyaay students how to conduct archaeological research.
The goal of the program, Liponi said, is to diversify not only who works in the field of archaeology, but also to help indigenous students to have the scientific skills needed to pursue degrees in the subject and study the history of their tribes. A 2019 report from CareerExplorer found that 73 percent of archaeologists in the United States identify as White.
“What has happened in the past is archaeology or archaeologists come in and make their evaluation of (someone else’s) culture,” Liponi said. “Troublemakers like myself are saying how that culture writes and interprets themselves is equally as valid.”
Students will be paid a $1,000 stipend and receive college credit for participating in the hands-on program, which will most likely begin in the fall term, or whenever it’s safe to gather again for in-person events.
For more information on the internship program, to make a donation or to volunteer to help teach during the program, contact museum Director Dr. David Breeckner at (760) 358-7016 or info@ivdesertmuseum.org. More information about indigenous rock art in the region can be found at www.larumorosarockart.com.