Spiritual Places: Canadian Shield Rock Art Within Its Sacred Landscape

Abstract

Canadian Shield rock art forms an integral part of Algonquian-speaking peoples’ sacred landscape. Rock art sites are believed to be placed at the junction of the layers of the universe. The properties of the rock outcrop on which rock art is found, the visual and acoustic effects present at the sites, the cardinal orientation of the sites, and the sites’ location near landscape features such as falls, all had spiritual connotations, which enhanced the sacredness of the place and made it propitious for conducting ceremonies. Therefore, physical properties of rock art sites and their placement can be said to reflect spiritual and cosmological beliefs of Algonquian-speaking peoples.

The Canadian Shield is a vast geological territory covering a significant part of North America. It stretches east to the west from Labrador to Saskatchewan, and north to south from Nunavut and Northwest Territories to the northern portions of the states of New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Dominated by the boreal forest, it is a land of conifers and an elaborate maze of lakes and rivers. The thin soil cover is interrupted by bare rocky outcrops, most often of granitic and gneissic types, as well as muskegs. For thousands of years, this land has been mainly inhabited by Algonquian-speaking peoples who until the 20th century lived as small bands of hunter-fisher-gatherers pursuing a nomadic way of life. The natural environment was intrinsically part of their daily life, and it is not surprising that it has been incorporated into their cosmological system, culture not being understandable without constant reference to nature.

One expression of Algonquian spiritual beliefs is manifested in the hundreds of rock art sites found especially on rocky cliffs jutting out from lakeshores and riverbanks. Closely combining the tangible with the intangible, these places are, as it was centuries ago, an integral part of the sacred landscape of Algonquian peoples such as the Anishinabe (Ojibwa), Cree, or Innu (Arsenault 2004a). What is depicted in the Algonquian rock art? What are the significant links between the rock art sites and the natural landscape that allowed them to be considered sacred in the past and present for Algonquians groups? From an archaeological perspective, what can we learn from these tangible and intangible relationships in terms of the ancestral Algonquian cosmology?

According to Algonquian oral traditions, rock art belongs to ancestral sites intrinsically related to the spiritual sphere of those First Nations. Unfortunately there are some regions where traditional sacred knowledge associated with rock art sites has been forgotten, especially with regard to the interpretation of their graphic content. Also forgotten are the specific significance attributed to their locations and the nature of ritual practices conducted there in the ancient times. From an archaeological point of view, finding the meaning of a rock art site always offers a challenge. For some scholars, the interpretation of the physical setting, motifs depicted, their meaning, and even correct identifications of the images are impossible to achieve without the use of eyewitness accounts, either because there are no written records related to a specific site available or because it is assumed that most of the rock art sites have been produced by individuals during a secluded session (such as a vision quest), and no one but the author knows what was depicted. In other words, many Shield rock art sites have remained difficult to explain because of the apparent idiosyncrasy of their meaning and the undecipherable cultural aspect of their “natural setting” when no insights can be obtained directly from Algonquian oral traditions.

This pessimistic view can be successfully challenged if a series of relevant data that may give us convincing significant clues about what is represented on a rock art site is considered relative to why such a location has become sacred. Furthermore, it is possible to determine to a degree the kind of ritual actions that have been performed at such a specific place. To do this, it is important to contextualize the materials and clues available, which include archaeological data gathered in situ, and ethnographic and ethnohistoric sources collected over 400 years in Canada following the arrival of European settlers. This kind of contextual procedure has been discussed by Chippindale and Taçon (1998) in terms of formal and informed approaches as a combination of archaeological and written records. In spite of a lack of dated sites, which would be useful for yielding important clues about their historical status and their specific cultural affiliation, we argue here that the contextual procedure can allow us to convincingly reconstruct the ancestral spiritual contexts of sites in the Algonquian sacred landscape.

Based on examples from Québec and Ontario, we clarify the contextual approach for interpreting the sacred cosmology of the ancient Algonquians where rock art is considered a key element within the reconstruction of this ancestral sacred landscape. The sacred dimension of these rock art sites and their significance in the sacred landscape can be understood better and construed if the landscape characteristics present at, around, or near the sites are closely considered. By examining the relationships between the graphics and the physical attributes of the rock art sites, including the properties of the rocky outcrop and the presence of geological formations or any other natural features close to it, as well as the visual and acoustic effects present at the sites, the cardinal orientation of the decorated panels, and the stories told about them, we argue that their tangible and intangible contexts may together have the potential to reflect spiritual and cosmological ideas of the Algonquian peoples past and present. In so doing, we demonstrate that many Shield rock art sites have been sacred places and elements of a larger sacred landscape for generations of Algonquian-speaking groups.