Contemporary Indigenous Relationships to Archaeological Features: Agency, Affect, and the Social Significance of Rock Art

Abstract

One of the major challenges facing archaeologists and cultural heritage/resource managers is how to better approach and understand concepts of significance and value of archaeological features (e.g. stone tools, rock art sites, pottery, stone arrangements, shell middens) in contemporary Indigenous settings. In this article, I focus on exploring contemporary Indigenous engagement and interaction with one specific type of archaeological feature—rock art—to develop a better understanding of how significance and value are attributed to sites and motifs. Through the lens of affectual, relational, and cultural understandings of rock art in northern Australia and the American Southwest I examine the complex nature of encounters and responses (e.g. verbal and gestural) to sites and motifs to illustrate how concerns with significance go beyond the archaeological realm. Using Gell's (1992 The Technology of Enchantment and the Enchantment of Technology. In Anthropology, Art, and Aesthetics, edited by Jeremy Coote and Anthony Shelton, pp. 40–67. Clarendon Press, Oxford) ideas of agency and affect as a starting point, and then unpacking the responses that are elicited from visiting or viewing rock art, I focus on investigating the structure of the relationship between people and the contemporary social significance of archaeological features. A key outcome from this research is the realization that contemporary engagement with rock art is diverse and can be shaped by a variety of factors including ontological and epistemological understandings, emotional experiences (e.g. fear), social memory, and the health and well-being of individuals and communities.

Resumen

Uno de los principales desafíos que enfrentan los arqueólogos y los administradores de recursos culturales o del patrimonio cultural es cómo abordar y comprender mejor los conceptos de significado y valor de las características arqueológicas (p. ej.: las herramientas de piedra, los yacimientos rupestres, la alfarería, los arreglos rupestres, los conchales) en entornos indígenas contemporáneos. En este artículo hago hincapié en el análisis de la interacción y la relación indígena contemporánea con un tipo específico de característica arqueológica—el arte rupestre—para lograr comprender mejor cómo se atribuye significado y valor a los sitios y a los diseños. Desde la perspectiva de las interpretaciones afectivas, relacionales y culturales del arte rupestre en el norte de Australia y en el sudoeste estadounidense, analizo la índole compleja de los encuentros y las respuestas (p. ej.: verbales y gestuales) a los sitios y los diseños para ilustrar cómo el interés por el significado trasciende el ámbito arqueológico. Utilizando las ideas de agencia y afectividad de Gell (1992) como punto de partida, y luego desglosando las respuestas obtenidas de las visitas o la observación del arte rupestre, investigo la estructura de la relación entre las personas y el significado social contemporáneo del patrimonio arqueológico. Un resultado clave de esta investigación es la comprensión de que la relación contemporánea con el arte rupestre es variada y puede estar determinada por diferentes factores, por ejemplo, conceptos ontológicos y epistemológicos, experiencias emocionales (p. ej.: miedo), memoria social, y la salud y el bienestar de las personas y las comunidades.

Résumé

l'un des principaux défis que les archéologues et les personnes en charge de la gestion de l'héritage et des ressources culturels doivent relever est de parvenir à mieux appréhender et comprendre les concepts de signification et de valeur des œuvres archéologiques (comme les outils en pierre, les sites d'art rupestre, les poteries, les ensembles de pierres, les tas de coquillages) dans les milieux indigènes contemporains. Dans cet article, j’étudie en particulier la relation et l'interaction des Indigènes contemporains avec un type spécifique d’œuvre archéologique : l'art rupestre. Je cherche à mieux comprendre de quelle manière ils attribuent de la signification et de la valeur aux sites et aux motifs. Par le prisme de la perception affective, relationnelle et culturelle de l'art rupestre dans le nord de l'Australie et le sud-ouest américain, j'examine la nature complexe des interactions avec les sites et les motifs et des réactions (verbales ou gestuelles) pour illustrer comment les questions de signification dépassent la sphère de l'archéologie. En prenant comme point de départ les idées d'agentivité et d'affect de Gell (1992), puis en analysant les réactions qui naissent lorsque l'on se rend sur un site d'art rupestre ou que l'on contemple une œuvre, j'analyse la structure de la relation entre les personnes et la signification sociale contemporaine de l'héritage archéologique. L'une des principales conclusions de cette étude est que la relation contemporaine avec l'art rupestre est diverse et peut être influencée par de nombreux facteurs, tels que les questions ontologiques et épistémologiques, les expériences émotionnelles (comme la peur), la mémoire sociale, ainsi que la santé et le bien-être des individus et des communautés.

KEYWORDS:

• rock art
• agency
• affect
• American Southwest
• Australia
• social significance
• relatedness
• emotion

Palabras Clave:

• Arte rupestre
• agencia
• afectividad
• sudoeste estadounidense
• Australia
• significado social
• capacidad de relacionarse
• emoción

Mots-clés:

• art rupestre
• agentivité
• affect
• sud-ouest américain
• Australie
• signification sociale
• parenté
• émotion

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to the senior men and women of the southwest Gulf country, and members of the Zuni Cultural Resource Advisory Team who have shared with me their knowledge of country and rock art. Funding for this research was provided by the Australian Research Council through a Discovery grant (DP1093341), and Monash University.. Thanks also go to the School for Advanced Research (Santa Fe, New Mexico) for a Bunting Fellowship that supported the writing of this paper. Three anonymous referees are also thanked for providing insightful comments on an earlier draft.

ORCID

Liam M. Brady http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3997-3470

Notes

1 In this article, “significance” refers to how heritage places are “signified with meaning” (Byrne 2008:152); that is, accepting the idea that rock art is assigned meaning by Indigenous people through their (dynamic) relationships to sites and motifs through time, rather than meaning derived solely from an archaeological perspective (see also Schofield 2008:25). The term “value” is used “in reference to the qualities and characteristics seen in things, in particular the positive characteristics” (Mason 2008:99), although unlike Mason, I am not concerned solely with the positive aspects of value. In addition, I draw on de la Torre's (2013) description of heritage values to acknowledge that values are attributed, multiple, and mutable.

2 I acknowledge that other scholars such as Latour (2005) have focused on the agency of things, particularly through Actor Network Theory. However, I have chosen to focus on Gell here given the focus of this paper (rock art) and his emphasis on the relationship between art objects and agency.

3 Although this article is concerned with engagement and interaction with tangible archaeological features, others researchers (e.g. Kearney 2009) have looked at the way people have engaged with intangible features through contemporary emotional engagements.

4 Naming conventions and their use in Yanyuwa are complex ethnographic issues. All Yanyuwa people have “bushnames” or names derived from their country and Dreamings (e.g. the “Wungunya” in Leonard Norman Wungunya which is derived from his father's father and the Brolga [a species of crane, Grus rubicunda] Dreaming). These names are referential terms used by the owner of the name or certain select close kin such as a mother, mother's brother, or cross cousins. The preferred way of address is through the use of kinship terminology (e.g. kujaka = mother, kajaja = father). Non-Indigenous people such as academics working with the Yanyuwa are incorporated into the kinship system and it is expected they will learn to use it in their everyday interactions with people. All Yanyuwa also have English names (e.g. “Leonard Norman”) and these are used in formal, non-Yanyuwa settings such as at meetings and in academic articles; last names are rarely used in daily forms of oral address or in written forms. Given these circumstances, my use of Leonard's first name should not be construed as placing him, or any other Yanyuwa person for that matter, in a diminutive role but rather should be seen as part of a respectful system of naming conventions (John Bradley, personal communication; see also Yanyuwa and Bradley 2016).

5 See also Colwell-Chanthaphonh and Ferguson (2006) for details of similar interpretations of these symbols among the Hopi.

6 For other examples of the ways Indigenous people in Australia and the American Southwest articulate their attachment to archaeological features see, among others, Balenquah (2008), Harrison (2006a, 2006b), Kuwanwisiwma (2002), Kuwanwisiwma and Ferguson (2004), Martinez and Suina (2005).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Liam M. Brady

Liam M. Brady is a Senior Lecturer in the Monash Indigenous Centre at Monash University. Since 2001 he has been working with indigenous communities in northern Australia, Canada, and the United States on partnership-based research projects aimed at understanding how people use rock art and visual heritage as symbolic modes of communication. He is the recipient of postdoctoral fellowships from the Australian Research Council and the University of Western Australia, and in 2015 he was awarded an Ethel-Jane Westfeldt Bunting Fellowship at the School of Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico.