loring, j. malcolm and louise.qxd

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J. Malcolm and Louise Loring, 1990

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Page 1: Loring, J. Malcolm and Louise.qxd

J. Malcolm and Louise Loring, 1990

Page 2: Loring, J. Malcolm and Louise.qxd

*Region 2 of the U.S. Forest Service con-sists of Colorado, eastern Wyoming, SouthDakota, and Nebraska.

More than 40 years ago, J.Malcolm Loring was a foresterbased in Denver with the U. S.Forest Service, Region 2.*While on a routine trail inspec-tion in Wyoming, a colleagueshowed Loring a petroglyph

site, the first he had ever seen.“The petroglyphs, carved in

red sandstone, depicted humanfigures in costume with facemasks. Soon, on my own,”Loring recalls, “I encounteredothers and began to photographthem.”

Thus Loring and his wifeLouise began what has becomea four-decade commitment tolocating, photographing andrecording petroglyphs and pic-tographs.

“They are part of the cultur-al resources left in our steward-ship,” says Loring. “Time, natu-ral forces, and man alreadyhave changed, damaged andobliterated many. We felt anobligation to preserve all thatwe could.”

Loring defines the terms pet-

roglyphs, pictographs and petro-graphs. Petrographs are peckedor incised. Pictographs arepainted with color pigments,and a petrograph includes bothpictographs and petroglyphs.

Exact dates of these ancientart forms are unknown as arethe meanings of the drawings.“It is generally accepted,” saysLoring, “that the carving ismuch older than the paintings.Carving, of course, lasts longer.Petroglyphs might be severalthousand years old and thepaintings several hundred ofyears.”

In 1946 Loring was trans-ferred to Okanogan,Washington, part of the ForestService’s Region 6. Eight yearslater the Lorings moved to John

COUPLE’S

FOUR-DECADE

PURSUIT OF

NATIVE AMERICAN

ART PRESERVES

TIMELESS

TREASURES

Authors and petroglyph experts J.Malcolm Loring and LouiseLoring recently gave theSkamania County HistoricalSociety 90 petroglyph rubbingsand some 29 petroglyph replicas.These will go on exhibit in theColumbia Gorge InterpretiveCenter when it opens in 1990. In1971 the Oregon HistoricalSociety presented the couple withits Annual Heritage Award recog-nizing them as Conservors ofAncient Oregon Life.

Petroglyph; Rayed Concentric Circle

J. Malcolm Loring and Louise Loring on a petroglyph field excurstion ni 1970.

EX P L O R A T I O N S

COLUMBIA GORGE INTERPRETIVE CENTER MUSEUM

A PUBLICATION OF THE GORGE CENTER ASSOCIATES

Page 3: Loring, J. Malcolm and Louise.qxd

Day, Oregon. There, in 1956,the couple joined the OregonArchaeological Society.

Another transfer took themto Portland in 1960 where theyserved on an OAS committeewhose task was to surveyOregon petroglyphs and pic-tographs.

“In time,” says Mrs. Loring,“the committee dwindled tojust us two. We continue theproject on our own, using vaca-tions and weekends to pursuethis engrossing challenge.”

Loring retired from theForest Service in 1963. “Thisgave us time,” says Loring, “toexperiment with photographicand rubbing techniques and toperfect our recording methods.”

“It also gave us time,” addsMrs. Loring, “to track downknown pictographs and petro-glyphs and to follow up cluesabout unrecorded ones.”

From 1964 through 1967they traveled more than 43,000

miles — searching, photograph-ing, and recording sites. Thecouple spent a good deal oftime in isolated areas, some-times seeing no one for severaldays.

“Often,” Loring recounts,“we left our camper early in themorning and returned wellafter dark from sites that weremany miles from passableroads.”

rayed-arcs above their heads,great numbers of concentricrayed-circles suggesting thesun, owls, eagles (or condors),big horn sheep, deer, bear track,and many objects we termabstract, although they certain-lyhad meaning for their cre-ators.

“When man and his technol-ogy discovered how to harvestthe Columbia’s vast powers,”Grant continues, “the most tan-gible records of prehistoricman’s long occupation of theriver gorges began to disappearunder rising water.

“Dam after dam arose. Mostdestructive to rock art were TheDalles, John Day, Priest Rapids,Wanapum and Rock Island be-cause they coincide with rock-art concentrations.”

Goal of the Loring’s originalproject was to catalog sites andrecord information on pic-tographs and petroglyphs locat-ed throughout Oregon and onboth sides of the Columbia andSnake rivers along the commonboundaries in Washington andIdaho.

“A pictograph or petroglyphsite,” says Loring, “may be oneisolated rock face or panel, or itmay include many faces inclose associations with oneanother. Usually only a few feetseparate one from another.Along the Columbia and innorthern Oegon, sites are gener-ally small areas with thedesigns relatively close to oneanother.

“In southern Oregon, howev-er,” he continues, “we have fol-lowed a continuous rim for sev-eral miles and recorded the rimas one site.”

The Lorings’s visual recordscombine photography, rubbingsor tracings, and sketches.

Fining the best way to pho-tograph the design was a trial-

Fellow rock art expertCampbell Grant wrote the for-ward to the Lorings’s 1982 vol-ume, Pictographs andPetroglyphs of the OregonCountry, Part 1, The ColumbiaRiver and Northern Oregon.

He writes: “By far the richesttrove of prehistoric designs onthe Columbia River’s basalticcliffs from Wenatchee toBonneville Dam. Especiallyabundant areas are those wherethe river narrowed to form fallsand rapids.

“Examples of these sites arethe Long Narrows (or Dalles)and Celilo Falls. Both attractedlarge numbers of peoplebecause of bountiful salmon-netting opportunities. The areawas a trading crossroads forprehistoric man, as well.Penutian-speaking tribes whodominated the country createdsome of the most fascinatingpictures.”

Grant describes the draw-ings: “Large human heads andmasks, stick men fantastic

Petroglyph replica; Memsloon Bird

Petroglyph replica; Flying Hare

Petroglyph replica; Two Chiefs

Page 4: Loring, J. Malcolm and Louise.qxd

and-error procedure. EventuallyLoring found that color slidesproduced better results thanblack-and-white film.

“As a method of supplement-ing the photographs,” Mrs.Loring explains, “we madeexact replicas of many figuresor series of figures by tracingpictographs and rubbing petro-glyphs.”

In a 1970 interview in theOregon Journal, Loring predict-ed that their pursuit of petro-glyphs and pictographs wouldevolve into “a record for thestate. Someday,” he mused,“somebody will want it.

That elusive “someday” will

become reality when the Loringcollection becomes part of theColumbia Gorge InterpretiveCenter displays.

If you interesting in furtherreading, the Lorings suggest:nCressman, Luther S. 1937.

Petroglyphs of Oregon.nGebhard, David, 1969, Rock

Art of Dinwoody, Wyoming.nGrant, Campbell, 1937. Rock

Art of the America Indian.nHeizer, Robert F. and

Baumhof, Martin, 1967,Prehistoric Rock Art ofNevada and EasternCalifornia.

n Loring, J. Malcolm and

Loring, Louise, 1982.Pictographs and Petroglyphsof the Oregon County, Part. 1,The Columbia River andNorthern Oregon.

n Loring, J. Malcolm andLoring, Louise, 1983.Pictographs and Petroglyphsof the Oregon Country, Part 2.Southern Oregon.

nNesbitt, Paul Edward, 1968.Petroglyphs of the LowerSnake River.

n Seaman, Norman G. 1946 &1967. Indian Relics of thePacific Northwest.

n Strong, Emory. 1959. StoneAge on the Columbia River.

Page 5: Loring, J. Malcolm and Louise.qxd

When we examine the rock forma-tions of the Columbia River Gorgewe can see the story left by threeof the most catastrophic and cata-clysmic series of events ever tooccur on the North American con-tinent.

The first long series of eventsbegan 30 million years ago whenWestern Cascade volcanoes erupt-ed and for 12 million years builtup a three-mile-thick (5 kilome-ters) pile of volcanic ash, lava, andmud flows.

In the lower cliffs of TableMountain and Greenleaf Peaknorth of the dam, you can see1,000 feet (305 meters) of mud-flows often including petrifiedwood. Similar evidence is visiblein road cuts along eastbound I-84,south of the dam.

Before the Gorge we knowtoday took shape, there was anoth-er Columbia River valley locatedfar to the south. Through this val-ley basalt flows from eastern

Oregon traveled to the Pacific. Inthe present Gorge cliffs we cancount 16 of the 270 flows.

When this second-from-the-lastColumbia Valley was filled by theCrown Point basaltic lave flowstreaming through the Cascadesnear Bull Run, the Columbia wasshifted to the north. There it cut anew next-to-the-last Bridal VeilCanyon.

The Bridal Veil deep canyon,which lay ten miles south of thepresent Gorge, was choked with1,000 feet (305 meters) of riversands and gravel washed downfrom Canada.

It too was topped off by lavaflows which, during the finalseven million years, built up theCascade Plateau’s surface andmoved the Columbia River to itspresent course. These thin lavaflows now make up the upper1,000 feet (305 meters) of the cliffsouth of the Gorge.

For much of the last two mil-lion years, abundant meltwaterfrom Canadian ice sheets fed theColumbia River, and river erosionkept pace with the 4,000-feet(1,220 meters) uparching of thecentral Cascade Range. It carved adeep canyon with a V-shapedcross-section.

During the final 700,000 years,the 14 major High Cascade volca-noes — among them, Mount Hood,Mount Adams, and Mount St.Helens. — and many hundreds of

basaltic cinder cones completedconstruction of the Range.

The second series of major cat-astrophies began 15,000 years ago,near the end of the Ice Age, whenan ice lobe from Canada movedacross Lake Pend Oreille and upIdaho’s Clark Fork Valley. It formedan ice dam 2,500 feet (762.5meters) high, resulting in a lake inMontana containing one-fifth theamount of water in Lake Michigan.

As the lake rose, and thenundermined or overtopped andwashed away the dam, 500 cubicmiles of water scoured across east-ern Washington, carving out GrandCoulee and hundreds of miles ofother now high and dry coulee val-leys.

During the next 3,000 years,new ice dams reformed and brokebetween 40 and 100 times. Eachtime the lake refilled, and calami-tous floods recurred.

At The Dalles, flood waterreached as high as 1,000 feet (305meters); atop Crown Point, 750 feet(229 meters); and at Portland, 400feet (122 meters).

In the Gorge, these floods cutback valley walls and changed theV-shaped cross-section to the pres-ent U-shaped. Waterfalls now cas-cade down these new cliffs.

The third in the series of cata-strophies was probably caused byan earthquake, a mere 750 yearsago, which resulted in theCascades.

Columbia River

gorge geologic

history

provides many

possibilities for

exploration

By John Eliot AllenProfessor Emeritus of GeologyPortland State University

Page 6: Loring, J. Malcolm and Louise.qxd

by Marilee Miller

Louise Loring’s house in Co-

quille abounds in the tantalizing

traces of a “vanished America.”

Rubbings of Indian rock-draw-

ings look down from the walls. A

wooden replica of a petroglyph,

carved by her late husband, pre-

sides over the kitchen.

On the coffee table, one sees

a two volume set of books, Pic-

tographs and Petroglyphs of the

Oregon Country, by Malcolm and

Louise Loring.

During Malcolm Loring’s work

for the forest service years ago,

a colleague showed him a petro-

glyph site in Wyoming. Long

ago, in the red sandstone, an

unknown Native American had

drawn human figures in cos-

tume, with face masks. The

sighting of this petroglyph trig-

gered, for the Lorings, a four-

decade commitment to discov-

ering new sites, photographing

them and documenting the

finds.

“The only written communica-

tion of the Indians was rock-art,”

says Louise Loring. “So much of

the culture has been lost

through erosion or man’s deci-

sion to build roads or dams. We

felt an obligation to preserve a

part of our past.”

There are three types of rock-

art: petroglyphs, pecked out

incisions hewn into rock; pic-

tographs, which are painted fig-

ures; and petrographs, combi-

nations of painting and pecking.

During his working career,

Malcolm Loring photographed

rock-art as a hobby. After retire-

ment, he invited his wife to

accompany him in an earnest

study.

“I’d stayed home for years,

taking care of our three kids,

while Mal went here and every-

where for the forest service,”

comments Louise. “So going

was fun. We wore out two pickup

campers, and traveled 43,000

miles between 1964 and 1967.

We’d be gone a week at a time

and never see another human

being. A lot of places, we would

have to hike for miles to get to

the sites.”

Mal photographed the sites,

making notes of location and

content. Louise’s simple sketch-

es would remind them of the

photo’s content. They carefully

traced pictographs through a

plastic sheet. They made rub-

bings of the petroglyphs, one of

them holding up a canvas to a

rock, the other rubbing it with an

oil-paint-impregnated roller, cre-

ating a work of art, a reverse

image of the texture of the rocks

as well as the pecked designs.

The Lorings had their little

adventures. “One time a man

took us up Lake Owyhee by

boat,” says Louise. “We hit a

rock, and after that the motor

didn’t run well. We didn’t sink or

get wet but it got dark and there

we were on the lake. We were

pretty scared. But the man knew

where to take us in the dark. We

stayed at an isolated cabin all

night.”

Louise Loring always carried

a stick in case of rattlesnakes.

“In one place, rattlesnakes had

infested the cracks in a picto-

graph wall. I stood back and

watched for snakes while Mal

climbed a ladder to copy the

designs. But we had no trouble.

After Mal spent years study-

all his slides to make detailed

drawing of the sites, UCLA pub-

lished a two-volume set of books

in 1982-1983. Pictographs and

Petroglyphs of the Oregon

Country, documented 50 sites in

Washington along the Columbia

River, and 152 sites in Oregon,

many of which are now under

water from dam construction, or

destroyed by road builders.

The Lorings donated to the

Columbia Gorge Interpretive

Center 90 rubbings of petro-

glyphs and 29 petroglyph repli-

cas pecked out with a cold chis-

el in basalt stone by Mal.

In 1971, the Lorings earned

the annual Heritage Award from

the Oregon Historical Society.

Mal’s heart gave out this year.

And their book is being sold out.

Louise has received word that

UCLA will issue a reprint.

“We never regretted all the

hard work,” Louise says. “We felt

like we were preserving some-

thing for the future that would

overwise be lost forever.”(Following is note that Louise had

hand-written on the news story: “A

monthly senior citizen newspaper in

Bandon. Marilee Miller goes to our

church. Mal carved Emory Strong’s

Pedis Owl in reverse.)

Prime Time — February 1992 — Page 15

Louise LoringCoquille couple preserve Indian rock drawings

The texture of a lost art.

Page 7: Loring, J. Malcolm and Louise.qxd

Louise Loring preserved stone carvings and drawings of the West.

By Linda Meirjurgen

Coast Life Editor

Art or language, that is the ques-tion.

In the hot, high, arid regions ofthe West, 88-year-old Louise Loringspent weeks at a time rumbling on,and off, road in a camper and climb-ing in stout hiking boots, all thewhile prepared to bash a rattlesnakeon the head should one dare tostrike out from the rocks.

These rocks had images onthem left by the first residents of theWest who lived 7,000 to 9,000 yearsago.

“I really don’t know after allthese years whether they are art orwhether they just had something tosay to anyone who might pass by,”she says.

Today, Louise lives surroundedby the symbols she and her late hus-band, Malcolm, collected duringmore than 40 years of wonderings.Many of the originals are buriedunder roads, housing develop-ments, and especially under dams.

But the reproductions live on intwo volumes of extensive field notespublished by the University ofCalifornia at Los Angeles, in rub-bings scattered on campusesthroughout the the West, and at thenew Columbia River Gorge Interpre-tive Center which opened thisspring.

One of these rubbings —Tsagagalal — is now used as thecenter’s logo. It is the face of ahuman in a style Northwesternersmight call Chinook — but it is atleast 7,000 years old.

Louise has a hand carvedTsagagalal image in wood done byher husband on the wall of herhome in North Bend.

The Lorings knew the imagesshould not simply be carried off thebluffs and cliffs and into museums,so the couple developed techniquesfor nondestructive rubbings andscale drawings and photographs ofpetrographs — painted images onrock.

Her husband also created copiesof some petroglyphs by chiselingimages in similar rock — basalt forinstance — with a cold chisel.Several of these artworks are on dis-play at the new interpretive centerand information from their fieldwork is available through the EmoryStrong Library there. Ermory Strong

Gorge and eastern Oregon lava wereharder to carve and perhaps tookweeks to finish, Loring theorizes,and they last longer than sandstoneelsewhere in Oregon.

Sometimes stone tools arefound at the sites; in the youngerpetroglyphs there are boats and hatssimilar to those in the Far East.Louise thinks prehistoric peopleprobably came both over the landbridge that scientists believe existedbetween Russia and Alaska, andfrom South America through theSouthwest.

“Many of the best petroglyphsare on the east side of canyons fac-ing the setting sun — some of themrun for a mile or so along the cliffsand rocks,” Louise remembers.

“We didn’t ever consider thesites art, we just thought they wereall about something they wanted tosay so others could ‘read’ it.”

their vital “hobby,” they began toreceive more information about thelocation of sites, Louise says.

Unlike some Northwest hobby-ists, the Lorings were “not in thebusiness of destroying sites andhauling them away,” Louiseexplains. “We were really angrywhen the modern dams on theColumbia were built, too. No onetook the time or made the effort tosave the petroglyphs flooded by TheDalles or John Day dams, forinstance.”

When the couple first started,“we were using crayons or charcoal,the way people take rubbings ofgravestones,” Louis explains, butthey soon discovered a methodusing old, but strong bed sheets andoil paints. They would squeeze thetubed oil paints into a professionalpainter’s paint tray, then use a hardroller to pick up the color and roll itonto the sheet which was taped overthe petroglyph — the image on therock would appear as white on thesheet. Using a light coating of paintand cotton sheets kept any paintfrom getting on the prehistoric cre-ations. Sometimes it took a longtime to brush all of the moss andlichen off the stones first to preparethe prehistoric image.

To make the petroglyphs, pre-historic people used rock on rock— the tough basalts of the Columbia

wrote a classic text on ColumbiaRiver rock symbols, but the Loringsranged far and wide.

“It is really an interesting link toour historic past,” Louise says.“Most of the works in the differentregions have things in commonThere are animal figures, humanfigures and what appear to be waysto count.

“Sometimes the rock tells astory — of a hunt or bear tracks —or seem to give directions,” Louisesays.

Now a petite woman with curlygray hair and a warm smile, in 1930the bob-haired, proper youngwoman married her handsomeMalcolm after they graduated fromcollege in Maine; he went to YaleSchool of Forestry and they headed“out to Colorado” to the Rockies.

“When we arrived by train, theforest service fellow who had beensent to pick up Malcolm looked verysurprised. It seems they didn’t knowhe had a wife. There was no homefor the ranger, so part of the head-quarters space was converted andwe lived without electricity or run-ning water,” Louise recalls.

During World War II, Malcolmwas called to Washington, D.C., tohelp in the war mobilization effort;Louise and their three childrenremained in Colorado — gasrationing prevented a drive acrossthe country, she says.

A son, John, retired from acareer in the military, and wasrecently commander of theColorado Veterans of Foreign Wars.Daughter Priscilla and her husbandlive in Tacoma, and daughter JanetColeman and her husband ownNAPA Auto Parts in Coquille. Louisehas 10 grandchildren, 17 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.

After the war, Malcolm returnedto his career in the forest service.During one trip, a fellow showedhim some petroglyphs and a hobbywas born.

When the couple retired in the1960s, they began a 40-year journeyto some of the most rugged, primi-tive country in the West.

“We would stock up the camperand carry a huge block of ice —when it ran out, we had to turnaround and come back. Otherwise,we were gone from civilization,”Louise laughs.

Once folks found out about

Page 6 — MILESTONES, Coos Bay, Ore., July 1995

Explorer extractsstory from stone