Reading The Trees

 

? Pine Piedra Stock Driveway

? Beaver Meadows and Moonlick Park

(San Juan National Forest)

 

On the San Juan National Forest, high densities of aspen art can be found at Moon Lick Park, Road 620, off the Beaver Meadows Road, and on the Pine Piedra Stock Driveway, also known as the Pine Piedra Trail #524. As the trail begins to climb at the ecotone boundary between aspen and fir trees, the carving becomes profuse. Names on the trees include Trujillo, Montoya, Bates, Isgar, Aragon, Archuleta, Gonzalez, Sanchez, Jacquez and Valdez. Herders bringing sheep from one grazing area to another and back again as the seasons changed moved north from Ignacio along Spring Creek on the edge of the HD Mountains and up Yellow Jacket Pass to Moonlick Park. They spent a few days resting sheep in the park, and as the light played upon the aspen groves they left their names, dates and places of origin including the names Bloomfield, Aztec, Ignacio, Hermosa, Durango, Blanco and El Rito.

Inscriptions include the poignant "Thanks to God" and the high-country Haiku by cowboy Jim Bates: NO LUCK, DAMN HORSES GONE! SNOW WALKING OUT DAMN!

Nestled among the aspens clawed by bears and rubs from elk antlers are magnificent inscriptions in flowing script, calligraphy decades old. Proud of their literacy and the ability to write their names, herders carved who they were, where they were from, and the date they carved the tree so that other herders would know of them. Some herders added a subsequent date each succeeding year they herded to explain to anyone who read the trees that they had come back again and again. Rival herders occasionally vandalized each other's name.

Nicole Smith, Education and Outreach Project Director for the San Juan Mountain Association, directed the identification and documentation of arborglyphs on this stretch of the Pine Piedra Trail. The 2001-2004 research project, funded by the Colorado State Historical Fund, included summer work. She explains, "What's cool about these glyphs is we'd see the grazing patterns and dates on the trees. The herders were going from northern New Mexico into the Weminuche. . . . I liked the component which linked the herders to families still living in our area." At the end of the road at Beaver Meadows, volunteers recorded 900 arborglyphs on 300 trees; at Moonlick Park on 52 trees they found 71 arborglyphs including a fanciful man, almost a clown image, releasing or catching birds. The project produced digital photos, maps, drawings and CDs in five binders. Fifteen volunteers recorded images and inscriptions carved from 1955 or earlier.

Smith reasons that the herders were "in a sense marking territory," and these carvings represent "the herders' ways of communicating with one another. It all represents the human urge of leaving our mark. With the names and dates you can understand land-use patterns and social insights." Yes, some of the carvings are pornographic, but as Smith explains, "The herding life was a lonely one."

According to Columbine Ranger District Archaeologist Bruce Bourcy, the Pine Piedra is a north-south trail that covers 28 miles on public land and the arborglyphs "capture history that led to the settlement and development of the San Juan Mountains." He adds, "The trees are nearing their lifespan and we must record the glyphs before the trees cease to exist. It's our physical record of history." This cultural resource is so important that Bourcy notes, "We will protect the groves from prescribed fire or naturally occurring wildfire."

Volunteer Esther Greenfield enjoyed the documentation immensely. She says, "There are so many stories and so many that leave me wondering What happened here? The ones I find most interesting and poignant are the older ones from the 1930s and 1940s." She loved the beautiful cursive signature of Antonio Valdez but wonders what was meant by the inscription FROGGY WENT THIS WAY with an arrow pointing to the left. On one aspen, a carved revolver shows a bullet coming out of the chamber. Greenfield notes of the glyphs, "A good number of the carvings are sexually graphic. Longing for sweethearts on the trees is a common theme." She also explains, "Some cowboys carved messages into the trees for others to follow, like WATER THIS WAY with an arrow. Or they carved their name and what they were doing: FJ MOSS STRINGING SALT 1939."

Though the documentation project is finished, Esther is not. She says, "I love to walk in the wilderness because of the peace, quiet and beauty. But I always keep an eye out for these stories in the trees." Volunteer Jim Libby concurs. He explains, "Probably the most significant thing for my wife, Sherri, and me was the realization that these tree carvings were important to those doing the carving. To them it was not just graffiti. It was a way to communicate directions, frustrations, successes, creativity, and a way to pass long and lonely days." Libby concludes, "Whenever we see carvings on aspen trees in the future they will give us pause to stop and look to see what message the carver left."

 

? Peaks Ranger District, San Francisco Peaks

(Coconino National Forest)

 

On the Coconino Forest, herders brought sheep north from the deserts in the spring and returned them in late fall. Archaeologist Linda Farnsworth explains that the U.S. Forest Service is "project-centric." Though federal forests are legally obligated to record historic inscriptions and other features on the landscape, they rarely do so unless there is some action requiring a Section 106 review mandated by the National Historic Preservation Act. Across the West in the 1980s and 1990s, as aspen trees became coveted for shingles, furniture, and interior woodwork, archaeologists sought to record carvings in aspen groves threatened by timber sales. Farnsworth was one of those archaeologists.

Farnsworth found "an opportunity to record northern Arizona history largely overlooked in Arizona history books." She also recruited volunteers: elderhostel participants from Northern Arizona University in two, 12-person sessions each summer between 1995-2000. Over those five years they recorded 3,000 glyphs. The volunteers "learned skills and got into it. Participants got bitten by the bug to take an interest in Western history." On the San Juan Forest, Hispanic herders came from southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. But on the Coconino Forest, by the early 1920s Basque herders arrived from Europe. Post-World War II herders came from Mexico and Central and South America and they do so to this day.

Passage of the 1934 Taylor Grazing Act denied access to public lands for grazing by operators who did not own deeded private property. In Arizona, the 1921 Alien Land Act further stipulated that only citizens or aliens eligible for citizenship could own real property, which further discriminated against Basque immigrant herders. If they wanted to own and run sheep and were not yet American citizens, they were in a bind. Basque sheepmen circumvented these laws by forming sheep partnerships in the name of those who had obtained citizenship and who would act as trustee on behalf of partners who were not yet citizens. Such partnerships were based upon verbal agreements and relied solely upon the trust and honor among herders and partners. Some of those verbal agreements and subsequent partnerships lasted 20 years. Aspen carvings may be one of the only sources of historical documentation for this unique cultural tradition.

Hence, the importance of the carvings to understand transhumance, which is an anthropological term for the seasonal migration of men and livestock from lowland to mountain pastures. Coconino Forest glyphs document the movement of sheep from south of Phoenix in the winter to north of Flagstaff in the summer. During the height of the industry six or seven permittees each had a couple thousand sheep moving through the aspen groves in summer months.

Carving categories included inscriptions; portraits of males with heads in profile and females from a frontal view; religious art like crucifixes and churches; poems; political slogans, and artistic expressions of mermaids, rifles, burros, sheep, maps, a flying saucer, and even a lifelike Elvis. Women were depicted artistically. "Aspen porn" became a significant subset. Farnsworth describes it as "a cultural form of expression" set back in groves "almost like a private gallery."

Through aerial photographs, archaeologist Farnsworth identified predictable locations for glyphs that included trails or stock driveways, edges where aspens and meadows interfaced, and weekly sheep camps where camp tenders provided supplies to the herders and then helped them move after grass had become exhausted. Farnsworth's favorite glyph read, "VIDA INFERNAL, MAL VITAS SEAN LAS BORREGAS" (translation: "Infernal Life Cursed By The Female Sheep"). One memorable contemporary carving is of a female forest ranger complete with badge and braids.

Not only did elderhostel senior citizens enjoy documenting the glyphs, but a Flagstaff high school Spanish class also took field trips to read the trees. Farnsworth states, "There is a sense of urgency to this. The first priority is to record and document the glyphs, and the next step is to contact the sheep ranchers and their families-to start collecting oral histories. There are still people left who know this tradition, but they're dying off."

 

? Groundhog Stock Driveway

? SAN JUAN NATIONAL FOREST and Lone Cone Area

(Grand Mesa Uncompahgre Gunnison National Forest)

 

Up the west fork of the Dolores River, and a mile northwest of Dunton, the Groundhog Stock Driveway parallels Forest Road #611. A brisk walk to the east, just below a large stand of aspens, the trail hits the Lizard Head Wilderness boundary and becomes trail #634. Numerous carvings can be found along this route, which is still in the San Juan National Forest, though it is only a few miles from the Grand Mesa Uncompahgre Gunnison National Forest (GMUG) boundary. In the GMUG, hundreds of carvings surround the Lone Cone Guard Station.

The key to finding aspen carvings is to know the route herders took through the forest. In the 1940s these traditional routes were marked with yellow signs stating "stock driveways" to help herders who may have varied from year to year. Some of those signs can still be found in national forests.

Here on this short section of the Groundhog Trail carvers competed not only to leave their name and date, but to do so in exquisitely fine penmanship as they carved the smooth skin of the aspens. The best carvers used a light touch, a lover's touch, to caress the trees as they remembered caressing their women so many months ago and miles away. Now decades later, the herders' flourishes stand out in vivid, beautiful detail. The best carvers never gouged or cut but rather made a gentle scratch, a pinprick with the sharp point of a knife, and their ephemeral art lingers upon trees beginning to age and die.

Lee Anne Hunt, the GMUG archaeologist, explains, "The shepherds knew to use a light touch and a tiny knife so the cuts expand later. The shepherds understood how to get the effect they wanted by a very special technique," without damaging the trees. She explains, "When you first carve a tree with a sharp knife it doesn't look like anything. It takes 10 years to begin to develop." This technique is one of the primary distinctions between historic aspen art and contemporary graffiti, which, because of brutal gouges, can damage or destroy trees. The ethic now for all forest campers and hikers should be to "leave no trace" and not to carve trees.

In the summer of 1955, New Mexican Joe R. Martinez was one of the best carvers. Folk art is generally anonymous and speaks to members of a select community or group, but Joe's style was unique and can be seen in marvelously simple cowboys with hats, women with hats, nudes and other tableau. He was good and he signed his work. On July 2, 1955, he carved one of the most amazing images in the forest. A woman in profile wears a fancy feathered hat, and below her, at the level of her chin, another woman appears as a crone. Is this La Llorona in an amazing double portrait? Is this a herder's version of the beautiful Hispanic seductress who lures men with her body but who is really a witch?

Marin Romero from Chama, NM, carved a tree on June 27, 1919 and other early inscriptions can be found too. All these carvings are known to retired GMUG archaeologist Polly Hammer, who directed some of the earliest and most important dendroglyph recording on Colorado's Western Slope. In the early 1980s in the Lone Cone/Beaver Park area, she recorded hundreds of glyphs and noted that "there's very little artwork after 1960." The Rocky Mountain sheep-grazing industry thrived between 1910-1970 and then declined. By careful study of the herders' carvings, Hammer could "trace the circle of meadows they used by their names and dates as required by the rangers to prevent overgrazing. Herders might go around the circle three times in a summer." Where camp tenders at the edge of large meadows established a supply base, "all the trees were carved because they were in the meadow a long time."  

Archaeologist Hammer found that "The themes of sheepherder drawings encompass work, nature, buildings, sex and a large assortment of human figures." At 197 sites on 6,100 acres, she and her volunteers found 4,187 carved trees. Over time they could even identify the same herder carving in Spanish, broken English and later correct English. They found an entire kin network of Chacons and Griegos as well as two Basques: Ernie Chuchuru and Emmett Elizondo. Navajo Frank Yazzie also herded in the area.

Polly Hammer enjoyed learning about her "resident artists" and the messages they left in the forest. The statistical analysis reveals 75 percent of the carvings were inscriptions with names or initials, hometowns and dates, 5 percent were phrases or comments, and 20 percent were drawings in the categories of nature, buildings, portraits, guns and symbols, including crosses and hands, and erotica such as images of "Venus of the Forest." The GMUG is one of the largest national forests in the nation, and who knows how many carvings are yet to be found? With a light touch and a sharp knife, how many forest Picassos etched images as yet undiscovered?

 

As the sheep bedded down for the night, shepherds carved in the trees. Now fewer and fewer bands of sheep munch on forest grasses and the herding tradition is declining as are stands of older aspens. Hammer explained, "When they carve properly, you don't see it for a few years but then it lasts for 50 to 100 years." Most of the men are gone now. They went back to their villages and small towns. On winter nights sitting at small kitchens, coffee in hand, they must have looked out their windows and thought of their trees - white in the moonlight, soft and silky to touch, silent except for the rhythmic rustling of leaves. They must have remembered the incessant bleating of sheep and the way a herd moves through the forest slowly in a meadow and faster through the trees like a river flowing around rocks. The herders must have remembered their quiet evenings smoking, carving, dreaming of home. The trees remember. Now we must read the trees to record a Western tradition that's almost gone.

 

Andrew Gulliford is a historian, photographer and professor of Southwest Studies and History at Fort Lewis College in Durango. He welcomes information on other concentrations of aspen art across the West. Contact him at Gulliford_a@fortlewis.edu.