Past History

Gustave Baumann

This impression of Past History is opaquely printed in rich, vibrant earth tones. The location is the south facing wall of Long House in Frijoles Canyon, now part of Bandelier National Monument. The petroglyphs have hardly eroded but are best seen in raking light.

Baumann wrote about the petroglyphs of Frijoles Canyon: Mankind seems to have been blessed with the innate ability to draw when he allows his hand to follow the dictates of his mind….We don’t know just how much the ravages of time have obliterated but what remains is an intriguing puzzle to ponder over. Frijoles Canyon when I first saw it was such a place. Guided there by Kenneth Chapman of the School of American Research, I found it to the on the those practically intact and “out of this world places” which had induced Adolph Bandelier that roving archeologist to write a novel about it some year previous to its rediscovery. The novel he wrote is no limping effort; it has substantial value—what puzzles me is that no where [sic] does he mention the drawings in the caves which like all of us he must have clambered in and out of time and again.