A rare collection puts petroglyphs and pictographs in the public eye

STEVENSON, Skamania County — For nearly 15 years around the 1950s, Jeanne Hillis was a woman obsessed. Through miles of the Columbia River Gorge near her home in The Dalles, Ore., she climbed up hillsides and leaned over cliffs — rubbing, racing the clock.

In those years, as The Dalles Dam was being built, she made rubbings of petroglyphs in the region soon to be under swirling green water.

She spent countless days on an island that eventually would nearly vanish behind the dam. Her mission: to save for posterity some of the hundreds of images of faces, creatures and shapes drawn and carved into rocks there by Native Americans who had lived up to thousands of years before her.

Hillis, now 86, is an artist and self-proclaimed preservationist. Today, the collection she amassed is a rare documentation of lost artifacts, until recently out of view. Ten years ago, however, the developer of Dolce Skamania Lodge in Stevenson, one of the Columbia Gorge's landmark hotels, purchased the collection and now, more than 100 pieces strong, it hangs on walls in public spaces and lodging rooms of the hotel, not far downriver from the images' original home.

The lodge's display dramatically increases public access to the cultural treasures, and many say that's a good thing. The only actual and readily accessed petroglyphs and pictographs in the area are at a nearby state park, where they can be viewed only as part of a guided tour that fills far in advance.

But that's about it.

These days, though, cultural sensitivities and crucial questions about protection, long the purview of the descendants of the images' Native American creators, have become more widespread, putting access of almost any kind at the heart of a dilemma.

The players are legion — from tribal cultural liaisons to government archaeologists to tour guides, park rangers, artists, authors and art collectors.

And despite the historical interpretations — or reluctance, in the case of many Native Americans, to do any interpretation at all because the images are considered sacred — they do agree on one thing: that the images are to be protected.

Some of the players are far newer to that notion than others. For countless years, in fact, to most non-native people, petroglyphs (images carved by various means into rocks) and pictographs (those painted on rock surfaces) were just there, to be buried in the flood of new dams, scratched on, "graffiti-ized," "rubbed" to make take-home images, marked with arrowed hearts and love notes or adored as signs from outer space.

No more.

In fact, in a swing in the opposite direction in recent years, there are few people in the world of rock-image preservation and study who will tell you where you can see them, outside of formalized tours, museums and art collections. Because, frankly, where the rocks can't be guarded, people who want to protect them don't want you there.

Richard Davis presides over what is perhaps the largest and only public, outdoor display of native rock images in the Columbia Gorge region. Davis is a Washington State Parks ranger at the newly renamed Columbia Hills State Park (formerly Horsethief Lake State Park), which lies along the Columbia River about 90 miles east of Portland.

From April through October, the park offers weekend tours (Fridays and Saturdays only) of rock images near the river, including what undoubtedly is the most famous in the area, Tsagaglalal, or She Who Watches, called so by the Wishram Indians.

The tours are booked solid, weeks in advance. (They are the only way you can see the images.) Tours last about an hour and a half, longer if the guides get to talking or visitors ask lots of questions. They were begun 10 years ago, Davis says, because vandals were defacing what few images had been left above the waterline after The Dalles Dam's completion in 1957.

The most-asked questions about the images left behind at the park? By all ages: "How old are they? How were they made? Why are they still here?" Davis recites.

Among the people who can answer those questions is James D. Keyser, Northwest regional archaeologist for the U.S. Forest Service, noted rock-art expert inside and outside the Northwest and author of "Indian Rock Art of the Columbia Plateau."

Study of the images has become his life's work — and obvious passion.

For starters, Keyser will tell you that you should read his book. If you don't have the time, the quick answers are something like these:

The rock images from this region are quite old, perhaps 5,000 to 7,000 years by most estimates. They are personal works, carved or painted by native people to mark a spiritual quest, a hunt, mythical places or tales, brave deeds — a number of things.

Beyond that, there is still mystery.

Keyser says, "The issue of 'We don't know what they mean' is more than a semantic one. If you show me a specific drawing of a human figure and an animal and you ask me what was in that person's mind, I don't know. It's a very personal piece. But when you ask why this art was made in the system that spawned it, I could tell you."

Why are they here? For lots of reasons: They were put in this place because it was important to their creators; the images survived the climate and weren't buried by the rising river; they haven't been defaced; and they are now closely protected — by law — and respected.

For native peoples, the images are messages from the elders. To be honored.

To be sure, there are other sites for rock images across the region. Close by, there are images at Vantage at Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park, in downtown Yakima and along the Little Spokane River. And, says Keyser, across many areas of the Columbia Plateau you certainly can "ask local farmers, at gas stations, anybody in town" and they'll tell you where they've seen images on nearby rock formations.

But few people — from native descendants to rock-image newcomers — are happy to give specific directions.

"These sites are often very fragile," says Keyser. "One nut with a spray can can ruin a site forever."

Jeanne Hillis laughs when she hears that remark. She understands, and is firmly in the preservation camp.

She has been, she says, for a long time.

But at the same time, she will admit that what she did years ago — rubbing — is not something she, nor anyone, would or should do today.

"No. That's not done anymore."

Because, all of the parties will agree, it can be tantamount to destruction of something that's at least historical and in many eyes sacred.

It's something native people have been saying all along. But few non-natives listened.

In fact, decades ago, many non-natives made a virtual field-day of rubbing and tracing and defacing the rock images. Judging from historical readings, it seems everybody with a piece of chalk or a crayon was rubbing a petroglyph, eroding them and, more often than not, leaving behind irreparable damage.

Hillis' efforts, however, were like a rescue mission.

"Before the area was flooded, petroglyphs were obvious up and down the river," recalls Hillis, who earned an art degree from Washington State University in 1938. "Unfortunately at that time they printed maps with locations on them. There was so much vandalism. So many people said they were just some old rocks. It's taken a long time for the education to get through to people that they are valuable."

As the dam was constructed, she went to work. "I used a method that would not hurt the rocks," she says of her rubbing. "Sometimes it took me all day just to do one small one."

Though the designs she transferred were direct copies, the colors she used, which give the completed artwork their enthralling style, were her own choosing. It's what distinguishes Hillis' work.

She certainly has the energy, it seems, to do more of that work today. She is a consistent traveler. But rubbings? Never again.

That's a point of agreement among many, from native descendants of the rock-image creators to non-native government officials, guides and archaeologists.

Now, it is enough to look and to wonder. Which native people will say they've maintained all along — it's one of the reasons the rock images were created in the first place.

Terry Tazioli: 206-464-2224 or ttazioli@seattletimes.com