Note the second part is much more acceptable than the first part.
Many Rock Art advocates in Utah have followed this story, so the summary is for those who have not heard of the situation, primarily those who reside outside Utah.
On January 7, 2010, Deseret News, a Salt Lake City publication, printed the following editorial:
Ancient sketches graffiti or art?
By Lee Benson Deseret News Published: Thursday, Jan. 7, 2010 11:57 p.m. MST
News flash from Nine Mile Canyon: A team of archaeologists and linguists have finally — after years of painstaking study and, coincidentally, on the eve of their multi-million-dollar government grant running out — successfully translated a key pictograph known as the Great Hunt Panel in what has been called America's longest and oldest art gallery.
What was long thought to be drawings of bighorn sheep and human hunters holding bows and arrows actually translates in English to: ANYONE CAUGHT DRAWING ON THESE ROCKS WILL BE FINED.
It turns out, according to this translation, that the Anasazi, Fremont and, later, the Ute Indians that inhabited Nine Mile Canyon long before it was known as Nine Mile Canyon had a problem doodling on their beautiful surroundings. This prompted their chiefs and the environmentalists among them to draw the line, as it were.
Another pictograph nearby translates to: RESPECT WHERE YOU LIVE, AND WHERE YOU LIVE WILL RESPECT YOU!
I'm making all this up, of course, but the announcement this week from the State Capitol of an agreement hammered out after months and years of discussion among numerous public and private agencies, including apparently everyone but the BCS, which protects the rock artwork in Nine Mile Canyon from natural gas developers gave me pause when I saw some photos of the endangered rock artwork.
What's the big deal? I found myself thinking. If any of this gets lost we can put some third graders to work on nearby unmarked rocks.
I am aware that such thinking constitutes blasphemy among lovers of ancient Indian pictographs, so let me quickly apologize to them for not seeing what they are seeing and not appreciating what they are appreciating.
But I am only being honest here. I am one of the worst artists in the world and I could draw sheep on roller skates and men with no necks as well as the ones on those rocks. Maybe better.
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I am not beholding beauty. C.M. Russell did not do this.
This isn't to suggest the images shouldn't be protected. Age deserves its deference. There is a point when one man's graffiti becomes another man's historic marker.
Although there is also no doubt that timing is everything. Carve your initials or scratch out a drawing tomorrow in the rocks in Nine Mile Canyon, or anywhere on public land for that matter, and you're going to jail.
But 200 years from now, no matter if you carved "Go Lakers!" it will be a national treasure.
Just what would the Fremonts, Anasazis or ancient Utes who did the drawings in Nine Mile Canyon have to say on the subject if they were still among us and had been invited to attend the big announcement at the State Capitol?
I'm saying it's highly possible that they would be trying hard to keep a straight face while poking each other in the ribs.
Anasazi 1 to Fremont 2: "I did that one while I was drunk."
Fremont 3 to Anasazi 4: "I got grounded three moons for that one."
Ute 1 to Ute 2: "That doesn't even look like a bighorn."
Wise old Anasazi (I know, that's redundant) environmentalist (wearing horrified look): "We tried our darndest to leave no trace and they're remembering us for this!?"
Ute 3 to Ute 4: "You mean to tell me that this natural gas you speak of was right below our feet and we could have used it to cook all our meals and heat all our abodes and never have had to gather firewood? AYEEEEE!"
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the art gallery that is Nine Mile Canyon was the ancients' equivalent of the Louvre.
Or maybe it was the reason they left.
This editorial received many complaint letters, some of them can not be repeated here.
However, the Deseret News author issued another group of comments, reprinted below:
To the Ute Indian Tribe Historical Society; the Utah Rock Art Research Association; Forrest Cuch, executive director of the Utah Division of Indian Affairs; my friend Tom Lovell; and all others who know way more about American Indians and ancient drawings than I do:
I am sorry for offending you.
Please accept my apology.
In an attempt at levity — and, OK, a poke at extreme environmentalists — in a recent column about the crusade to protect the rock art in Utah's Nine Mile Canyon from energy developers, I suggested that to my untrained eye the drawings look like stick figures a grade-schooler could duplicate.
Then I went on to imagine the possibility that ancient American Indians were perhaps just horsing around all those generations ago when they wrote on the rocks, not unlike modern graffiti artists, and they would be surprised to find them so revered today.
It turns out my eye is as untrained as a rock.
To quote from a letter written to the Deseret News by Stephen L. Robinson, president of the board of directors of the Utah Rock Art Research Association:
"The level of respect for, and understanding of, rock art reflected in this column is very unfortunate. We strongly object to the demeaning, disparaging and disrespectful tone of this article. We are deeply offended. It does considerable harm to the work we do in encouraging people to respect and preserve this irreplaceable evidence of ancient cultures. We do not speak for the Native Americans in our state, but are confident they are offended also."
He's right about that.
This is from a letter written by Larry Cesspooch (Whitebelly) of the Ute Indian Tribe Historical Society:
"Shame on you Lee Benson, for your ignorance. The writings in Nine Mile Canyon are our sacred history. It's people like you who have made respect and appreciation of the rock writings in Nine Mile Canyon a straight-up battle."
He goes on to add: "The writings weren't put there as art, but as messages. That's where things get misunderstood — calling the messages art. The so-called "hunting scene" in Nine Mile Canyon depicts a historic battle, not a hunt. All the animals depict people."
An archaeologist named Garth Norman e-mailed yet more elucidation:
"Technically it is neither graffiti nor art. It is writing. You really ought to get informed on this subject before making outlandish statements that are insulting to both the Indians and scholars. You might want to redeem yourself in your next article. I could send you my interpretation of the hunting panel in Nine Mile you refer to, which is a calendar shadow station that marks the spring equinox ritual for big horn sheep migration hunt."
Who knew?
Well, who didn't know besides me?
From now on, I'm going to try and stick to making fun of things I sort of understand — like Republicans and Democrats and James Cameron movies.
And over-the-top environmentalists, if only because it's so easy to pick on the hypocrisy of people who drive their gas-powered cars on paved highways to protest drilling for gas on unpaved highways.
That was my target with the Nine Mile rock art column. But I missed. I missed badly and, instead, scored a direct hit on a past and a culture standing innocently off to the side.
Sacred history should be respected even by the ignorant, which in this case is me.
