THE SEMIOTICS OF POWERFUL PLACES: Rock Art and Landscape Relations in the Sierra Tarahumara, Mexico

In northern Mexico, Sierra Tarahumara rock art sites are places of power, danger, reward, and transformation in both Rarámuri and mestizo worlds. Situated in places rich in symbolism, relationship, affect, and embodied history, the semiotics of rock art are interpreted and re-invented by contemporary Rarámuri, non-Rarámuri locals, tourists, and anthropologists. Rock art provokes narratives of local history, past interactions with other peoples (especially Apache/Ndee), and complex identity narratives. Though there is insufficient evidence to determine authorship of most of the rock art in the Sierra Tarahumara, some of it was certainly created by Rarámuri people in the past and present, and some is likely Apache/Ndee. Based on descriptions of rock art as personal marks made by owirúames (Rarámuri healers) and wa'rura (elders), I hypothesize a uniting theme for much of the rock art, as signaling the practices, experiences, and relationships of individual healers, and a reanimation of narratives of deep history.