A DRIVE TO THE PAHRANAGAT VALLEY

Having gotten a late start; procrastination being a valuable friend of the unemployed, I did not reach my destination before dark. Just after dark about ten miles before Rachel, NV on state highway 375, I was trying to keep my speed down, trying to stay alert when I noticed a shadow on the highway. I realized too late that the shadow was in fact a black cow, turning the wheel hard at the last moment. Smash! The cows head and shoulders connected with the passenger side of the windshield, sending my Toyota Tercel station wagon sliding down the road sideways. The car slid off the road and came to a quick halt in the sand facing the way I'd come from. A cold breeze blew through the broken windshield.

Damn! Where's my jacket? I almost believed it hadn't happened except the glass on every part of the car. The passenger side of the car was smashed pretty badly. I walked back up the road and found the cow dead in the middle of the road. I tried to pull two of its legs to get it off of the road- I was able to spin it around- but couldn't get it off the road. I could see a truck approaching on the horizon a few miles distant and was able to slow it down enough by waving a flashlight so it didn't hit the cow which was really hard to see lying in the road. I had a tow cable which we used to get the cow off the road and then he said he'd call for the sheriff in Rachel. Some ranch hands made it out to me first. I asked him if he'd use the meat on the cow not realizing that I now owned the cow. He said the meat was probably spoiled, which surprised me as I had mainly hit the cows head and neck and just grazed its body. Later I saw a cattle trough very close to the road a couple hundred yards down the road. It was my fault I hit the cow, but I still think they should move their cattle troughs further away from a main paved road.

The sheriff gave me a ride into Rachel after filling out a report. He told me about the Little A'LE' INN in Rachel and about how it was a popular place to view UFO's. He told me about Area 51 and how some people thought the U.S. Government was trading drugs and even humans (for breeding purposes) to the aliens for technological secrets. The A'LE' INN was booked but the proprietor said he'd squeeze me in some room with a government surveyor and only charge me the single room rate. At the restaurant/bar, some of the patrons were curious to hear my story and wondered what I was doing in this part of Nevada. I wasn't sure what to say, I thought that if I told them that I was looking for Indian petroglyphs, they'd think it was just too weird. So I said I was a birder coming out to do a winter bird count at the Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge. Immediately one guy on the survey crew said that he'd ran over a hawk and wondered if I could identify it. I said raptors weren't my specialty and quickly ordered another beer.

Thank goodness for AAA. The tow truck driver showed up in the morning, boosted the car onto his tow rig and began the long ride to Las Vegas. I gave up on the birder card and asked him if he knew of the whereabouts of any rock art sights in the area. He pointed out a couple sights- one a huge petroglyph district and the other a truly obscure sight-neither of which I was familiar with. At one point, one of his colleagues called and said that he'd been tempted to call President Bush (who'd made a radio address) last night to tell him that the way to cure our countries economic woes was for everyone to buy American made vehicles. Oops. The tow truck driver was friendly and was good company on the drive. At one point he asked me if I ever wondered who made these petroglyphs. He then asked me if I knew of the definitive book on that topic. While I was pondering that he went on to mention if I knew why the pyramids in Egypt looked very similar to the ones in Mexico. He said there was a book that made it all make perfect sense. That's right, the Book of Mormon. He wondered if I wanted a copy. I said I already have one (true story- I haven't had a chance to read it yet). He left me off at a body shop in Las Vegas which later figured my car was totalled. After spending a couple nights at the Showboat (very affordable midweek with nice rooms), I took the bus up to Coaldale Jnct. where a friend from Bishop picked me up.

Since then I've successfully visited quite a few Pahranagat style sites. The distinctive anthropomorphs at these sites are divided into two main types. These anthros are similar to Coso and Wind River patterned body anthropomorphs but are also clearly different than both of those. One of these anthros is a rectangular patterned body anthropomorph which usually: has no head, has prominent antennae, has a fringed bottom, has no legs or arms at all, has no apparent sexuality, and has what appears to be an atlatl to its side. It is frequently found with the other main anthropomorph which is solidly pecked and: has a topknot coming up from the middle of its head, has eyes which show up because they have not been pecked out in contrast to the rest of its body, has legs with no feet, and has arms with digitate hands (frequently with four digits). These anthros are commonly iconic in nature and directly associated with small bighorn sheep nearby on the panel.

On panels at these sights which don't have Pahranagat style anthros there is a variety of quadrupeds. Sheep are the most common; but mountain lions, dogs, and deer are common at these sights. Exaggerated and fanciful depictions of horns and other body parts characterized many of these quadrupeds. Many of these sights appear to have several different generations of glyph production. Green and Stoney have written about the Pahranagat anthro tradition in papers presented to ARARA and to URARA. Enclosed here is a sampling of photos from several of these sites. These sites did not come easily to me.