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The Cupmarked Boulders of Blood Run, Iowa

(c) 1999 Kevin L. Callahan All Rights Reserved

ABSTRACT

Ethnohistoric information suggests that some rock art was created: 1) during periods of mourning by relatives, 2) following vision quests, and, 3) near the time of births. Examination of the pitted boulders and nearby burial mounds at Blood Run, Iowa and Fort Ransom, North Dakota and a review of ethnohistoric sources of historic period Plains Indians, and in the Far West, suggests the possibility that their primary social function may have been as “death stones” to mark each new death or burial. Such sacred stones were not considered inanimate objects, but the occasional dwelling place of spirits, and may have had related functions as a place for contacting the spirit world, vision questing, and as “baby rocks” for couples wishing to conceive. The symbolic, religious, and practical medicinal uses of the powder containing white clay (kaolin) resulting from the production of cupmarks on weathered granite boulders is also discussed. Clay was applied to the face during mourning and vision quests, was applied to the face of the deceased in Hopewellian and middle Woodland burial mounds, and was used to paint pictographs on the Hidatsa Medicine Stone.

What is a cupmarked or pitted boulder?

A boulder is, of course, a large rock or “glacial erratic” that in the Upper Midwest region has usually been smoothed and moved by glacial ice sheets up to a mile thick moving across the landscape during the Pleistocene or Ice Age. A cupmark, pit, or cupule are terms for the same thing. It is a cup shaped depression, usually 2 inches in diameter and about 5/8 inch deep in rock. They are made by humans by pounding the same spot repeatedly for about 15 minutes with a stone or stone tool. They are also unintentionally made by chimps when they crack open nuts repeatedly over several years on a stone anvil. Cupmarks are found all over the world and cupmarked boulders similar in appearance to the Blood Run boulders have been extensively studied in California by archaeologist, E. Breck Parkman who has reviewed and summarized ethnohistoric sources regarding their cultural significance in the Far West. (Parkman 1995:1-12). In the Upper Midwest sacred boulders have been studied by Lori Stanley (1999) and Kevin Callahan (1999, 1998).

Where is Blood Run, Iowa?

The Blood Run site is in extreme northwestern Iowa where Iowa, South Dakota, and Minnesota meet. It is about 10 miles southeast of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on the east side of the Big Sioux River and at Blood Run Creek. From Sioux Falls, drive east on Rt. 38 or E.10th St. and cross the Big Sioux River. Just after crossing the river and before getting to Rowena, S.D. turn right and head south to Gitchie Manitou. The road turns left and is then the border between South Dakota and Iowa. When the road turns to the right or south check your odometer. The turnoff onto a gravel road will be 2.5 miles from this point. The road will continue to curve left or east and then right or south again. At 2.5 miles you should be at a gravel road and to your right and closer to the river will be a farm with several buildings. Go down that gravel road and turn left just before getting to the farm buildings. Continue following the gravel road and you will arrive at a locked cattle gate which is the entrance to Blood Run.

How do you get permission for access to the land?

Access to the land is restricted and requires written permission. The Blood Run National Historic Landmark is managed by the State Historical Society of Iowa and the Lyon County Conservation Board. Permission to visit the site is gained by calling (712) 753-2313.

What is at the Blood Run site besides the cupmarked boulder?

Edward J. Lueck, et al., described the site as follows:

“The Blood Run [- Rock Island] site . . . straddles the Big Sioux River encompassing a total of about 1,200 acres in northwestern Iowa and southeastern South Dakota . . . The Oneota occupation of the site, believed to date to approximately A.D. 1200-1750, has received considerable attention over the years. Recently, the site has been evaluated as an important archeological resource worthy of preservation and possible development as a tourist attraction . . . The site once contained an extensive complex of burial mounds, stone circles, village areas, and an enclosure. Some of the archaeological remains at the site appear to represent protohistoric Omaha, Ioway, and Oto occupation (Henning 1970:150; Wedel 1974: 168, 1976:30, 1981:9-10). Farming, gravel quarrying, and artifact scavenging have disturbed or destroyed much of the site, but important features remain. A large portion of the site was designated the Blood Run-Rock Island National Historic Landmark in 1970. This designation recognized the site’s considerable importance as a cultural resource, but afforded it little actual protection since all of the site, until recently, was located on private land. In 1987, the State of Iowa purchased approximately 170 acres of the site area” (Lueck et al.:1995:21).

Who lived at Blood Run?

According to Tom Thiessen, National Park Service archaeologist, Midwest Archaeological Center, Lincoln, Nebraska, the Blood Run and Rock Island archaeological sites “represent the largest recorded site of the Oneota cultural tradition . . . Archeological information and historical documents suggest that these sites were occupied circa A.D. 1500-1700. A review of Native American traditional evidence and French narrative and cartographic documents strongly attests to the residence of the ancestors of the historically-known Omaha/Ponca, Ioway, and Oto tribes in the Big Sioux River drainage in late prehistoric or protohistoric times. This information also suggests that the Blood Run and Rock Island sites may have been occupied ca. A.D. 1700 by the forbears of the Omahas/Poncas, Ioways, and Otos, although the evidence is not unambiguous” (Thiessen 1998:abstract,1,22).

Where is the cupmarked boulder at Blood Run?

Follow the rough road south past the gate. You will go past an en closed wooden gazebo. Follow the road or path down into the valley or ravine and cross a stream (Blood Run Creek) which has a couple of boards or planks for a footbridge. Follow the mowed grass path up the terrace and across a plateau with many mounds on it. These are the Area B mounds and Blood Run’s official site number is (13LO2). Go to the end of the mowed path on the other side of the plateau. The cupmarked boulder is literally underneath the east/west barbed wire fence which was built over it. The fence separates the archaeological site from a corn field. The boulder is part way down the hill going towards the river right on the barbed wire fence line. According to Orr’s 1934 map for the State Conservation Commission the barbed wire fence runs along the Section line (Lueck et al. 1995:27, Fig.6). From the boulder you can look out over the bottomlands and towards a curve or meander in the Big Sioux River. It is a grand view.

What does the cupmarked boulder look like?

The largest remaining cupmarked boulder at Blood Run is quite magnificent. It is 3 ½ feet tall, 6 ½ feet long and 4 feet wide and is composed of heavily weathered pink granite whose surface has turned white from weathering. The boulder is covered with cupmarks and a black form of lichen has grown over most of the cupmarks. The cupmarks seem to average about 2 inches in diameter and about 3/8 inch deep. When seen in the light near sunset it has a striking dappled appearance. In late July, sage and a white flower in bloom were next to it. The rock has something of a “tent” shape to it and the west facing wall would be easy to lean against to watch the sunset. There is a smaller granite boulder 3 feet 2 inches long, 2 feet 8 inches wide, and 16 inches high, 30 feet up the hill (east) and sticking out from the ground. It has many cupmarks on it as well. It is about 5 feet north of the barbed wire fence. It appeared to be perhaps white granite and heavily weathered rather than the heavily weathered pink granite of the large boulder. Other boulders may have been removed from this area by whites. Interestingly, there is a white quartz or quartzite field stone sized stone next to the main boulder and in the direction of the sunset. Quartz is symbolically linked with the sun and spirits and quartz tools were used to make petroglyphs according to microscopic examination of petroglyphs in the Far West. Quartz when banged together generates internal light (not sparks) and was a way for shamen to gain supernatural power. Sparks from lighters are still used by Dakota medicine men to symbolize the presence of spirit helpers during rituals. Quartz is also found next to the Fort Ransom Writing Rock which is a similar heavily weathered pink granite boulder with cupmarks on it, also located below a hill with mounds on it, and near a stream in Fort Ransom North Dakota. From that boulder one looks out at water coming from a natural spring (Callahan 1998).

Why make cupmarks on a granite boulder?

Fine white clay or kaolin comes from the weathering of granite and one possibility is that the fine white clay powder (like talcum powder) that resulted from making a cupmark on weathered granite was a functional and a symbolic item with protective supernatural “power.” Similar associations are not unknown to European cultures. Charles Rau wrote that in France, "the sick and the impotent" grind holes in sacred stones " and drink the pulverised matter" to cure fever and renew "the vital strength" (Rau 1881:88-89).

[3/27/00 Addendum: Kaolin is apparently an old-time remedy for morning sickness, still used in Georgia, and some women crave it during pregnancy (Joel L.Swerdlow, Nat. Geographic 4/2000, p.98).

A Kansa man in mourning “was required to fast, wandering about and crying in solitary places, having clay on his face” (Skinner 1916:750). According to Robert L. Hall's book An Archaeology of the Soul, North American Indian Belief and Ritual (1997 University of Illinois Press: Urbana and Chicago):

"White clay was used at one time in mourning ritual for a large block of tribes in the central and northern Plains, among them the Mandan, Atsina, Blackfoot, Eastern Dakota, Western Dakota, Assiniboine, Omaha, Ponca, Kansa, and the Crow - all of these being speakers of Siouan languages except the Atsina and Blackfoot. William McLeod has said that in the Plains "the use of white [paint in mourning] appears to belong to a level of culture earlier than the use of black, and to be receding before the use of black" (Hall 1997:46). Hall pointed out the antiquity of this practice when he wrote: "White marly clay was puddled over Hopewell burials in mounds east of Newville, Wisconsin, which is located at the outlet of Lake Koshkonong, and liquid white clay was applied to the faces of two burials in another middle Woodland mound excavated near the outlet of Lake Monona, south of Madison, Wisconsin" (Hall 1997:19).

White clay was used in the mourning aspects of the Crow Sun Dance and in the Hidatsa Sun Dance (Hall 1997:46). According to records of Stephen H. Long's expedition, the Hidatsa Medicine Stone pictographs were painted or made with white clay (see Thwaites). White paint may have been used when asking for blessings and red was used to thank the spirits, or vice versa (L. Olson 1999, personal communication). Face paint was used daily by Dakota women and more fair skinned children to protect the face and body from sun and wind (Standing Bear 1978). It also may have helped with insects and insect bites. Luther Standing Bear described his Lakota grandmother, who was anticipating the birth of a child, baking red earth clay and pounding it into a fine powder to mix with buffalo fat. This rendered it into a creamy paste which “served as a cleanser and also a protector to the tender skin of the child. Then grandmother had gathered the driest of buffalo chips and ground them between stones to a powder as fine and soft as talcum. This powder was a purifier, and soothing to an irritated skin” (Standing Bear 1978:118). The Omaha put clay on the head and face and wore very little clothing during a vision quest (LaFlesche 1889:3). White clay gives a ghostlike appearance. Many Plains Indian tribes visited a sacred well in Kansas and clay and paint were sometimes mixed with the sacred water from the well to make body paint (Gatschet 1891:68). This may have provided protection from the sun and insects but also would have been symbolic and protective since paint had supernatural power (Rajnovich 1994). “Mine Soto” in Dakota means “whitish water” and according to Mary Eastman (1849) this was a reference to the white clay in the Minnesota River from which the state took its name. Clues to answer the riddle of why the Dakota might have noticed and then referenced the white clay in the water of the Minnesota River when naming one of the most important rivers of the Upper Midwest can be found in the ethnohistoric records of nearby tribes in Wisconsin. "The Winnebagoes believed that their horned water spirits dwelled in dens carved out of shining white clay" (Hall 1997:19). "The Potawatomis believed that when drowned persons were found with white clay in their mouth, nostrils, and eyes that it was a sure sign that the horned water panthers had drowned them" (Hall 1997:19). Robert Hall has pointed to the antiquity of the symbolic and religious associations between mud and clay and death and renewal when he wrote that:

"The sods in Cheyenne and Arapaho Sun Dances explicitly represent lumps of mud brought from beneath the primordial sea by mythical Earth Divers and have explicit associations with toes. The importance in northern midwestern Woodland burial mound architecture of mud and sediments from watery environments implies that Woodland mound ceremonialism may have had a hitherto unrecognized relationship to World Renewal ritual. These mortuary and World Renewal connections lead in several directions" (Hall 1997:22).

High quality clay powder also makes an absorbent material useful as an internal medicine or presumably as an external absorbent drying agent for weeping wounds such as result from nettles. Kaolin with pectin is still the active ingredient in Kaopectate which is used to treat diarrhea and can be found in any drugstore. Kaolin is the fine white clay used in the finest porcelain ceramics. All of the surfaces of the Blood Run boulder have cupmarks, including the vertical surfaces, so the cupmarks were not made to hold something and were not a functional mortar and pestle for grinding seeds, grinding acorns, cracking nuts or mixing paint. Although the powder might have been used as an earth pigment, the cupmark was probably not the mixing pestle - at least on those vertical surfaces. The action of repeatedly striking the same spot may have been a ritual or trance enhancing activity during a birth or death vision quest, prayer, or sacrifice. The significant symbolic and religious meanings of cupmarking is discussed further below.

Was rock art production related to marking or recording deaths in any Plains Indian cultures?

There is a reference to the production of figurative rock art for men who died of wounds in Omaha ethnography. From Frank La Fleche, Jour. Amer. Folk-Lore vol.II, No.4, pp.10-11:

“There are a variety of beliefs concerning the immediate action of the spirit upon its withdrawal from the body. Some think that the soul at once starts upon its journey to the spirit land; others that it hovers about the grave as if reluctant to depart . . . There is a belief in the [Omaha] tribe that before the spirits finally depart from men who died of wounds or their results, they float toward a cliff overhanging the Missouri, not far from the present Santee [Dakota] Agency, in Nebraska, and cut upon the rocks a picture showing forth their manner of death. A line in the picture indicates the spot where the disease or wound was located which caused the death. After this record is complete, the spirit flies off to the land of the hereafter. It is said that these pictures are easily recognized by the relatives and friends of the deceased. This place is known as . . . Where the spirits make pictures of themselves (La Fleche cited in Dorsey 1894:420).

I presume this rock art was produced by relatives or shamen at night.

What does the ethnography in the Far West indicate about their pitted boulders?

According to Breck Parkman (1995:8-9), the Pomo and Shasta ethnographic accounts equate cupmarks or cupules with fertility and weather control, hence they are sometimes referred to as “baby rocks” and “rain rocks.” They may also have been associated with good fishing (salmon renewal) and “world renewal” ceremonies. In southern California there has been some suggestion that cupules were associated somehow with archaeoastronomy (Parkman 1995:8). There is some ethnographic and archaeological data to suggest that cupules were used as territorial markers, and to mark each new death or burial. This may explain the large number of cupmarks on the Blood Run boulders since there are so many burial mounds on the plateau just above them. At the Fort Ransom Writing Rock in North Dakota there are fewer mounds on top of the hill above the cupmarked boulder than at the Blood Run site and there are also fewer cupmarks. Otherwise the sites are quite similar in their layout and the boulders are both heavily weathered pink granite. In California cupmarked boulders used to mark each new death are called “death stones” and in some cases these boulders also made a ringing sound when struck. In northeastern California some cupmarked boulders commemorated mythological events and may have been used in vision questing. As Parkman put it: “Cupule boulders found atop these mountains may represent places where visitors left offerings or made prayers” (Parkman 1995:8). According to Parkman, among the Kumeyaay, cupules may have been used to produce powder for paint. I personally interviewed one of Breck Parkman’s informants at the 1994 IRAC conference in Flagstaff, Arizona. She was a shaman and was over 90 years old and, although in a wheelchair, could remember the use of cupmarked sites in California from her youth. After the birth of a baby the young fathers in that culture, after deprivations of several days would typically run downhill from a cup marked petroglyph site and jump into a cold spring, apparently to induce a vision. This procedure was also used by a person in mourning after a recent death. She wryly commented that “it was a lot of work.” Admittedly, the ethnography from the Far West comes from different cultures but it raises the possibility that the cupmarked boulder at Blood Run was a “death” rock used to record deaths and perhaps also births. In the Far West the clay powder that resulted from making the cupmark was ingested by infertile women. In Pomo society the powder resulting from cupmark production was sought after by couples wishing to have a baby that otherwise were facing sterility and childlessness (Parkman 1995:8). This all makes sense if the Oneota religious beliefs were similar to the belief of some Dakota that a human had several spirits that left the body at death and one of these could be reborn into a new baby. According to Dorsey, for the Dakota: “The living man is supposed to have one, two, or more ‘wanagi,’ one of which after death remains at the grave and another goes to the place of the departed” (Dorsey 1894:484). Dorsey then quotes James Lynd who indicated that to the human body the Dakota gave four spirits:

The first is supposed to be a spirit of the body, which dies with the body. The second is a spirit which always remains with or near the body. Another is the soul which accounts for the deeds of the body, and is supposed by some to go to the south, by others to the west, after the death of the body. The fourth always lingers with the small bundle of the hair of the deceased, kept by the relatives until they have a chance to throw it into the enemy’s country, when it becomes a roving spirit, bringing death and disease to the enemy in whose country it remains. From this belief came the practice of wearing four scalp feathers for each enemy slain in battle, one for each spirit (Dorsey 1894:484).

Dorsey continues: “Some Sioux claim a fifth scalp feather, averring that there is a fifth spirit, which enters the body of an animal or child after death. As far as I am aware, this belief is not general, though they differ in their accounts of the spirits of man, even in number” (Dorsey 1894:484). If the Oneota also believed in transmigration of souls, then going to the “death rock,” i.e. the tribal death register, and “house of the spirits” to obtain a spirit for a new baby (or accomodate the rebirth of a deceased loved one) might make sense. The cupmarks are often on a vertical rock face which are obviously not useful as paint mixing containers. Unless they were putting the powder into a portable container of some sort they may have been ingesting the powder from cupmarks rather than turning it into paint. The amount of powder from a cupmark is small. If the cupmark is too deep it goes past the weathered surface and the percentage of kaolin is reduced.

What kind of tools could have been used to make the cupmarks?

Any stone implement with a handle and an end shaped like a ball peen hammer would do nicely. The hammerstone and punch method could also save wear and tear on the arm, as opposed to the most punishing way of making one, which is to just use a round stone held in the hand. Haftable stone hammer heads suitable for pounding have been found in mounds and habitation areas at Blood Run (Lueck et al. 1995:38-39, Fig. 13,14).

What kind of artifacts were recovered from the mounds and habitation sites?

According to Frederick W. Pettigrew’s manuscripts the artifacts excavated included: 5 cupped stones called nut holders, small grooved stones for war clubs, hammers, grinding stones, stone axes, celts, catlinite pipes, copper serpents, copper beads, a pipestone slab with a bird engraving, pottery fragments, a copper bracelet, a shell bead, and other objects (Lueck et. al. 1995:37).

Are there any special acoustical properties at the cupmarked boulder?

No echo was noted when clapping loudly. I did not bang the cupmarked boulder itself for obvious reasons. I could hear dogs barking and people working across the river and upriver so sound travelled quite well to the boulder. Communication across the river was probably easy from that spot. The boulder is at a curve in the river and if the bottomlands had any water in it then it would have been a natural acoustical amphitheater.

Are there other boulders in the area?

Yes. The kind of rock seemed to be the determining factor whether or not there were cupmarks on the boulders. For example, there was a large boulder of orange colored granite (?) or possibly rhyolite (?) just a few yards south from the large cupmarked boulder. It had no clear evidence of cupmarks on it. There were a few eroded “iffy” cupmarks that might have been natural features on it but I saw no clear cupmarks like on the other boulder. There were also several boulders on top of the hill that had obvious physical damage indicating that they had probably been removed from the corn field with heavy equipment. I found no cupmarks on those. The quartz or quartzite field stone just a few feet to the west side of the cupmarked boulder did not appear marked in any way. I found three boulders with cup marks on them (there may be more) and all were weathered pink or possibly white granite. Besides the large cupmarked boulder and the small rock 30 feet to the east there was a small granite fieldstone about a foot to the west of the large cupmarked boulder with at least one cup mark on it. The right type of rock was obviously important.

Elsewhere at the Blood Run site there were boulder circles, now destroyed, placed in an oval shape that were too large to be "tipi rings." The Dakota warriors before going off to battle in 1862 made a similar oval of boulders. The Dakota associated Inyan (Tunkan in the shamanic sacred language), who was the stone god, with warfare. As Mark Diedrich states in Famous Chiefs of the Eastern Sioux (Coyote Books, Minneapolis): "When preparing for war, a partisan would typically join other shamans in the circle dance around a red-painted stone, which represented the stone god of the north. For hours at a time they would conjure up contact with the spirits by chanting and making howling sounds. From time to time they would shout out what the spirits had told them and sing songs. Then various warriors would begin to dance in a circle around them; others would beat war drumsa, calling others to join the war party. Then an armor feast was held, during which the partisan would narrate his dream and the young warriors would propitiate the spirits of their war weapons to make them sacred" (Diedrich 1987:16). When Little Crow was inducted into the eastern Dakota Medicine Society "a medicine lodge was erected and red-painted stones were placed in the center to represent the stone god of the north" (Diedrich 1987:63). For more on the association between boulders and warfare see my website on Newport, Minnesota's Red Rock and other sacred boulders of the Upper Midwest.

What questions would you, as an archaeologist, like answers to?

I would like to know if there is, or was, a nearby natural spring? There are natural springs near the Fort Ransom Writing Rock, in southeastern North Dakota, and at the Jeffers Petroglyphs, in southwestern Minnesota. The Fort Ransom Writing Rock has many similarities to the Blood Run cupmarked boulder (Callahan 1998). I would also like to know how many other boulders were removed from the site and what the total count of cupmarks is? I would like to know if that number correlates at all with the number of burials in the mounds above the boulder. I would like to know what is under the sod at the base of the boulder and if there are any quartz hammers and hammerstones. Are there offerings underneath the sod?

Have any cupmarked boulders been removed?

Dale R. Henning (1982) described six pitted stones at the Blood Run site in northeastern Iowa which included a large Sioux quartzite boulder approximately 3 by 4 feet. He reported that: "This boulder bears small conical depressions over its entire surface; these appear to have been made mechanically and consistently measure 2-4 cm. in breadth and 1-3 cm. in depth. The largest of these stones is that located by Orr; the others are smaller, but none are portable by any means. According to local informants, a pitted boulder similar to the largest one we located was removed by dint of considerable effort by a local collector from the Sioux Falls area. All of these boulders, located along the terrace edge, and of course, including the one currently residing near Sioux City, were probably removed from their original location(s) when the fields were being cleared for agricultural purposes."

The last statement seems implausible to me since there were no indications that any of the three boulders I saw were moved by farmers from their original location and they were well buried in the ground. The large boulder has the fence built over the top of it which suggests the boulder was not moved by the farmer. The remaining Blood Run boulders also are in the position relative to the top of the hill (and the burial mounds) one would expect given the layout of the similar appearing Fort Ransom site. The large boulder is in the middle of the plateau relative to the mounds and part way down the hill towards water. There were no visible marks on the three Blood Run cupmarked boulders I examined. There were other boulders on top of the hill (with no cupmarks) which had obvious mechanical abrasion marks and damage and were not well buried into the ground which looked like a farmer had moved them with machinery but the cupmarked boulders bore none of those marks. I did not see the other three boulders referred to so it is possible those might have been moved by farmers.