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Image 8
Petroglyphs and Pictographs: Wyoming's Original
Artwork
Number Eight: “Tolar Horses and Riders” -
Sweetwater County
 This
exceptionally well-made petroglyph is both incised and abraded
into a sandstone surface in Sweetwater County, Wyoming. The scene
depicts warriors and horses. Note the feathered shield and the
segmented Spanish lances carried by the lead rider. Both riders
wear buffalo horn headdresses–a symbol for powerful Plains
Indian warriors. The pedestrian figure with the large head appears
to be crying as though seeking a vision. This symbolism carries
through to the rear rider, suggesting the pair may be related
with the rear rider as the supernatural alter-ego to the leader.
This image was almost certainly done by a Comanche warrior who
was in Wyoming to raid or perhaps trade horses. The Comanche identification
is based on comparison with several very similar illustrations
done on paper by the Comanche in the 1800’s. One of these
paper drawings–collected from a Comanche warrior in Oklahoma
by Dr. Edward Palmer in the late 19th Century, is very much like
the Sweetwater petroglyph.
Comanche history is intimately linked to horses primarily because
they offered a tremendous advantage for hunting large ungulates–especially
bison–in open areas. Horses were so popular that shortly
after they obtained their first mounts, some Shoshone groups moved
south, to be positioned closer to the Spanish colonies in New
Mexico, where there was an ample supply of horses. By the early
1700’s these raiding Shoshone were so common that the Spanish
were identifying them by a new name --- the Comanche. Population
estimates indicate that in the early 1700’s as many as 10,000
Shoshone left Wyoming to become Comanche, and this number may
have doubled by the end of the 18th century (Kavanagh 1996:68).
Throughout their history, however, the Comanche returned to
Wyoming for the annual trading rendezvous – held in the
Green River region every spring. Salish and Sahaptin-speaking
Plateau tribes brought dried salmon, camas, and dentalium shells
to trade; Siouan-speaking Crow brought corn, squash and beans
from their Hidatsa relatives on the Missouri River; the Wyoming
Sheep Eaters, or Mountain Shoshone, brought clothing made from
the hides of bighorn sheep, horn bows manufactured from the horns
of bighorn rams, ermine tails, and obsidian; the Ute brought dried
elk meat, elk hides and various sea shells obtained from California
tribes.
Reproduction of a tracing completed by Linda Olson. Research
by Loendorf and Associates, Sponsored by the Wyoming Department
of Transportation and the Bureau of Land Management – Rock
Springs.
Figure 2: Drawing made by a Comanche for Dr. B. Palmer, physician
to the Comanche in Oklahoma Territory in the late 1900’s.
Note how similar the figure is to the Tolar petroglyph.
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