Transmorphic Being, Corresponding Affect: Ontology and Rock-Art in South-Central California

Abstract

This chapter examines the ontology of Indigenous South-Central California with a focus on the colorful pictographs of the Chumash. I argue that interpretations of rock art from shamanic perspectives has dehistoricized the art and cast imagery within essentialist cognitive terms, effectively curtailing the possibility of interpreting the images as something more than the standard outward expression of a universal neuropsychological function. By contrast, considering Indigenous ontologies affords a much better understanding of both rock art and Native perceptions of their environment, allowing us to move closer to an emic perspective and to appreciate Indigenous social dynamics and rock art in social rather than cognitive terms.