A Shield and Spear Petroglyph from Central Kansas: Some Possible Implications

A petroglyph in central Kansas evidently rep resents a pedestrian carrying a large shield and spear. Situated near the 16th-17th century To bias (Wichita Indian) site, and perhaps associated with it in time and origin, ethnohistoric data suggest that the figure may represent one of the non-horticultural Plains Indian groups, such as the Escanxaques, whom the Spaniards met here in the early 17th century. A review of the relevant ethnohistoric, historical, and archaeolog ical evidence discloses no proof that the Indians of this region were using the spear at the time of their first recorded contacts with the Spanish in the 16th and early 17th centuries but that they had acquired it by the second or third decade of the 18th century. Among a series of simple petroglyphs carved into a Dakota sandstone ledge at the W. B. Peverley spring site <14RC10) nine miles north east of Lyons, Rice County, Kansas, is one of unusual nature and more than ordinary interest. The site is a tree-sheltered scarp, facing north, with a fine spring at its base. The spring origi nally drained into a small, normally dry, creek running east by north to the Little Arkansas River. A few hundred yards to the north, beyond the dry creek, is the Kermit Hayes No. 2 village site and council circle, 14RC13 (Wedel 1959:490, Fig. 91). There are at least five other closely related village sites within two miles along the Little Arkansas River. Most conspicuous in the petroglyph under consideration is a series of concentric circles, deeply cut into the rock surface but irregularly drawn and spaced (Fig. 1; see also Wedel 1959: 490, PI. 77b). The outermost circle averages about 6 inches (15 cm.) in diameter, the inner most about one inch (2.5 cm.). The second circle in from the perimeter is incomplete at the top, so that here only 6 circles can be counted as against 7 elsewhere in the figure. A straight line extends diagonally upward from the right-hand margin of the outermost circle to a distance of about 5 inches (12.7 cm.) where it ends in a triangular point. At the opposite side, a probable continua tion of the line runs diagonally down and to the left for about 2!4 inches (6.4 cm.), where it terminates in or beneath a haphazard set of lines whose meaning is obscure but which are deeper and appear to be of more recent origin than the circles. The two diagonal lines on opposite sides of the circles are almost certainly intended as representations of a spear whose middle portion is hidden behind a shield depicted by the concen tric circles. At the top of the outermost circle is a wedge-like appendage about an inch (2.5 cm.) high, which evidently represents the head of the shield-bearer. Below, are the legs and feet, shown in profile and with no suggestion of the bend at the knees. The total height, feet to head, is 8 inches (20 cm.). Locally often interpreted as an Indian spring symbol, with the "arrow" suppos edly pointing in the direction of the next water supply, the petroglyph represents without much doubt a standing human figure bearing a large shield which conceals all of the bearer except his head and feet, and carrying a spear. I know of no comparable figure among the petroglyphs which have come to my notice in Kansas or elsewhere in the Central Plains. Petroglyphs featuring human figures carrying large shields are well-known from other sections of the western United States (Gebhard 1966), notably from the Fremont culture area in Utah and western Colorado. Renaud (1936:38, PI. 7) notes their presence at Castle Garden and other localities in Wyoming, as well as in eastern New