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The Rock Art Of The Blood Of The Ancestors Grotto (11sa557): The Archaeology Of Religious Theater, Lenville J. Stelle

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

11SA557 is a pictographic rock art site in the Hill Section of southern Illinois. To date, 33 icons, both simple and complex, have been identified. The distinctive biophysical qualities of the site have compelled an interpretation that it was in some fundamental sense “female.” Ethnohistorical and ethnographic explorations inform a treatment of 11SA557 as a religious theater where female puberty ceremonies of the Dhegiha Sioux were performed. Exploitation likely dates to the Protohistoric period. Twenty-one elements of religious theater are explored archaeologically and ethnographically. The application of the heuristic model of religious theater afforded a measureable enhancement of the understanding …