ASA001-394

Creator

• Charles Clayton Howe

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Creation Date

1949

Description

BLACK CANYON AND INSCRIPTION CANYON (SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA), 1949-1968 AND UNDATED (BULK DATES 1949-1958)

338 negatives: ASA001-364 – 701

Box 2. Box 6: 26 degraded negatives ASA001-408, 412, 427, 431, 434, 435, 436, 442, 443, 453, 468, 469, 471, 472, 473, 475, 512, 514, 515, 516, 532, 553, 556, 561, 626, 670

Twenty-seven sub-series in chronological order

Howe led many ASA trips to Black Canyon and Inscription Canyon, a small arroyo at the north end of Black Canyon (Pederson, 1956/1984; Howe, 1980). He found the bird petroglyph that ASA adopted as its logo; the bird is about 20 feet above the road and has a wing-span of over two feet (Pederson, 1953/1983). The petroglyph is unique in the area although a similar bird petroglyph occurs 120 miles away (Haenszel, 1972/n.d.). In 1953, the ASA posted a sign, “This is Black Canyon,” telling visitors about the canyon and asking them to “live in peace with this extraordinary place” (ASA, 1953/1984).

Charles LaMonk donated several of his reproductions of petroglyphs in Inscription Canyon to ASA (ASA LaMonk Nos. 9, 10, 14, 35, 38, 40, 69, 77 prepared in 1954 and ASA LaMonk no. 46 prepared in 1964).

Photographs include some taken in Inscription Canyon. This collection has no photographs of the ASA trip in June 1966 to attempt to repair damage by vandals (Howe, 1966).

Black Canyon, 1950

16 negatives: ASA001-387 – 402

Howe took this trip with Grover Reeder. ASA001-394 was published in ASA Bulletin (Blast from the past no. 3). The group of sheep with a “newborn” lamb (ASA001-389) may be conflation of man and sheep as seen by a shaman during a trance (Whitley, 1996). It has since been vandalized leaving only one-and-a half of the original ten sheep (Whitley, 1996).

Grove Reeder and petroglyphs

Rights

This image is provided for personal, educational, and non-commercial use only. For questions, please contact Pfau Library Special Collections and University Archives at (909) 537-5112 or archives@csusb.edu.