Hidden Away Right Here

Thomas Doty – Storyteller

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Most panels of native rock carvings and paintings contain several images. Read together, they tell a story, map an area, give directions to some place of importance, commemorate an event, locate a sacred place.... But every so often I come across a symbol tucked away by itself, almost invisible unless you're looking for it. All alone.

Here are four from my homeland of southern Oregon and northern California. The first is at a good camping spot in the Cascade Mountains, the second at an ancient village on the shore of Tule Lake, the third is the cornerstone of an Old Time sweat lodge along the Klamath River, and the fourth near the entrance to a medicine cave above the Rogue River. All of them generally say, with slight variations, "This is the place!" And so it is.