"Goats and Shaman Design" Woodcut by Jeanne B. Hillis

"Goats and Shaman Design" Woodcut by Jeanne B. Hillis

VISIBLE IMAGE: 8" x 19"
ARTIST: Jeanne B. Hillis(**see comments for link)
Artwork is titled and signed by the artist

This woodcut has a some damage near the center goat's mouth. I've started to restore the damage and it's looking better already. There is a envelope taped on the back that has a 1967 mail stamp from the Dalles area. Not sure what significance the sender and receiver have to do with the piece. And the envelope is empty.

In the early 1950s the Dalles Dam in Oregon was nearing completion. Artist Jeanne B. Hillis was racing to make rubbing of as many of the petroglyphs as she could before the valley was flooded.

DALLES DAM PROJECT
In the 1950s, the U.S. government funded the Dalles Dam Project to build hydroelectric capacity for the Northwest and beyond. The project was completed in 1957, but the rising waters behind the dam forever changed a stretch of the river valley separating Washington and Oregon.

FOREVER CHANGED
As water began to rise behind The Dalles Dam, the landscape would forever change. The wild stretch of the Columbia River was flooded and submerged salmon-rich Celilo Falls, the Long Narrows below it and hundreds of ancient sacred petroglyphs.

SACRED LANDS
The lands had been a gathering place for people from the Warm Springs, Yakama, Umatilla, Nez Perce and other tribes. Some lived there permanently, while thousands more visited seasonally to harvest spawning salmon, to practice their religion and to join the annual opportunity to trade and socialize.

"The petroglyphs -- drawings that were chipped or ground into rock to depict tribal legends, hunting scenes and mysticism -- are evidence of these gatherings. One narrow slot just above the river had so many thousands of drawings that it was named Petroglyph Canyon."

ATTEMPT AT SAVING HISTORY
In an attempt to honor these people and their history,, it was decided to recover as many petroglyphs as they could. In 1996 43 petroglyph-covered rocks were moved to Washington's Columbia Hills State Park, formerly known as Horsethief Lake. The park is also home to Tsagaglalal, "She Who Watches," one of the most famous rock images in North America.