Good afternoon All, Our good friend, Dr. Nancy Belk, veterinarian extraordinaire, asked us a question last week about dogs in prehistory, and we thought we’d some of our comments with you. Dogs have an illustrious place in the religious lives of people all over the world. They are often portrayed in artwork as escorting the dead to the afterlife. For example, a carved peccary bone from a Mayan site (A.D. 700) at Tikal shows a dog and his master, now in the guise of Corn God, travelling in a dugout canoe on the surface of the watery underworld. Ceramic vessels dated to this period depect what appear to be Mexican Hairless dogs. Similarly, from about 300 B.C. to A.D. 300, around 80% of Preclassic tomb shafts contain ceramic dog vessels. Some show grossly overweight, seemingly hairless dogs, with barrel chests and short legs, while others depict emaciated animals with patterns that look like wrinkles. Entire dogs or dog skulls are often found next to human burials, particularly in the San Juan basin of the American Southwest. They appear as guardians both of human souls, and of entrances to sacred structures, where we find them buried. They also play important roles in Puebloan rituals. The Dog Dance, Tse’share, at Taos, San Juan, Santa Clara, and Nambe pueblos, prominently features dogs. The male dancers (dogs) have a cord attached to their belts by which they lead woman through the Dance. Dogs are also central to stories. The San Juan tale about the “The Envious Corn Girls” tells of a dog who chased Sweet Corn Girl after she’d been transformed into a fox through envy and was patiently trotting after her husband. The storyline is reversed in “Little Dog Turns around,” where Little Girl Dog assumes the guise of a human woman and is selected by Rising Star as his mate. When she bears him two children–puppies, naturally–Rising Star’s family is shamed. This is a good lesson–choose your mate carefully! Dogs are important, too, in curing rituals. For example, Kwe’lele, the patron katchina of the Big Firebrand Society at Zuni, provides his sick patient with four cakes during a cure. Three are eaten by the sick person, one is thrown to a dog who absorbs the sickness, and thereby cures the patient. Dogs can also have an “evil” context. A Taos pueblo tale says that witches can take the form of a black dog, and this has interesting implications for archaeological sites. At the Homol’ovi’ I site in Arizona (an 1,100 room pueblo that dates from A.D. 1290-1400), for example, before two ceremonial kivas were abandoned young dogs were sacrificed. In one particular example, the puppy, probably 2-3 months old, was placed on a large potsherd, then a stone was placed over the dog’s body. One of the fascinating things about these types of burials is that we know human witches were buried with a stone over their bodies to keep the soul in the earth. Did the people who buried the dogs believe they were really witches who had shape-shifted? Or perhaps they just wanted the soul of the dog to remain as guardian forever? And the dogs came in all varieties. At White Dog Cave in Arizona, a Basketmaker II site dating to around 400 B.C., there were two dog burials. The larger dog was a white, long-haired, animal that died at age two and was about the size of a small collie. It had a long bushy tail and erect ears. The other dog was smaller. About eight months old at death, the dog was black-and-white and about the size of a terrier. He had short hair, erect ears, and a long full tail. One of our favorite Mimbres bowls (from the Pruitt Site in New Mexico) shows a black-and-white dog standly proudly with his head and tail high. Another (from the Ron Beckwith collection) shows a hunter holding his bow over his head to protect it while two large dogs leap up to affectionately lick him. All in all, dogs were at least as important, and perhaps more so, in prehistoric societies as they are to us today. For everyone out there who has a dog, please give him or her a pet for us. Regards, Mike and Kathy