Arborglyph

Arborglyphs, dendroglyphs, silvaglyphs, or modified cultural trees are pictures or symbols carved into the bark of living trees. These carvings come from old cultural traditions but also happen today.

Many lovers carve their names or initials into trees. These carvings can last for many years and show the lasting love between the couple. This idea goes back a long time. For example, the ancient writer Callimachus wrote about carving names on tree bark. The Roman poet Virgil also talked about writing love messages on trees.^[1]

People in Renaissance England also did this, as shown in the works of Shakespeare and John Evelyn.

Carving into tree bark can hurt the tree. The bark protects the tree like skin protects a person. When the bark is cut, it can let diseases or bugs get inside the tree. This can harm the tree’s cells and stop it from moving water and food properly. Sometimes, diseases can even spread from one tree to others nearby through underground connections. Because of this, many places have signs asking people not to carve into trees.

People all over the world have carved special designs into trees that have cultural or spiritual meaning. For example, Indigenous Australian people in places like New South Wales,^[2] Western Australia, and the Northern Territory have done this.^[3] In Latvia and Estonia, some people carve a cross on a tree when someone dies. In Dalarnas, Sweden, girl shepherds made tree carvings called Fäbodsristning in the 1600s, which are now kept in a local museum.^[4] In the western United States, shepherds and hunters carved pictures on aspen trees, called arborglyphs.^[2] The Chumash people also made carvings showing stars and planets.

In Western Australia, there are big trees called boabs with carvings on them. In 2021, researchers from four universities worked with Aboriginal communities in the Kimberley region to study these carvings. They used special cameras to make 3D pictures of the carvings.^[5] In 2022, they shared their findings about carvings in the Tanami Desert.^[6] These carvings tell stories about the Lingka (King Brown Snake) Dreaming track across the desert. Many carvings show snakes, but some also show emu and kangaroo footprints, shapes, and, in the western areas, crocodiles, turtles, and Wandjina figures (spiritual beings).

In the Chatham Islands (called Rēkohu) of New Zealand, the Moriori people made special tree carvings called momori rakau. These carvings show Moriori ancestors and symbols from nature, like flounder (patiki) and albatross (hopo). The carvings are made on the bark of "kōpi" trees (Corynocarpus laevigatus), which have thick, soft bark. The trees with carvings are found near old settlement sites where people lived, marked by middens (old trash heaps). The carvings were made between the 1600s and about 1835, when the Māori people came to the islands. Most carvings seen today were made in the 1800s.^[2]

In the 1940s, many fallen trees with carvings were found in 31 places on Chatham Island and at Te Puinga on Pitt Island. A survey in 1998 found 147 carved trees in five places on Rekohu, with 82 trees at Hapapu.^[2]

Most carvings show people, often with ribs visible, similar to X-ray style art found in other Pacific areas. Some carvings might show the dead because some figures have their knees pulled up to their chests, like how Moriori buried their dead in sand dunes. There are also carvings of animals like flounders, birds, and one seal found on Pitt Island. Other carvings show tree shapes, weapons, and many trees have horizontal ring-like carvings.^[2]

The best-known momori rakau carvings are at Hāpūpū / J M Barker Historic Reserve. The carvings and trees there are protected by a fence and are part of one of only two National Historic Reserves in New Zealand. The fence was built in 1980 to protect the carvings from animals, and the trees are now recovering well.^[2]

Aspen carvings are pictures and writings cut into the bark of aspen trees by shepherds, many of whom were Basque, Hispanic, Greek, or Irish Americans. These carvings, called arborglyphs, have been found across the Southwestern United States, from northern California and Idaho to Colorado and New Mexico.^[7][8] Basque immigrants from the Pyrenees came to work as shepherds in the mid-1800s. They spent many lonely hours in the forests and carved drawings and poems into the aspen trees using knives or even their fingernails. One expert has recorded about 20,000 carvings in California, Nevada, and Oregon, mostly from the early 1900s.

The carvings turn darker over time as the tree heals. Aspen trees usually live about 100 years, but carvings have also been found on dead, fallen trees. The carvings show dates, names, and detailed drawings, sometimes with sexual themes. The artists often signed their work, especially the Basque shepherds who used cursive writing. The more private or erotic carvings are usually unsigned. These carvings often show the lonely life of shepherds. Today, wildfires, diseases, and natural decay are destroying many of these carvings.^[9]

A group of aspens with Basque carvings in the Steens Mountain area of southeastern Oregon is protected as Oregon Heritage Trees.^[10]

In 1997, the USDA Forest Service started a project to record and study these carvings in the Fremont National Forest near Lakeview.^[11]

There is a special carving called the Chumash Arborglyph^[12] on a tree known as the "scorpion tree" near Painted Rock in Carrizo Plain, California. It shows the stars moving around Polaris (the North Star), including the Big Dipper (Ursa Major).^[13]

Paleontologist Rex Saint Onge saw this tree in 2006 and realized it was carved by the Chumash people, Native Americans from the area. The carving shows a lizard-like figure with six legs, about 3 ft (0.91 m) tall, with a rectangular crown and two big circles. The Chumash also painted similar designs on rocks in California.^[13]

Saint Onge was not the first to think the Chumash art had to do with astronomy. In the 1970s, anthropologist Travis Hudson wrote a book called Crystals in the Sky, combining his study of Chumash rock art with old cultural information collected by ethnographer John P. Harrington.^[13]

The lower part of the lizard carving actually shows how a shadow moves during the year. The Chumash made this using a tool like a sundial, where a stick points to the North Star. The lines on the rock show the shadow's path on the days of the solstices and equinoxes, which were important to the Chumash culture.^[12]