WHO: Polly Schaafsma, Santa Fe archaeologist and leading authority on pre-Hispanic Indian rock imagery and kiva murals; recent author of Talking to the Rain: Paintings and Carvings on Stone in Chihuahuan Desert Landscapes.
WHAT: A FREE, noon-time lecture, "Talking to the Rain: Rock Art and the Rio Grande Tradition in the Lower Chihuahuan Desert"
WHEN: Wednesday, November 18, 2026, 12:00 – 1:00 pm (MDT)
WHERE: in person--WNMU Besse-Forward Global Resource Center ABC Room at the corner of 12th and Kentucky, Silver City, NM. ZOOM: visit WILL.community or request link from
ABOUT: This presentation will address petroglyphs and rock paintings in the Lower Chihuahuan Desert made by desert farmers between ca. 900-1400+ CE. Comprising a distinctive complex in regard to both style and content and in general referred to as the "Jornada Style," it consists of masks or faces, a goggle-eyed rain deity, ritual scenes or performances, a rich selection of rain symbols and metaphors, a wide variety of local fauna, as well as representations of the Horned and Feathered Serpent. Pictorial Mimbres pottery designs are a sub-set of this art complex. The Jornada Style ideology was later adopted by the Ancestral Pueblos to the north largely following the collapse of Pueblo communities in the late 1200s. The Jornada Style shaped what is often regarded today as Pueblo art and cosmology featuring kachinas as well as pottery, cotton metaphors and landscape symbolism that is characteristic of contemporary Pueblo ceremonialism and rain rituals.
SPONSORS: Western Institute of Lifelong Learning (WILL), Grant County Archaeological Society (GCAS), Gila Native Plant Society (GNPS)
LINK with more info and photos: WILL.community
CONTACT: Henry Provencio, Lunch and Learn Coordinator,
