THROUGH
MOUNTAIN MISTS
Early Settlers of
Their
Descendants...Their Stories...Their Achievements
Lifting the
Mists of History on Their Way of Life
By: Ethelene Dyer Jones
Track Rock Gap
– “Datsu’nalsagun’ylu” – Cherokee for
“Where there are tracks”
I first saw the rocks with
etched figures at Track Rock Gap when I was a child.
My father took my younger brother and me there one Sunday
afternoon. It was a long trip from our
home at Choestoe, some five or more miles away. That
adventure of exploration began a sense of curiosity about things
prehistoric that has not waned. Since
then, I’ve read whatever I could find about the tracks in rocks, and
still the answers as to their origins are buried in antiquity.
The Georgia Historical marker placed at the site in
1998 gives ideas about the petroglyph on the large soapstone
rocks. Dr. Matthew F. Stephenson who was an assayer of the U.S.
Government and served as Director of the Branch Mint in Dahlonega,
Georgia. visited the site and wrote about it in 1834. This was
before all the Cherokee had been moved out of the area.
He admitted to his own vandalism of chiseling off some of the
soapstone petroglyph to take with him. In his journal, he tells the experience of
visiting Track Rock Gap.
“As we approached
it (the mountain), the heavens, which for several days and nights had
worn a brightened countenance, began to scowl and threaten…We advanced
with quickened pace to the foot of the rock…then commenced the lifting
out of one of the tracks. Notwithstanding,
I believe I possess as little superstition as anyone.
Yet I could not suppress a strange sensation that pervaded
me…The first strokes of the hammer were responded to by a large peal of
thunder…and the most vivid lightning…soon a deluge of rain was
precipitated upon our offending heads.
“I
continued, however, to labor until I succeeded in disintegrating the
impression of a youth’s foot, which I carefully wrapped up, and
prepared to leave…looking backward in momentary expectation to take
vengeance…As I passed the confines of the mountains, the rain ceased,
the sun broke out, and all nature resumed her cheerful aspect.” [Reprinted in Souther
Family History by Watson B. Dyer,
1988, p. 419).
In 1867, John Muir, conservationist and naturalist, took an
unprecedented journey by foot which he called his “1,000-Mile Walk to
the Gulf.” On that trip, he was told by a
sort of self-appointed guide, a mountaineer in the area, of the petroglyph on rocks in a Gap in the
Muir wrote this in his diary: “September 19.
Received another solemn warning of dangers
on my way through the mountains. Was told by my worthy entertainer of a wondrous gap in
the mountains which he advised me to see. ‘It
is called Track Gap,’ said he, ‘from the great number of tracks in the
rocks. Bird tracks, bar tracks, hoss tracks, men tracks, all in solid rock as it
it had been mud.’ “
Archaeologists
disagree about the dating of the stones. The
historical marker placed by the Georgia Department of natural Resources
states that speculation as to the origin of the carved figures is
anywhere from 8,000 to 1,000 B. C., the Archaic Period, or even
younger, the Woodland Period, (1,000 B. C. to 900 A. D.), or the
Mississippian Period (900 – 1500 A. D.) or
even the
Cherokee who were the last Native Americans to inhabit the Gap.
James
Mooney in his history and legends of the Cherokee,
gives several explanations relative to the Cherokee period. One is that the rocks were etched by Cherokee
hunters as they rested in the gap, leaving behind etchings that are a
sort of graffiti.
Other
myths about the soapstone markings are that the tracks were made by
animals as they were driven through the gap. And
even farther back, when the earth was young, that the great canoe that
carried two of everything during the earth’s destructive flood came to
rest on the rocks while they were soft, and the animals alighted, thus
to leave the imprints.
If,
indeed, the etchings are a part of Native Americans’ belief systems,
those symbols can be found. Their meanings
are given:
Human
Figure – etched in a trance-like position – worship, submission
Tracks
of animals and birds- spiritual helpers of mankind, indication of spiritual flight
Circle
and Cross- four directions (N, S, E, W) on earth, or the winds
Dual
cup and oval – fertility
Oval
and bar – fertility
Feet-travel
– travel to the spirit world
Cup
holes – place where corn, other hard food, medicine or paint were ground; fertility rituals
Concentric
circles – Sun Symbols, entrance to the spirit world.
Time,
the elements and vandals to the site have all combined to remove
portions of six large boulders on which were once prominently displayed
these mysterious petroglyph.
But a visit along the old Cherokee Indian Trail at Track rock
Gap should still excite the curiosity of anyone who sees the markings.
An
old tradition holds that it always rains when anyone visits the spot. The Cherokee believe that the Great Spirit
dwelt in the hills above Track Rock Gap, and when anyone intending harm
to the sacred grounds intruded, his displeasure was demonstrated by a
violent and frightful storm.
According
to Matthew F. Stephenson, that indeed did happen in 1834 when he
removed a portion of the stone.
Another
myth recounts how the Great Canoe came to rest on the soapstone rocks
following earth’s great flood. It says,
too, that on moonlit nights, ghosts of those who were not saved from
the flood can be seen dancing on the rocks, forever lamenting their
failure to take safety when warned that a flood would destroy them.
As
a young child, I was fascinated by the Track Rock and the stories Dad
told me of the place. Today, as I revisit
it and take friends to see the petroglyph,
I am still awed at the “Datsu’nalsagun’ylu”—where
there are tracks; and “Degayeelun’ha”
(printed, branded place).
Walk
carefully there. It is sacred ground.
c2003 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published
[Ethelene
Dyer Jones is a retired educator, freelance writer, poet, and historian.
She may be reached at e-mail edj0513@windstream.net;
phone 478-453-8751; or mail