Painted Rock Looking In

On the upper ridges of painted rock there are hand made mortars where the Chumash Indians used pestles to grind Datura (aka jimsonweed). The ground Datura root would be mixed with cold water. Usually a specialist prepared and administered it. The Datura was usually taken to get the user in touch with the supernatural, to find a dream helper (usually a spirit animal), or to contact the dead. After ingesting it, the recipient would often pass out for 18 to 24 hours while he dreamed or had visions. The effective dose, one that was strong enough to cause visions, was only slightly less than a fatal dose. A person who wanted shamanistic power would take Datura many times to become “a knower of spirits”. It's thought that the pictographs were painted by shamans as a way of working magic. You can barely make out remnants of some of the pictographs on the left side of the photograph above where the rock start to appear gray on the bottom. The Chumash don't appreciate photographs being taken of the pictographs, so the ones appearing in this photo are far away. Some of the pictographs have been chipped off and the rock itself bears a lot of graffiti including carvings from the early 1800s.