We have gotten so used to constant communication in our daily lives, that if we are lonely, we pick up the phone, if we need to get information to someone, we send them an email. If we just want to know what someone is up to, we log onto Facebook and check their update. It’s hard for some to imagine that just a few years ago, email was an anomaly, the average person did not have a cell phone, and Facebook, well, what on earth is that? And this was just a decade ago!
One hundred years ago, the main form of communication with people you were not going to see every day involved pen and paper. I am still fond of this form of communication – there is something special about the smell, feel, and sincerity of a honest-to-goodness letter. But as with today, pen and paper were not always practical or convenient 100 years ago, and alternative forms were used.
Up here in the Sierra Nevada, we are surrounded with a particularly unique form of communication, one that you may stumble across when ambling through the woods of Tahoe, Monitor Pass, or Bridgeport. Officially called arborglyphs, or tree carvings, this message system is conveyed through black scars in the soft white bark of trees (Populus tremuloides). The tree carvings that we see today in our region were primarily engraved in the 20th century by Basque shepherds during the summer months when they were grazing their flocks in the mountains.
Basque shepherds began arriving in the American West in the nineteenth century, drawn by a combination of factors including the gold rush and harsh political and economic situations at home. Their motherland sits in small corner of Spain and France, straddling the rugged Pyrenees Mountains, in a land that is marked on no maps except their own. While they have never been recognized as a sovereign country, the Basques maintain their unique culture, cuisine and language, which they brought with them when they immigrated to America.
Many of the immigrants became shepherds, even if they had not worked in this profession in Europe, because while it did require hard work and perseverance, it did not require knowledge of the English language. The Basque language, Euskera, is unrelated to any Indo-European language today. Many of the tree carvings left behind by shepherds in is this unique language. Interestingly, there is no record of Basques carving trees in their motherland. It is thought that they learned this art simply by observing carvings done by other Basque shepherds in the American West, dating back into the late 19th century.
The Basque shepherd carved aspens for a variety of reasons. Sometimes he was recording business matters such as claiming a campsite, recording when he arrived each year, when he left, and how many sheep he had in his band, or announcing who he was working for – whether he had a boss or was a ‘tramp’ working for himself. Sometimes he had a question or a piece of information for someone in particular, and he used the tree to deliver the news. Other times the shepherd would carve a question to no one in particular, even though he knew that he might not get a response for a year or more. But despite the wait, the tree continued to stand there, delivering the message to every shepherd that passed by.
The trees were used for more than recording and disseminating information. The aspens were also a medium for art. Poems were scrolled, pictures were drawn, and souls were poured opened with every stroke of the knife. Herding sheep in the least populated reaches of the American West can be an extremely lonely profession, and loneliness, isolation, and boredom were shared through the bark of the trees. And, as has been the case in many art forms, a favorite subject of these arborglyphs was women. Nude women can be found throughout the Sierra, sketched into the white bark of the aspen trees. Some of these carvings are of prostitutes who would visit the shepherds in the mountains; others are of women met in cities or of family members far away; others still were perhaps the figment of the imagination of these lonely shepherds.
While these carvings are viewed annually by hikers, skiers, sportsmen, and scholars, they were originally carved for the exclusive consumption of fellow herders. Some Basque scholars are hesitant to reveal the full meanings of the carvings, as the herders are still out there, tending their flocks. But all of the carvings out there now are not carved solely by Basque herders. Not including the random marks by Anglo hunters or hikers, around 15 percent of the carvings in existence today were carved by shepherds of Spanish, Mexican, Peruvian, and other Central and South American origin.
These carvings give us a glimpse back into our history. But this glimpse is fleeting. While some may live several hundred years, the average aspen lives only 100 years. Those carvings that were not recorded, or were too distorted by time and the elements, are already lost. Government agencies and scholars began to realize this, and several projects were funded in the 1980s and beyond to record the carvings before they were recycled into the earth.
Where you can learn more:
• ‘Speaking Through the Aspens: Basque Tree Carvings in California and Nevada’ by J. Mallea-Olaetxe, University of Nevada Press, 2000.
• The Basque Studies Program, Desert Research Institute, University of Nevada Reno (http://basque.unr.edu)
• Basque Library – Univ. Nevada Reno Library. 1664 N. Virginia St. Reno, NV
Phone: 775-682-5590
• US Forest Service (fs.fed.us/wildflowers/communities/aspen/moreinfo.shtml)
NOTE: It is illegal to carve on aspen trees on the national forests and grasslands!
