Aboriginal rock paintings, or pictographs, are common through the southern interior of British Columbia. With few exceptions they were painted with red-ochre pigment, probably originally mixed with animal oil or fish eggs as binding agents. They depict a tremendous variety of subjects, ranging from simple maps, through hunting scenes, to mythological and spiritual figures. This rock painting, in the Okanagan area of the southern Plateau, seems to represent a supernatural creature. Such designs may have been created by adolescents on ritual solo quests for a personal guardian spirit. Most surviving pictographs are believed to be no more than 200-300 years old, although none have been positively dated.
