Branded Horses Captured in Stone: What a Horse Petroglyph May Reveal About Potential Early Colonial Encounters

Rock art across the Four Corners region can offer interesting and incredible details.  These details can signify natural motifs, cosmological movements, tribal identities, iconographic styles, and symbols pointing toward collective language and memory, and so much more.  But every so often, a detail emerges that is so specific, so historically anchored, that it can have the power to reshape how we understand certain moments in time or even how people considered artistically representing the world around them. 

On a field trip with some colleagues some time ago in Northwestern New Mexico, we came across this striking petroglyph of a horse.  Not only are its style and technique uniquely beautiful, but it also features a certain detail on its front shoulder that is just so striking and cool.  It is a brand.  This brand speaks to a certain moment in time, perhaps even of the most consequential moment of time in the Four Corners region, the contact between Indigenous communities and the earliest waves of Spanish colonists.

The appearance of horse brands carved into petroglyphs can sometimes be overlooked.  Yet they are important and they carry vital clues about artistic works in the American Southwest and clues about what was important for the artists to symbolically communicate.

These small marks—at times, no more than a cross, a bar, or a number—carry a real story about cultural engagement, cultural adaptation, and the particular subjective view (or put another way, the artist’s eye) of the Indigenous artists themselves.

Fig. 1. Petroglyph horse with brand

A Spanish Horse?

In this petroglyph, the horse has the shape of a Spanish horse.  It definitely exhibits all of the typical characteristics of the Spanish Andalusian-type horse, such as the thick neck, full tail and mane, as well as the shape of the head. 

This aligns with what we know of Coronado’s Entrada into the American Southwest in 1540 and the subsequent spread of Spanish livestock throughout the Southwest.  After all, the Spanish brought their horses, and their sheep, and their cattle, and much more.

But the most striking feature is not the horse’s form—it’s the brand carved onto its right front shoulder.

The inclusion of this detail is extraordinary, as mentioned.  Indigenous artists were potentially not only depicting a new animal; they were documenting the cultural technologies that arrived with it. 

Spanish Branding Traditions

In examining the question whether this brand resembles early Spanish brands:  Historically, Spanish brands were ornate, consisting of ranchers’ initials and/or crosses, geometric shapes, curls, and twists (New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum). Yet the brand on the petroglyph of this horse is simple, closer to a plus sign or a Roman numeral.

Figure 2, Certain Spanish-type brands

This simplicity is echoed in some famous pictographs and petroglyphs witnessed in Canyon de Chelly; for instance, the “+” and Arabic numeral “4” brand (see images below).  Indeed, and this is worth meditating on, this "4" symbol is the first time the Navajo people are witnessing and recording the Arabic numeral "4"! And they do a pretty good job at replicating it!

These Canyon de Chelly examples reinforce the idea that early colonial brands in the region were not always elaborately designed. 

By the way, it is understood that these pictographs and petroglyphs were made by the Navajo people who witnessed Coronado enter into Canyon de Chelly in his Entrada.

This is a subtle but important point:  Indigenous artists were attentive enough to capture the design of a brand.  And they recorded not only the presence of horses, but the specific brands used by the Spanish as well. 

Figure 3, Images of the Spanish entering into Canyon de Chelly riding on their branded horses

Figure 4, Close-up images of the horse brands in Canyon de Chelly

Brands as Historical Anchors

From these artworks we learn two things:  That when the Spanish arrived in 1540 at Canyon de Chelly they were riding horses that had brands, and that those brands were not the usual ornate designs that were typically used south of the border at that time.

This is a rare moment where rock art, ethnohistory, and colonial livestock and branding practices intersect.

Because Spanish and Mexican brands were not officially recorded before 1884 in New Mexico, identifying early marks is notoriously difficult (New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum).

So far, I have found no real match to this brand in the New Mexico ranchers’ brand logs, at least not pertaining to horses specifically. 

Though the 1907 New Mexico Brand Book does reveal a nearly identical brand.  It is registered to Lino Zamora, where the brand is placed on the “Left Rib Cattle (LRC)” and “Left Shoulder Horse (LSH).”  It looks like this:

Figure 5, 1907 New Mexico State Brand Book

But Zamora’s operation is located hundreds of miles to the south of where this petroglyph horse was discovered.

While Zamora’s brand doesn’t prove a direct connection, it may highlight how certain brand forms persisted across centuries; or perhaps Zamora’s horse was stolen and ran off and ended up 500 miles to the north and west of his operation.

I propose that this brand type has persisted for hundreds of years, and that it may be emblematic of an early Spanish type.  In fact, there is an example of this symbol featured at El Morro National Monument, along the petroglyph trail (again, 500 miles from Zamora's ranch).  As such, this symbol may be related to the Spanish occupation of Zuni Pueblo in the early years of the Spanish incursion into the Four Corners region.  Much more can be said about this, and more needs to be researched along these lines.

Why Indigenous Artists Included the Brands

This is where the story becomes especially compelling.  Indigenous artists of the Four Corners region were not passive observers of colonial intrusion.  They were acute ethnographers—documenting the arrival of horses, riders, weapons, clothing, and livestock management practices like branding.

If our horse petroglyph was produced by an Indigenous artist, including the brand in the artwork may have served several purposes:

Recognition

Branding symbols act as identifiers.  Recording them may have helped communities track which outsiders were moving through their lands.

Observation

By depicting the brand, the artist may have been highlighting the foreignness of the horse itself. Further, the artists were painting and carving Spanish-type horses; they were documenting the breed characteristics of Spanish horses—a distinction that may have important implications.

Visual Memory and Symbolic Cues

Rock art often functions as a mnemonic device or as symbolic memory (or language even; cf., semasiography,” a symbolic visual language).  The brand, then, becomes part of the story of first contact, preserved for future generations; an important detail recording an incredibly important time.

A Small Detail with a Potentially Big Story

The presence of branded horses in Four Corners petroglyphs is a reminder that Indigenous artists were chroniclers of their world.  They captured the arrival of new animals, new technologies, and new forms of power with remarkable clarity.

It is a testament to the precision and sophistication of Indigenous visual record‑keeping.

Special Thanks to the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum, especially Liz Higgins and Donna Wojcik. Liz Higgins

Report prepared by: Donna Wojcik

By Tom Christian, PhD (c)