Pictograph of a large dog leaping at a deer, from one of the Anasazi Pueblo houses in the Chaco Canyon. This is probably a magical, shamanistic event as the deer appears to be transforming into a human being, or a human being into deer.

The valley was the cultural center until about 1130 C.E., from as early as 800 C.E. The people of the Chacoan culture were star observers, and the latest date for them in Chaco Canyon has often been given as 1054 C.E., because the pictographs include a celestial event on July 4 of that year, when a super nova was visible on the horizon.

So many of the pictographs do represent stellar or supernatural-world events, but at the same time reflect earthly conditions, as well as underworld conditions since the pinwheel sky vanished into the land of the dead by day.

The dog capturing a transforming partly human creature is most likely associated with a long forgotten myth of the underworld, as similar myths are still known among indiginous people further south, in Central America.