The black streaks on the sandstone
walls above the White House Ruins. These streaks, known as desert varnish,
are formed by seeping water, which reacts with iron in the sandstone.
The iron is what gives the walls their reddish tint. To create the
canyon's many petroglyphs, Ancestral Puebloan artists would chip away at
the desert varnish. Later, the Navajo used paints to create pictographs of
animals and historic events, such as the Spanish military expedition that
killed 115 Navajo at Massacre Cave. Many of these petroglyphs and
pictographs can be seen if you take one of the guided tours into the
canyon. White House ruin probably received it's name from the white
plaster that still clung to the walls of the upper pueblo when the ruins
were discovered by early white explorers.
