Haleets (also called Figurehead Rock) is a sandstone
glacial erratic boulder[1][2] with inscribed
petroglyphs on
Bainbridge Island, Washington. The Native American
Suquamish Tribe claims the rock, on a public beach at
Agate Point on the shore of
Agate Passage, as part of their heritage.[2] The exact date the petroglyphs were carved is unknown but is estimated to be around 1000 BCE to 400 or 500 CE, the latest date being when
labrets (worn by one of the petroglyph figures) were no longer used by
Coast Salish peoples.[3][4]
Haleets is the
Coast Salish name of the rock, also transcribed as Halelos, Xalelos and Xalilc, meaning "marked face".[5] It is known in English as Figurehead Rock. Its purpose is unknown but the
Suquamish Museum curator and archivist Charlie Sigo has stated that it may have been a boundary marker.[6] An
amateur astronomer has proposed a theory that it has a calendrical function (see
Archaeoastronomy).[2][6][7][notes 1]
The rock is 5 feet (1.5 m) tall and 7 feet (2.1 m) long. It sits about 100 feet (30 m) offshore,[6] and has been marked with chiseled and drilled
Coast Survey features since 1856, and a bronze
geodetic mark was placed on it in 1934.[8] Some sources say that the rock is one of three prominent Salish Sea petroglyphs that were always on the shoreline,[9] but tectonic activity around the
Seattle Fault may have put Haleets in the intertidal zone.[notes 2]
Footnotes
^Bainbridge Island Historical Museum 2012: "The petroglyph lies precisely west of the
Skykomish canyon 60 miles away. Standing at the petroglyph on the vernal and autumnal equinox, one can view the rising sun shining straight through the canyon."[3]
^Alcalá 2013: "Within human memory, Laxelks, now called
Wing Point, fell about three feet during an earthquake."[5]