"Giant figures etched in desert earth, depicting the Creator and his mountain lion helper"
Blythe Intaglios
Blythe, California, USA
In the Colorado Desert, fifteen miles north of Blythe, six colossal figures lie etched into the earth. The largest stretches 171 feet—a human form visible only from above, created by scraping away dark desert rock to reveal lighter soil beneath. The Mohave and Quechan peoples identify these figures as Mastamho, Creator of Earth and all life, and Hatakulya, the mountain lion who helped bring the world into being. For centuries, the geoglyphs remained known only to those who walked this land.
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Quick Facts
Location
Blythe, California, USA
Tradition
Site Type
Coordinates
33.8004, -114.5382
Last Updated
Jan 5, 2026
The Blythe Intaglios were created by ancestors of modern Yuman-speaking peoples, possibly the Patayan culture, between 900 BCE and 1200 CE. No specific tribe claims authorship, but the Mohave and Quechan acknowledge the figures as sacred representations of Mastamho the Creator and Hatakulya his mountain lion helper. The figures are part of a larger sacred landscape containing over 200 intaglios across the Colorado Desert.
Origin Story
The Mohave and Quechan share a creation narrative in which Mastamho made the Earth and all life. He created the Colorado River by driving his spear into the Rocky Mountains, sending water flowing toward the homeland of the Yuman-speaking peoples. The geoglyphs depict Mastamho and Hatakulya, a mountain lion who assisted in creation.
According to traditional Mohave songs translated by anthropologist A.L. Kroeber, two feline brothers—Hatakulya (mountain lion, with hanging tail) and Numeta (jaguar, with upright tail)—departed ways somewhere to the north. Hatakulya came south. The animal figures at the intaglios may represent moments in this journey. Similar figures near Fort Mojave in Arizona, showing 18-foot-tall forms resembling Mastamho and his twin Kataar, suggest a landscape-wide mythology inscribed in earth.
Importantly, no tribe claims that their ancestors physically constructed the intaglios. The figures are not tribal property but sacred sites embedded in a cosmology shared among Colorado River peoples. They mark places where mythic events occurred—traces of divine activity rather than human creation.
Key Figures
Mastamho
Creator deity in Mohave and Quechan tradition
Hatakulya
Mountain lion helper in creation
George Palmer
Pilot who first reported the intaglios to Western audiences
Boma Johnson
Ethnographer
Spiritual Lineage
The Blythe Intaglios are the most famous of over 200 intaglios scattered across the Colorado Desert. This larger pattern suggests a tradition of geoglyph-making among Colorado River peoples that extended across the region. The Patayan culture (700-1550 CE), ancestors of modern Yuman-speaking peoples including the Mohave and Quechan, is one archaeological candidate for the builders. Radiocarbon dates range widely—from 900 BCE to 1200 CE—making cultural attribution difficult. If the animal figures represent horses rather than mountain lions, this would suggest creation after Spanish contact (post-1540), dramatically altering the timeline. Most scholars favor a pre-contact date, but the question remains open. The intaglios belong to a broader category of large-scale earth art found in deserts worldwide, including the Nazca Lines of Peru. However, direct comparisons risk obscuring the specific Yuman cultural context of the California geoglyphs. These figures are not generic desert art but representations of particular deities within a particular cosmology.
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