Each year, the desert and pass-dwelling Cahuilla Indians followed summer's gradual arrival by moving to higher country of the San Jacinto Mountains. Living in harmony with the land and its blessings, the Cahuilla did not separate religion from daily life. These sacred paintings are symbolic of that relationship, and they have deteriorated at the hands of those not so respectful. The pictographs, or rock paintings, may be as much as 600 years old and were probably painted by young Cahuilla girls during the ceremony that marked their entrance into womanhood.