Photographed in the morning, rain started falling within four hours.
The Blackfoot name for the phenomenon of Parhelia is “the Sun paints his cheeks”.
In reality you cannot see a rainbow arching over a sun symbol as they have to be opposite each other in the sky.
p. 26, Steven R. Simms, Traces of Fremont Society and Rock Art in Ancient Utah, photography by Francois Gohier, University of Utah Press, 2010.
In Landscapes of the Spirits: Hohokam Rock Art at South Mountain Park (2002), archaeologist Todd Bostwick wrote about the meteorological connotations of bighorn sheep in the American southwest. “Ethnographer Amadeo Rey has noted that no other animal was treated with such awe and reverence by the O’odham as the mountain sheep. Called “Cheson” by the Northern Pima, the bighorn sheep was closely associated with the wind. Some villages had shrines dedicated to the wind and Cheson. Parts of the mountain sheep are very powerful; both the hides and horns must be kept in a safe, respected location to avoid insulting the wind and bringing on violent storms.” The rainbow is, of course, seen at the end of the storm, so a rainbow on a bighorn sheep horn might represent a prayer for a safe end to storms.
