ROCK PAINTINGS at HUECO TANKS STATE HISTORIC SITE by Kay Sutherland, Ph.D
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PWD BK P4501-095E Hueco 6/22/06 9:06 AM Page A ROCK PAINTINGS AT HUECO TANKS STATE HISTORIC SITE by Kay Sutherland, Ph.D. PWD BK P4501-095E Hueco 6/22/06 9:06 AM Page B Mescalero Apache design, circa 1800 A.D., part of a rock painting depicting white dancing figures. Unless otherwise indicated, the illustrations are photographs of watercolors by Forrest Kirkland, reproduced courtesy of Texas Memorial Museum. The watercolors were photographed by Rod Florence. Editor: Georg Zappler Art Direction: Pris Martin PWD BK P4501-095E Hueco 6/22/06 9:06 AM Page C ROCK PAINTINGS AT HUECO TANKS STATE HISTORIC SITE by Kay Sutherland, Ph.D. Watercolors by Forrest Kirkland Dedicated to Forrest and Lula Kirkland PWD BK P4501-095E Hueco 6/22/06 9:06 AM Page 1 INTRODUCTION The rock paintings at Hueco Tanks the “Jornada Mogollon”) lived in State Historic Site are the impres- small villages or pueblos at and sive artistic legacy of the different near Hueco Tanks and painted on prehistoric peoples who found the rock-shelter walls. Still later, water, shelter and food at this the Mescalero Apaches and possibly stone oasis in the desert. Over other Plains Indian groups 3000 paintings depict religious painted pictures of their rituals masks, caricature faces, complex and depicted their contact with geometric designs, dancing figures, Spaniards, Mexicans and Anglos. people with elaborate headdresses, The European newcomers and birds, jaguars, deer and symbols settlers left no pictures, but some of rain, lightning and corn. Hidden chose instead to record their within shelters, crevices and caves names with dates on the rock among the three massive outcrops walls, perhaps as a sign of the of boulders found in the park, the importance of the individual in art work is rich in symbolism and western cultures. is a visual testament to the impor- tance of graphic expression for Hueco Tanks is no ordinary the people who lived and visited stopping place. The niches, shelters the area. The impressive outdoor and caves were places of religious art gallery, accumulated over the ceremony for Native Americans, course of thousands of years, from remote prehistoric times belongs to all of us and is a until the late 19th century. The reminder of our connection to Indians filled the hidden and secret the art of ancient peoples. places with sacred paintings repre- senting their beliefs and the world The oldest rock paintings found around them. Walking among the here were done by early gatherers rocks, climbing the boulders or and hunters, termed Archaic discovering a hidden niche is the Indians. Later, an agricultural best way to understand what the people (archaeologists call them ancient Indians felt when they 1 PWD BK P4501-095E Hueco 6/22/06 9:06 AM Page 2 came to Hueco Tanks – a place to which their descendants still come to perform religious ceremonies. Hueco Tanks is a distinctive and striking remnant of a dome of uplifted molten rock (technically called syenite) that cooled about 30 million years ago before it ever reached the surface. Weathering and erosion exposed and sculpted the present rock masses which, as a result, are heavily fractured and Overview of Hueco Tanks. Rising recessed with hollows that trap precipitously to a maximum height of and contain water, attracting ani- almost 450 feet above the surround- mals and humans. These hollows ing desert floor, three massive outthrusts are called “huecos” in Spanish, form a sacred trinity of cathedrals hence the name Hueco Tanks. beckoning the desert pilgrim. Because of available water, stands of juniper and oak, widespread at the end of the last Ice Age, survive here as small relict populations. A water-filled hueco. Over thirty million The surrounding desert, before years ago, molten rocks from an modernization and overgrazing, underground volcano almost, but not was a semi-arid grassland inviting quite, came to the surface. Weathering to deer and antelopes. Humans and erosion exposed and sculpted the have been coming here for close present fractured and hollowed-out to 11,000 years, drawn above all rock masses. The depressions became else by the water, along with the water-filled “huecos” (Spanish for animals to hunt and plants to use. “hollows”) for which the site is named. (Photo by Anna Toness Blubaugh) 2 PWD BK P4501-095E Hueco 6/22/06 9:06 AM Page 3 TECHNICAL AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Two important terms: yolk, plant juices and animal fats. Paints were applied with brushes Pictograph – an ancient painting made from yucca or human hair, or drawing on a rock wall, or by blowing pigments from reed usually within a shelter. Colors or bone tubes; finger painting used at Hueco Tanks are often was also employed. red, black, yellow and white, and sometimes green and blue. Petroglyph – a carving etched Red-and-green mask (see back cover or pecked on a rock surface for actual colors). This is the only that is usually weathered or example of green pigment (possibly patinated later, creating a turquoise) at Hueco Tanks. The star eyes contrast in coloration. are similar to the Star Katchina among the Hopi. This mask is above eye level and not easily noticeable. What was used for paint? (Photo by Anna Toness Blubaugh) Colors for painting came from available minerals. Hematite and limonite, for example, furnished red hues. Various shades of ochre Lumps of prepared color have produced red and yellow; carbon been found in shelters, along and manganese were used for with “paint pots” – small inden- black; white clay and gypsum tations in stone that were used yielded white; while oxides of to mix the colors. (In Europe, copper furnished green and blue. tubes made of hollow bone and The mineral hues may have been filled with color have been found enhanced with vegetable dyes and at cave-art sites.) Although as binders – most likely, urine, egg many different colors were used 3 PWD BK P4501-095E Hueco 6/22/06 9:06 AM Page 4 in Texas as in polychromatic The different groups of indige- European rock art, individual nous inhabitants of Hueco Tanks pictures using only one color are rarely painted over each other’s more common here than in the painting, perhaps out of respect Old World. That is not to say for the existing message. Modern that polychrome painting is “artists” have not been so not well developed in Texas – respectful and, disgracefully, witness, for example, the many their names can be found spray- varicolored pictographs found painted over many of the more in caves along the Lower Pecos exposed Indian paintings. and adjoining drainages. Because of remote location, most pictographs and petro- glyphs were, until a few years Why do the pictographs last so long? ago, still in excellent condition, despite weathering. Unfortu- Rock paintings bind to rock nately, vandalism has now begun through a process of aging. An to take a serious toll in even the experiment done at Hueco Tanks more remote sites. State Historic Site to determine at what point a painting binds to rock found that spray-painted The First Scientific Recording of graffiti binds after two years, the Rock Art at Hueco Tanks and that it cannot be removed without removing some of the On July 1939, in the heat of underlying surface. (Thus, if summer and with storm clouds graffiti more than two years old gathering overhead, Forrest and overlies a pictograph, removal of Lula Kirkland arrived at Hueco the unwanted markings unfortu- Tanks to record the rock art. It nately also entails destruction of was the last field trip Forrest was the rock art.) This binding of the fated to make. (A year later he paint is due to a weathering died of a heart attack at the age process that deposits a micro- of 49.) Forrest was a commercial scopic mineral glaze over the artist, who had discovered and pigmented area. fallen in love with rock art at a 4 PWD BK P4501-095E Hueco 6/22/06 9:06 AM Page 5 time when few people in Texas that it has never gone dry.) The knew or cared anything about slanting rock leading up to the the subject. Lula, his wife, cistern was polished to a glassy photographed and searched, surface by the many feet, Indian while Forrest quickly and adeptly and white, that had gone up for copied the images in watercolor. water. Reclining on the cool rock with the cool air coming from the Lula was impressed with this cave was a delightful experience “veritable oasis in the desert.” after our climbing over the hot She wrote in her journal, “These rocks looking for pictures, and huge piles of rocks catch rain over our heads on the top ceiling water in holes or crevices called of the shelter the Indians had tanks and keep it there clean and painted pictographs.” Lula contin- sweet for many months after the ued, “Comanche Cave is cold and rain.” At that time, Hueco Tanks so the Indians had air-conditioned was owned by Jesus Escontrias dwelling places in the middle of who charged people to picnic the desert before white men there. One of the first places the came to their country.” Kirklands found was “Comanche Cave” which, Lula wrote in 1939, As a visitor to Hueco Tanks, you “was like walking into an air- can go to Comanche Cave and conditioned building from a hot enjoy the same refreshing feeling street with temperature over one the Kirklands did in 1939. When hundred. The air that greeted us you near the cave, you will was icy cool and so refreshing.