Volume 15, 2002

La Vista de la Frontera Newsletter of the Center for Big Bend Studies Sul Ross State University A Member of the Texas State University System Volume 15 Spring 2002 Number 1 MUSINGS ON TRANS-PECOS ROCK ART The rock paintings and carvings of prehistoric and historic artist Forrest Kirkland, also during the 1930s (Kirkland and Indians of the Trans-Pecos have long captured the imaginations New comb 1967). of sci entist and lay man alike. Early accounts of explorers, trav- A seem ingly in sur mount able prob lem plagu ing ar che o log i- elers, surveyors, and sci entists make reference to rock art sight- cal efforts with rock art in the Trans-Pecos, and virtually every- ings, particularly in the Big Bend area of the Trans-Pecos where else, has to do with association and dating. In most cases region. Rock art of the adjacent Lower Pecos River region is it was—and still is—difficult or impossible to re late surface art recognized as being of world-class quality and importance, to buried cultural deposits at rock art sites, so the makers of the while the east ern Trans-Pecos is gen erally ackno wledged as art typically remain mysterious and unknown. Early efforts to having one of the more notable concentrations of rock art found date rock art were largely dependent upon the recognition of in the western United States. stylistic relationships with a few poorly known prehistoric cul- One of the first published descriptions of Big Bend rock art tures, thus greatly narrowing interpretive potent ials. From an was by none other than Charles Peabody of Harvard’s Peabody interpretive standpoint, rock art has tended to float in time and Museum (1909), who, with his wife, carried out an archeologi- space as archeologists and other scientists strugg led to discover cal reconnaissance of the Big Bend in a mule-drawn Studebaker and refine techniques of analysis. Only recently have wagon in 1908. The first two of many articles published by Big improvements in radiocarbon and other chronometric dat ing Bend pi o neer ar che ol o gist Victor J. Smith were en ti tled “In dian tech niques reached a de vel op men tal stage where ap pli ca tions Pictographs of the Big Bend in Texas” (1923), and “The Hu- to organic rock art pigments (pictographs) and weathering pati- man Hand in Primitive Art” (1925)—suggesting that it was the nas (petroglyphs) are within the realm of possibility. region’s rock art, rather than other kinds of archeological re- Following hard on the heels of expanded dating capabilities mains, that first captured Smith’s at tention and led him ulti- has been a resurgence throughout the world of int erest and the- mately into more broad-based ar cheological re search. While o ret i cal mus ings in the ar che o log i cal subfield of rock art stud- interest in rock art continued to grow during the 1930s and later, ies. Two studies that are of particular interest to Big Bend and there was only limited knowledge gained with respe ct to under- Lower Pecos River rock art afi cionados are those of Da vid standing or deciphering cultural meaning through rock art stud- Lewis-Williams and T. A. Dowson (1988) and David Whitley ies. Much of the early work directed toward rock art was by (2000). Lewis-Williams, who has conducted much of his re- artists and in terested laymen rather than archeologists and an - search on South Af rica and Paleolithic Europe, is in the fore- thro pol o gists. front of a significant group of rock art researchers who theorize In 1958 so cial an thro pol o gist Ron ald Berndt lamen ted the that virtually all pictographs and petroglyphs at trib ut able to fact that an thro pol o gists “only oc ca sion ally turn their at ten tion pre his toric, his toric, and mod ern hunter-gath er ers rep re sent to art, and then usually with some uneasiness” (1971:99). shamanistic art—that is, “art” cre ated by sha mans (diviners and Berndt attributed this phenomenon to the fact that cultural an- heal ers) de sir ous of ex press ing what they have ex pe ri enced thropologists who studied visual or graphic art in so-called and/or visualized during trances. Whitley’s work with rock art “prim i tive so ci et ies”—be cause of the sub jec tive na ture of de- in Cal i for nia also em pha sizes sha man ist ic or i gins in a North riving meaning from such studies—were open to charges of American context. In a similar vein, but closer to home, some moderating or ignoring the scientific method. Faced with simi- recent works of Solveig Turpin (e.g., 1994) and Carolyn Boyd lar stigmas, most archeologists also tended to avoid embarking (1996) have re fo cused at ten tion on sha man ist ic af fin i ties of the on studies that emphasized rock art. This is not to say that Lower Pecos River region’s spectacular pictograph panels. archeologists ignored rock art encountered during fieldwork, Lewis-Williams, drawing from the field of neuro-psy chol- but rather, that rock art was usually relegated to varying degrees ogy, further the orizes that at least seven basic geo metric de - of field recording with little or no follow-up in terms of analy- signs found in rock art throughout much of the world have sis, interpretation, or development of theory. In Texas and origins in drug- or stress-induced mental states similar to the some other ar eas of the country there were ex ceptional re cord- mental state achieved by a shaman while conducting healing or ing ef forts as ex em pli fied by ar che ol o gist A. T. Jack son’s early other rituals. These basic forms or elements, which include spi- survey of Texas rock art (1938), and the outstanding work of Pictograph from Fate Bell Shelter, Seminole Canyon, Val Verde Co., Texas (Kirkland and Newcomb 1967:46, plate 12, no. 4). has been pointed out by many researchers, this certainly is true of Archaic art of the Lower Pecos River region, and of many ex- amples of rock art in the Big Bend. There is also much art, how- ever, that may have nothing to do with the activities or thought processes of ritualists and healers. Clearly, the continuing de- bate promises to be both interesting and educational. —Robert J. Mallouf References Cited and Recommended Readings* Berndt, Ronald M. 1971 Some Meth od olog i cal Con sid er ations in the Study of Aus tra lian Rock Art. In Art and Aes thetics in Prim itive So cieties: A Critical An thol ogy, edited by Carol F. Jopling, pp. 99–126. E. P. Dutton and Com pany, New York. Boyd, Carolyn E.* 1996 Sha man ic Journeys into the Otherworld of the Archaic Chichimec. Latin Amer i can An tiq uity 7(2):152–164. Jackson, A. T.* 1938 Pic ture-Writ ing of Texas In di ans. Uni versity of Texas Publication No. 3809, University of Texas, Austin. Kehoe, Alice Beck* 2000 Sha mans and Re li gion: An An thro po log i cal Ex plo ra tion in Crit i cal Thinking. Waveland Press, Pros pect Heights, Ill. Kirkland, Forrest, and W. W. Newcomb Jr.* 1967 The Rock Art of Texas Indians . Uni versity of Texas Press, Aus tin. Lewis-Williams, J. David, and T. A. Dowson* 1988 Signs of All Times: Entoptic Phenomena in Uppe r Paleolithic Art. Cur rent An thro pol ogy 29:201–245. Peabody, Charles 1909 A Re connaissance Trip in West ern Texas. Amer i can An thro pol o - Route taken by Charles Peabody in 1909 (adapted from Peabody gist 11:202–216. 1909:203). Smith, Victor J. 1923 Indian Pictographs of the Big Bend in Texas. Pub li ca tions of the Texas Folk lore So ci ety 2:18–30. rals, dots, and zig-zags, are termed “entoptic,” or “inside the 1925 The Human Hand in Primitive Art. Publications of the Texas Folk- eye,” by Lewis-Williams. lore So ci ety 4:80–102. While the studies of Lewis-Williams and others are consid- Turpin, Solveig A.* ered by many to represent breakthroughs in rock art research 1994 On a Wing and a Prayer: Flight Metaphors in Pecos River and the ory build ing, some an thro pol o gists are be gin ning to Pictographs. In Shamanism and Rock Art in North America, ed ited by S. A. Turpin, pp. 73–102. Special Publication 1, Rock Art Foun- turn a skeptical eye toward what they consider to be overly am- da tion, San An to nio. bi tious the o ret i cal pa pers that ex ag ger ate and mis rep re sent the Whitley, David S.* role of the shaman in the creation of hunter-gatherer rock art. 2000 The Art of the Shaman: Rock Art of California. Uni versity of Utah Those critical of the “shaman’s art” theory even question the Press, Salt Lake City. appropriateness of the use of the term “shaman”—a religious leader found among northern cultures of Siberia and Lapland—by rock art re searchers to describe rit ualists in sim- ple societies throughout the remainder of the world. Cultural an thro pol o gist and critic Al ice Kehoe (2000:92) notes that even Siberian rock art cannot be definitively linked to sha- mans’ practices, and that “.

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