Reverential Art in a Land of Spirits and Panthers
by Bill Sontag
A
rtistic traditions span-
ning 1,250 years – all
emblazoned on can -
yon walls of the Rio Grande,
Devils and Pecos rivers – give
mute voice to Middle and Late
Archaic peoples and the silent
spirits they worshipped. Equally
clear is the reverence held by
these prehistoric Trans-Pecos
denizens for the flora and fauna
of which they were a part in the
Lower Pecos canyonlands.
Scattered westerly from the
confluence of the three rivers
are thousands of colorful fig-
ures clustered throughout the
region. Several may be seen by
those willing and able to make
the effort. Not surprisingly,
new comers are cautioned,
“You’ve really got to want to
get there to get there.” To some
sites, journeys are demanding,
while at others just seeing the
art can raise one’s pulse more
than the hike back to a parked
car or tour bus.
In 250 known Lower Pecos
panel sites of pictograph
images (painted, rather than
pecked or incised, as is the case
with petroglyphs), the ancients
made significant sacrifices to
record … Well, what? “We’ll
probably never know what
these images meant to those
who painted them,” goes the
shelf worn mantra of some
archeologists and rock art afi-
cionados of the Lower Pecos
cultural region. But that – some
say – is changing.
Dr. Carolyn Boyd, founder
and executive director of
SHUMLA, a renowned center
for education and research of
ancient Lower Pecos lifeways,
believes rock art in this region is
supremely functional, not a
matter of simple aesthetic re -
flection. In Rock Art of the Lower
Pecos, the 2003 published ver-
sion of her 1998 doctoral dis-
sertation from Texas A&M
University, Boyd ex plores the
intensely spiritual purposes of
the 4,000-year-old visions com-
mitted to limestone.
8
Map by Kerza Prewitt
“ A m e r i c a ’s s u b l i m e a n t i q u i t y
h a s t h e l u re o f a my s te r y
g re a t e r t h a n t h e r u i n e d c i t i e s
o f t h e o l d wo r l d .”
– Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad booklet, c. 1900
“Images are considered
sources of power; they are
potent and important. An art
object is valued in terms of
what it can do, socially and
spiritually, rather than what it
looks like. The art works – it
performs,” Boyd declares. She
believes early archeologists
failed to integrate understand-
ing of the rock art’s significance
with their disproportionate
emphasis on material culture –
woven sandals, atlatls, copro-
lites (feces), earth ovens and
lithic tools (knives, scrapers,
spear and dart points). This
oversight, Boyd explains, was
largely attributable to “Western
conceptions of art as superflu-
ous, decorative and non-utili-
tarian.”
Surely “Western concep-
tions” had little to do with de -
signs of the Great Sphinx and
the Second Pyramid of Giza,
Cenizo
Fourth Quarter 2010
built under the rule of Khafre,
fourth pharaoh of Egypt, circa
4568-4542 BP (before present).
So, only a paltry few centuries
before Archaic nomads here
began recording visions of spir-
itual transformation, gargantu-
an stone sculptures and tombs
of the Near Eastern deserts
grandly exhibited functional
relationships between art and
utility.
Cast-metal cooking pots
unearthed from the Bronze
Age of China are not judged
by contemporary standards of
“beauty,” but they do represent
a level of technology and sym-
metry when contrasted with art
of other civilizations. And the
National Gallery of Art’s Golden
Age of Chinese Archeology, edited
by Xiaoneng Yang, explains
that archeologists assign a
graceful, 4,000-year-old, 9-inch
painted pottery jar to the
Lower Xiajiadan culture, craft-
ed during the earliest stages of
Lower Pecos rock art. Both ves-
sels are contemporaneous, on
opposite sides of the world,
with early Lower Pecos-style
rock art.
Though several styles and
periods of art are seen in the
Lower Pecos, Boyd has focused
her energies on the polychro-
matic (multicolored) panels
painted between 4,200 and
2,950 BP across this sprawling
region, roughly the size of
Connecticut. She is most con-
cerned about erosive influences
that threaten the paintings:
events such as flood damage in
narrow canyons, insect infesta-
tions, scouring effects of wind-
borne dust and sand and traffic
by livestock seeking cool sum-
mer shade and shelter from
winter’s “blue northers.”
Brainless, unreasoned van-
dalism has taken a toll in some
sites, too, though most accessi-
ble rock shelters are under the
watchful, educated eyes of
interpretive guides doubling as
resource stewards. Still, neo-
phytes to the rock-art experi-
ence – and a few who return
after long absences – lament
the art’s eroded condition. To
which, some docents and
guides quip, “If you think this is
bad, ask your local Sherwin-
Williams dealer for house paint
guaranteed to last 4,000 years!”
Using chemical analyses
and accelerator spectrometry
radiocarbon dating, archeolo-
gists have determined the age
and composition of the