Rock on.............

People first came to Seminole Canyon area 12,000 yrs ago, when elephant, bison, camel, and horse roamed the landscape.

Seminole Canyon is the site of one of the best concentrations of pictographs anywhere in the world, and an archeological and historical preserve.  It’s 2100 acres, and holds 72 recorded sites ranging from 7000BC to present .

Sculptor William Worrell's rendition of a Shaman pictograph, a bronze statue that leads to the trail to the caves.  The artist calls it "Maker of Peace". 

May 21, 1994

The Artist's Interpretation

"Through observation of their pictographic imagery, it is thought that the Ancients of this area believed the power of their shamans allowed them to enter altered states of existence.  With this in mind, I have chosen to depict  The Maker of Peace as a personification of the whitetail deer, primarily because such an identity marks an important link between this animal and the lifestyle of the Lower Pecos culture.  The deerskin, shown here as a cape, signifies the shaman's spiritual leadership, while the antlers represent wisdom, maturity and regeneration."

To see these now, you can only go with a ranger, to protect the art.  What an interesting tour it was.  Besides learning so much about the process of the early people’s creation of this rock art, we learned of desert survival, plant usage for food and medicine.. 

It's a moderate hike, though with lots of steps

We pass first more 'modern' rock painting.  The early surveyors left their marks in many sites, sometimes right over the paintings.  We humans have been leaving our mark for thousands of years, even to today, the ranger reminded us.  To remove these, you wind up removing the original art, so it's all left on.

These pictographs were painted with a mixture of various minerals, depending on the colors desired: manganese, calcite, limonite, hematite.  The mineral was ground up, mixed with spit or urine, with bone marrow from an animal, and soap from the sotol plant as the emulsifier.  When you think of how crucial the bone marrow was for nutrition to these early people, the fact that some marrow would be used for art records of their lives, shows how important the paintings were to them.

In this Fate Bell Shelter, a huge cave, which is one of the oldest cave dwellings in North America, there are extensive murals in the Pecos River Style.

Ok, this was very, very cool  This is a compass stone, in addition to being a work stone.  In the front center, above the holes, is a curve of rock that points due north.  There are other marks to show the other three directions.  As the ranger pointed out their way of marking direction, she placed her own compass on the stone.  Next thing we knew, one of the fellows on the tours pulled out his IPhone, with the compass app on the screen, and we had 4000 years in one photo of humans' figuring out where they are in the world!

I managed to be the last one in the cave, and got the moment to photograph our group, to give you some perspective of the distances and beauty of the cave setting.

I can't tell you the deep gratitude I felt to have the opportunity to see these rock paintings, and to look out on the landscape from this cave shelter.   And thank you, Leslie, for staying with our nut-case of a dog, who couldn't be left alone for us both to go on the tour.  This was a stunning tour!

Here's the Pecos River, as we crossed it, leaving Seminole Canyon.  What you can't see about this photo is that it was taken at 11:11 on 11/11/11.   Honestly.  If you were here, I would show you the tag on the photo!  

On to Big Bend N.P.             RJ