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- FEMALE NARRATOR:
"Texas Parks & Wildlife" television series,
originally known as "Made in Texas" got its start.
To celebrate this milestone, we're taking a look back
at some of the interesting stories and unique characters
that we've discovered over the past three decades.
In 1987 we traveled to the western part of the state
to experience the beauty and mystery
of the rock art of Texas.
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- NARRATOR:
was once home to hundreds, perhaps thousands
of roaming tribes of people.
We have evolved into a far more complex society,
leaving behind our desert past.
But in so doing, we've lost valuable moments
from our history.
Waiting to be uncovered deep in hidden mountain ranges,
among the canyon walls are the captured moments
of a time gone by.
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At the place where the lower Pecos River meets the Rio Grande
can be found one of the richest legacies of Rock Art
in the United States.
Within these secluded rock shelters, once home to
prehistoric people, are strange and mysterious art forms.
They are the only lasting remnants of a people
unknown to us today.
These pictographs, drawings or paintings on rock surfaces,
have become one of the most puzzling mysteries
to solved by modern man.
[music]
- MAN: The thing about rock art is that it tells you something
about a long gone people that you don't get in any other way.
- NARRATOR:
Dr. W. W. Newcomb, Jr. was one of the first people to author
a book that takes an in-depth look at the rock art of Texas.
- It still does things for us in terms of emotional impact
on people.
I know an anthropologist who when he first saw some
of the giant, I call them Shaman figures in the lower Pecos,
cried.
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- NARRATOR:
every person who encounters it?
Perhaps it is the massive size of some of the panels which
can range well over 15 feet in height and span more than
100 yards across.
And there are the mystical figures thought to be Shamans,
spirit forms of a past culture which create a strange
and mesmerizing effect.
They give the feeling that you have entered into a sacred tomb
and glimpsed a forbidden place.
You become aware of their simplicity, their subtle yet
formidable beauty which draws you towards a more complex,
perhaps sacred message if only you could summon the vision
to decipher its meaning.
- The most difficult style for me is the Pecos River style.
It's rather enigmatic and people tend to see a great deal
of psychological expressions and it really gives you
very little concrete about what the people were doing.
It's mythical.
And that's the one that I believe we're going to have
a lot of trouble with because I don't if modern man can
understand the myths of the people that were painting
those pictographs.
- NARRATOR:
But from dating archeological remains found in the area
scientist believe these pictographs were probably
made five, perhaps nine thousand years ago by a hunting,
gathering people.
This rock art is considered to be among the finest
in the world.
Many of the rock art sites are located in far,
out of the way places.
For those with the inclination and determination to venture
into the seemingly uninteresting and inhospitable desert,
there waits a spectacular treasure.
Seminole Canyon State Park located 45 miles northwest of
Del Rio houses two of the most famous rock art sites,
Fate Bell and Panther Cave.
Because vandalism is a major problem, Fate Bell is open
to the public by tours only.
Panther Cave is accessible only by boat and is protected by a
12 foot high chain link fence.
For the most part, the pictographs remain in tact
and remarkably represent some of the finest preserved
in the area.
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Located just 22 miles northeast if El Paso, nestled within
the bolson of a mountain range is Hueco Tanks State Park.
It's an oasis hidden behind a forbidding rocky enclosure that
was formed 34 million years ago by an upthrust of molten rock.
Centuries of weathering formed deep depressions in the rocks.
These depressions are called Huecos which is
Spanish for hollow.
The Huecos collected sparse, but valuable rain water.
Soon, this place became a sanctuary, a place of refuge
for many desert nomads who made their way to the tanks
and left behind them traces of their visits.
By far the most impressive relics are the crude yet
complex images painted or pecked on rocks.
- MAN: And we may say it's crude, but he only reason
we say it's crude is because of the materials they had.
A lot of the rock art is not crude, some of it is extremely,
finely done.
Some of it actually looks like it's been stenciled.
- NARRATOR:
What did they use for paint and brushes?
Just look around you.
Take a leaf from this Yucca plant and scrape away the
waxy coating to expose fibers underneath,
and you have a paintbrush.
Take the pigment from this rock and grind it down into a
fine powder, then mix it with the juice from
the root of a plant and you're ready to paint.
- If we want the paint to stay on so that if it gets wet
it doesn't come off, we need a binder.
So what we need is pigment, binder and vehicle.
Now a binder is some sort of glue that will adhere
the paint onto the surface that you are going to paint.
Basically the oil, the sap, the egg white, these are all binders
that act as glue to adhere the paint onto the rock.
- NARRATOR:
rock wall and have it exist for thousands of years,
but that is indeed the case.
- All of these are natural pigments that if you left them
laying on the ground they would retain their color
for an eternity.
And if you put them on the rock it's going to stay on the rock
as rust color and it will last for an eternity.
- NARRATOR:
and thousands of years, yet tomorrow it may be gone.
The major threat to the these pictographs is not natural
causes but man, who in his ignorance has destroyed
many rock art sites.
Our greatest challenge is educating people about the
treasures that lie here.
[music]
Will this rock art be here for our children to experience,
to learn the lesson that it teaches, to learn to look
not with the eyes alone, but with the heart?
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