IS CAVE PAINTING ART
Okie Teeya
preserving the rock art and other features of one of the southwest’s most
valuable historical sites. Not widely known about, Hueco Tanks has long
been a picnic favorite of El Pasoans. I began going there as a child,
gingerling traveling by car over boulder-strewn ranch trails and flash-
flood washouts to reach the site. Along with thousands of others, my
granddad and my dad carved our names into the rocks back in the days
when the land was private and Indian artifact hunting was un-restricted.
We kids loaded our pockets with arrow heads and pottery shards which I
added to my already-large collection gathered during my daily play in
the desert areas in which I then lived. When Hueco Tanks became a
State Park, all of those latter-day names and works of art were
obliterated by sandblasting. All but a few that is, that date from the last
part of the 19th century. Graffiti over 50 years old is
considered historical and protected.
Following are excerpts from an article appearing in the Austin American
Statesman that anyone can read the full text of by going to the
Statesman’s web site:
EL PASO— Hueco Tanks State Historical Park, a desert enclave of rock
and caves, creosote bushes and oak trees, once was a haven for Ice
Age hunters and a spiritual meeting place for native tribes from both
sides of the Rio Grande.
With thousands of rock paintings, the park "is the Sistine Chapel of the
Pueblo Indians," said Kay Sutherland, an anthropology professor at
St. Edward's University who has been studying the rock art at Hueco
Tanks since 1973.
Now the 860-acre park 32 miles northeast of El Paso is the flash point
for a cultural clash over recreational and spiritual use and the
protection of priceless drawings on the rock and other archaeological
treasures dating back 12,000 years. The park has experienced a
dramatic increase in intentional and incidental damage to the rock art,
prompting the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to impose use
restrictions and take a new look at how such historic sites are managed.
After nine months of planning and public meetings, Texas Parks and
Wildlife last week announced a series of restrictive measures designed
to reduce damage from public use and to satisfy the unique demands on
the park from hikers, rock climbers, Native Americans and others. The
rules, which limit the number of people allowed in the park and restrict
some areas to guided tours only, go into effect Sept. 1.
The park attracts about 70,000 visitors a year, with rock climbers
accounting for about 65 percent, Sierra said. In recent years, he said,
"we started getting more people coming just to see the rock art and just
for birding."
The damage has been cumulative and accelerating through the past 50
years. In explaining the importance of protecting the art, Sutherland said
there is evidence in the drawings at Hueco Tanks of some of the
beginnings of Southwestern Pueblo culture.
"The art represents the movement to a humanistic tradition," she said.
"The masks have faces. There are more painted facial masks there than
any other site in the United States. They represent a movement toward a
human input into nature."
Sutherland said she believes the foundation for much of Southwestern
Native American religion and culture had its beginnings in the Hueco
Tanks area, based on the dating of some of the figures to about A.D.
600.
"Texas Parks and Wildlife should pay homage to that," she said. "We
should pay attention to Native American voices and not disrespect their
beliefs about it."
Tlaloc is depicted many times in the cave drawings at Hueco Tanks as a
bug-eyed, somewhat scary deity peering down from cave ceilings. He
appears at times alongside drawings of jaguars in conical hats, which
depict high rank. Tlaloc also appears next to animals such as bighorn
sheep and horses and even abstract art.
To make their paints, artists used pigments extracted from plants and
rocks, combined with animal fats and human urine. They drew intricate,
complicated figures for spiritual reasons and to depict battles famous in
tribal lore.
But the elements that attracted native tribes to Hueco Tanks—water,
food, sanctuary—also attracted Spanish conquerors, European settlers,
stagecoach travelers, military campers and eventually, 20th century
visitors intent on picnicking and hiking. There were even attempts to
develop the land for housing, though that failed.
The word "hueco" means hollow in Spanish. The natural hollows in the
rock, some enhanced by the Plains Indians, served as tanks to hold
water. Use of hollows dates back at least 10,000 years, into the last Ice
Age.
There are more than 3,000 paintings in the park depicting religious
figures, caricatures, dancers and ceremonial clothing, corn, animals and
lightning, among other subjects. Only about 50 percent of them have
been recorded by archeologists. The oldest drawings were done by
hunter-gatherers, probably at least 8,000 years ago. Later residents and
visitors included the Jornada Mogollon, pueblo dwellers who also
painted on the rock walls at Hueco Tanks. Apache and other Plains
Indians arrived by the 14th century and overlapped with the coming of
Spaniards, who were followed by Mexicans and Anglos.
20th century use has ranged from Native American ceremonials to
attempted development, artifact scavenging and containment as a state
historical park.