White Shaman & Law West of the Pecos

Saturday, 6 February 2016 (Part II)
Seminole Canyon SP Campground — Comstock, Texas
Temps: Hi 67F (19C) / Lo 35F (2C)

After two great days of activities at Seminole Canyon State Park and Historic Site (post here), we went off today to explore what the area has to offer outside the park boundaries.

But first, I had something special I wanted to experience — sunrise at Maker of Peace, that wonderful sculpture that stands near the visitor center and overlooks Seminole Canyon.  In describing the symbolism inherent in the sculpture, Ranger Tanya had mentioned that if we stood in the right place at the right time during sunrise we could capture the sun within the circle below the bird.  It turned out to be a very serene — spiritual really — experience in the quiet solitude of the desert.

With a great deal of patience, I managed to get the shot I was looking for … and a few others to boot.  I already posted my favorite in the teaser post for Seminole Canyon … here are two more.

Mui and I wait patiently for the sun to be captured by the circle under the bird.

[If you’d like to see more of the sunrise photos, start with this one in my online gallery and click through to the others.]

So, on with our day outside the park.

After packing some snacks, we apprised Mary and Tony of our plans and set off at 10:30a to check out the Pecos River High Bridge … just a few short miles west of the park.  With directions from Ranger Tanya, we found the TDOT picnic area just off US90 where there is an overlook with a great view of the High Bridge, and the river up- and downstream from it.

This is the highway bridge over the Pecos … not to be confused with the
bridge that the Southern Pacific built in 1891 to carry trains over the river.

Constructed in 1957, the bridge is the fourth one built in the general vicinity.  Standing 273 feet (83 m) above the Pecos River, it is the highest highway bridge in Texas.  The first bridge, which was built in 1923, was a mile downriver — only 50 feet (15 m) above the river … it was destroyed by a flood 31 years later.  Two temporary bridges followed in 1954 and 1955 … they too were destroyed by floods.  You know how they say “Don’t Mess with Texas,” right?  Well you obviously don’t want to mess with the Pecos River either … best to stand clear of it ;-)

Panorama of the Pecos River … to the left is where the river joins the Rio Grande.  It’s a little hard to make out, but if you look closely you can see where it is silted up at the confluence. 

Since we had plenty of time before our next planned activity — located practically across the road from the overlook — we dallied quite a bit here … even taking time for a ‘snack-with-a-view’ ;-)  We then read the three information panels and learned that the Pecos is where the “… mythic wild west begins, the land that produced the legendary Judge Roy Bean and fabled Pecos Bill.”  Finally, we drove across the bridge to what we thought was an access road that would take us down to the banks of the river, but it was closed.

A great place to enjoy a snack-with-a-view.

When the appointed time came for our 12:30p tour to visit the Galloway White Shaman Preserve, we pulled up to the easy-to-miss-if-you-aren’t-looking-for-it gate to the property and joined two archeologists from the Shumla School and a very small group of hearty hikers.

Welcome to the Galloway White Shaman Preserve.

Convoying onto private lands, we parked our vehicles and listened to all the warnings about taking our life into our own hands … that’s an exaggeration, but this hike to see the world-famous White Shaman pictographs is not for those with knee, back, or heart problems; nor is it for those who have mobility or balance issues.  Seriously!!!

Before heading down into the canyon, we stop at a replica Hunter-Gatherer
Lifeways Camp where Jerod tells us about the bust cast from a mummy found
nearby.  The pedestal is as high as this hunter-gatherer would have been.

I have no pictures from the trail.  That’s because I was carefully watching where I put my feet on the narrow, steep, and boulder- and loose-rock strewn path we used to descend 250 feet (76 m) into the canyon.  I know that doesn’t sound like much, but the warnings issued by the guides are to be heeded.  What beheld our eyes when we reached the rock shelter where the panel of 3000-year-old pictographs is located was worth every bit of the effort it took to get to it — as was the suggested donation of $10pp … money well spent.

Can you guess which figure is the namesake of the preserve and this rock shelter?

Our guides smartly gave us all a chance to check out the pictographs and photograph them before inviting us to sit in the shade of the overhang to hear the interpretation of the figures — a recent achievement thanks to the efforts of their boss, artist-turned-archaelogist Carolyn Boyd.  Fascinating to say the least — but much too long a story to repeat in this post.  If interested, this article about the site makes for an interesting read.

Seated in the shade of the White Shaman rock shelter, our group listens to Vickie relating
the story imparted by figures that archaeologists previously believed to be unrelated.

The short story is that Boyd believes the rock paintings here relate to the Huichol myth of creation — a concept that seems to have been confirmed by the reaction of the Huichol shaman she brought to the site in 2010.  The myth goes something like this:

Led by a sacred deer, the first humans traveled through the underwold in the west and emerged at Dawn Mountain in the east.  The deer sacrificed itself for the people, and they killed it with a spear to provide sustenance for themselves.  After the deer died, peyote sprouted from its body and antlers, and when the people ate the meat, they were transformed into deities.  Thus the cosmos began.

This is the panel of pictographs that we were all awed by … Dawn Mountain is on the left.

It’s been determined that the different colors of paint were laid down in a very specific sequence: black first, then red, yellow, and white.  This has led to the conclusion that there had to
be some preplanning of the scenes depicted by the artist(s) who painted the story.

A human figure with deer antlers tipped by black dots representing the
peyote that sprouted after the deer was sacrificed to sustain the humans.

We spent just short of an hour at the shelter … and would have stayed longer except that our guides had to get themselves over to Seminole Canyon to lead a tour to the Fate Bell Shelter.   After today’s experience, I can’t help but wish that we had done the Rock Art Foundation tour to see the pictographs there instead of visiting the site on the ranger-led tour.  With our new-found knowledge, we would have gotten a better appreciation for them.  Oh well … perhaps another time.

Panorama from inside the White Shaman Rock Shelter; the High Bridge and Pecos River are in
the distance.  The pictographs are where our guide is standing on the left side of the cave.

[More photos from our White Shaman experience are in my online gallery.]

After the tour, we continued west on US90 about 15 miles (24 km) to Langtry — notable for one very colorful character: Judge Roy Bean … the self-proclaimed “Law West of the Pecos” during the last decades of the 1800s.  He operated a saloon — which he named the Jersey Lilly after the British actress he was infatuated with … Lillie Langtry.  He even put up a sign on his house, declaring it the “Opera House, Town Hall, and Seat of Justice” … the first part of it in hopes of luring the actress here.  It never happened, and he never met her … though he may have seen her perform in San Antonio.  Judge Bean meted out swift justice out of his saloon, calling a jury together from his customers.  He was frequently cited as the ‘hanging judge’, but no records have been found to prove that he had ever sentenced a man to death in that manner.

The Jersey Lilly Saloon with the attached Billiard Room (replica) on the left; the
visitor center, with exhibits about Bean and brochures on Texas sites, is on the right.

Left: The current saloon is the smaller one Judge Bean built after the first one was burned down.

Right: Judge Bean holding court on the saloon porch in 1900, trying a horse thief.

Judge Bean’s house wasn’t really an opera house, but he put up a sign anyway in
the hopes of attracting the British actress he was infatuated with to the town that
he claimed he named for her.  The Southern Pacific Railroad records indicate the
town was named for one of their foremen.  An odd coincidence indeed!

While it was interesting to see the buildings associated with Judge Bean and wander through the exhibits in the visitor center/museum, the part of our visit to Langtry that I most enjoyed was the Cactus Garden Interpretive Trail on the museum grounds.

The Eclipse Windmill in the cactus garden was a model sold as a kit around 1900.  It
would be shipped out on the railroad and erected at the well site to provide power
to bring to the surface the water that was vital to survival in this desert environment.

Glimpse of the Langtry Church from the Cactus Garden.  The tall plant in the middle
is a Spanish Dagger I believe.  The small plants with the long stalks are Sotol.

[For those interested, I have more photos of our visit to Langtry in my online gallery.]

We returned to the campground in time to enjoy a lovely sunset.  Though it was far from warm, we bundled up and the Z’s joined us at our picnic table for munchies and adult beverages as we watched the setting sun wash the desert in a golden hue.

Tomorrow the Z’s and the E’s roll their Phaetons to Big Bend National Park.

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