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Solveig A. Turpin
SIZE MATTERS: The Transition From Religious to Secular Art in the Lower Pecos Region
Figure 3. Two groups of Red Linear figures so high on the upstream wall of Fate Bell Shelter (41VV74) they can only
be seen with binoculars or telescopic camera lenses. Human reproduction, here evidenced by pregnant women, is a
major theme in this style.
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Solveig A. Turpin
SIZE MATTERS: The Transition From Religious to Secular Art in the Lower Pecos Region
Figure 5. A foreshortened version of the were-cougar (photo) in a shelter on the north side of Arroyo de la Babia,
compared to the classic image (inset) at the Panther Cave (41VV83) type site on the Rio Grande.
and La Mulata in the Serranas del Burro. Although some details may vary, this grotesque
image is generally characterized by a fuzzy body
and an elongated neck made of two parallel lines
crossed by one or more bars that may take the
form of the abstracted symbol for darts. Sometimes the creature seems to be swimming, other
times soaring or diving. This grotesque differs
from the anthropomorphs that are the focus of
most compositions in that it has no human characteristics and its distinguishing attributes are
not found in nature, yet it is probably the numerically dominant character in the iconographic repertoire of the Pecos River Style.
Despite these parallel constructs, there are
differences that may contribute to a better understanding of the role the mountains played in
the mythology or worldview of the Lower Pecos
people at this time. Some of the variability can
be attributed to geology and topography. In the
mountains, most of the painted shelters are high
under the canyon rims, with the broad sweeping vistas sought by mystics and vision seekers
hoping to attain spiritual grace. Some are far
from water, reached only by arduous climbs up
Solveig A. Turpin
Figure 6. The rabbit-eared pointy headed serpent figure (inset) at Rattlesnake Canyon (41VV180) near the Rio
Grande is reproduced at Los Galemes in the Serranas del Burro (photo).
SIZE MATTERS: The Transition From Religious to Secular Art in the Lower Pecos Region
Figure 7. Different shamanic characters line the back wall at San Vicente, side-by-side but separate.
All pictographs in the three sites with impalement scenes belong to the Pecos River Style;
there are no anomalous figures or scenes painted
by artists from a different tradition. Although in
three cases they are somewhat smaller, the central impaler figures share many characteristics
of the classic Pecos River shamans. They face the
audience with upraised arms, one has a hairy
body and another is a mirror image. The largest
is finger-painted red and yellow, the others are
either red or yellow. Other than size, the most
obvious incongruity is the identity of the impaled animals. Bison have never been part of the
Pecos River bestiary, presumably because large
herd animals could not survive in the Lower
Pecos until a cooler, moister climatic interlude
encouraged the shift from desert to grasslands.
Yet, the transfixed animals can be identified as
bison by a combination of elimination and ex-
Solveig A. Turpin
SIZE MATTERS: The Transition From Religious to Secular Art in the Lower Pecos Region
Figure 10. A group of small hunters appear to be driving a herd of bison into a trap. The yellow fringe at the top of the
frame is the remnant of a horizontal flying figure, a typical Pecos River Style theme.
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Solveig A. Turpin
cal record in several waystool types, settlement patterns, social organization, and art styles.
Migration from the north has been proposed
based on projectile point styles (Dibble and
Lorrain 1968), while iconographic and thematic
similarities have led other researchers to point
north and west (Mark and Billo 2009). Spanish
military accounts name groups from northern
Coahuila and Chihuahua who made seasonal
forays to the Lower Pecos to hunt bison in historic times (Turpin 1987), so there might be reason to believe they did so earlier as well. The
gap in the radiocarbon sequence suggests that
not all of these people necessarily painted on
rock; in fact I have long held the impression that
the Red Linear Style was developed elsewhere,
possibly in another medium, and applied to shelter walls, perhaps in imitation of the Pecos River
artists.
Within the Lower Pecos region, there are curious similarities between Red Linear warriors/
hunters and some figures at the unique petroglyph site at Lewis Canyon on the Pecos River
(Turpin 2005). The only bedrock petroglyph site
for miles in any direction, Lewis Canyon contains hundreds of glyphs pecked into the flat
surface surrounding a large tinaja. Two periods
of petroglyph production have been discerned
based on stylistic attributes and elevation within
the site: one set is dominated by sinuous lines,
atlatls, tracks, and human figures; the more recent group is comprised of discrete geometric
designs of undetermined age. Despite the constraints imposed by a more intractable medium,
a group of petroglyphs mnemonically called the
Fight Club consists of phallic males holding
weapons, much like those in the paintings (Figure 11), and in one case wearing a flamboyant
headdress (see Figure 11c). These figures are also
Archaic in age and apparently were made by
intrusive people accustomed to working in
rather than onstone. Little more can be said
given the singularity of the site, the vast number of abstract glyphs that bear no resemblance
to any of the pictograph styles, and our inability
to date either media.
Regardless of their origin, the influx of new
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SIZE MATTERS: The Transition From Religious to Secular Art in the Lower Pecos Region
people inevitably disturbed the social equilibrium at the same time that the old sources of scalar stress were erased by the relaxation of constraints. How the resident population reacted to
the intrusive people is a question yet to be addressed, but it is possible that some of them
moved south, avoiding conflict and retaining
their desert-adapted economy. One suggestion,
based on lithic assemblages, is that when the
trend to aridity resumed and the savannah retreated, the region was again occupied by people
moving north from Mexico.
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Solveig A. Turpin
Red Linear action scenes are narratives of everyday life with some artistic license adding
verve to familiar subjects. The El Rayo bison
hunts are moving toward the middle ground,
introducing a narrative thread while retaining
elements of the traditional style. The reductions
in size go hand-in-hand with increased mobility, perhaps as a matter of expedience as well as
the increasing irrelevance of monumental art.
For example, it would no longer be feasible to
accumulate and lug about football-sized stores
of pigment in anticipation of the next ritual
event, especially in a hostile climate. 7
The monumental pictograph panels were created as part of a complex system of cyclical
nucleation, aggregation, quasi-sedentism, sequential hierarchies, communal participation,
and ritual art as information pathway. When one
or more of these necessary and sufficient conditions deviated, the system lost equilibrium
(R. P. Schaedel, cited in Turpin 2004).The search
for a new balance between habitat, mobility,
group size, leadership criteria, external hostility, and cultural traditions is most clearly manifested in the archeological record by changes in
technology, settlement patterns, and art. These
processes continued to affect the cultural trajectory of the region until well into the 19th century
as is evidenced by the Red Monochrome, Bold
Line, and historic rock art, but never again does
the Lower Pecos achieve the cohesion that waxed
and waned in concert with the rise and demise
of the Pecos River Style.
Acknowledgments. The photograph in Figure
4 was taken by Herbert H. Eling, Jr., in Figure 5
by Walter Wakefield, in Figure 6 by Terry
Sayther, and in Figure 7 by Glen Galloway.
Cristina Martinez produced the drawings with
the exception of Figure 3, which is credited to
David G. Robinson. Billy Turner drew the map.
Reviewers Polly Schaafsma, Linea Sundstrom,
and John Greer drew my attention to lapses in
the presentation of information, and I thank
them. John deserves special mention for his commentary prior to reading the paper for me at the
ARARA meeting.
Notes
1
Newcomb (Kirkland and Newcomb 1967) first identified the central anthropomorphic figures in Pecos
River Style art as shamans, long before that interpretation became widely applied throughout the world.
His terminology has been retained by most subsequent researchers and refers specifically to the Pecos
River Style humanoids and not to figures in the other
styles. Support for his hypothesis is provided in detail in Turpin 1994a and 1994b; see also Greer and
Greer 2004.
5
There are exceptions. The site Mil Chamanes (Thousand Shamans) is so-named for the superimposition
that has rendered much of the site a dense blur of paint.
6
Kirkland copied an almost identical group of phallic men but with deer and possibly dogs in Black
Cave, one of the more unusual Pecos River Style sites
in Seminole Canyon State Park (Kirkland and
Newcomb 1967:67).
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SIZE MATTERS: The Transition From Religious to Secular Art in the Lower Pecos Region
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Solveig A. Turpin
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SIZE MATTERS: The Transition From Religious to Secular Art in the Lower Pecos Region
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