00:00.00 archpodnet Go. 00:00.00 Alan Welcome back gang. We're on the third segment this is episode 1 oh one and we're blessed and honored to have Eve Ewing talking to us about great mural rock art of Baja California Mexico eve you were talking about cracks and about try to understand the axis moonday. And that's where we left it please pick up the story. 00:20.80 Eve Hope. Ah yeah, oh well I think I'll focus I mean there's so I think it's really important to point out that many caves have many different functions and meanings. Ah. Quava fletchus across from cuva pintata faces the morning sun and that is important for what it's trying to say quava pintata faces the west which is the setting sun and um the the these these are an important concepts. And and minds you that that things like the sun. For example, goes through all free worlds. It comes it. It comes out of the underworld on the from the east and rises and goes up through the layers of the sky and comes down and then sets into the. PacificOcean and disappears under the world and it has all kinds of adventures. Um, in cultures have all sorts of stories. What happens to the sun and the underworld and then it comes up again the next day but it goes through all these worlds are interconnected. Moon is another one that that will behave in this way sometimes an animal is either invented or they like like in cuva pentata south gallery which has enormous paintings some of them I think are painted at about 40 01:53.51 Eve 2 to forty six feet above the floor of the shelter were to this way. Not certain how they they did that. Ah and not. You know we don't know quite whether they use scaffolding or very very long cane poles with paint and. And anyway Ellen Moore is in the process of writing a book about all of that and I hope I know she will be covering all that kind of wonderful information. But what's interesting is that the people are all in motion and Harry talks about this in his book is ah. Ah, and the people are all the people are all stationary and the animals are all in motion and um, it. It's if the and the thing we need to remember about early societies is is that everything was alive. Everything was alive. The rocks the the thing you know and um, ah the the rocks appeared to be have spirit in them. Ah Steve Waller who talks about the sound of of echoes as kind of. Has ethnography that shows that people believed that the rocks themselves were animated by spirits that would would talk back and things like that. So the rocks are alive and people are painted in them in a very stationary permanent way. 03:25.15 Eve They're not in motion their arms are up and in a very reverent sort of manner and their feet are flat on the ground painted it pointed out to the side. They're not tiptoeing. They're not flying. They're not doing there just there and the animals are painted. They're. Rushing past them are painted on top of these people and I think I remember Elanie's studies well enough to have that correct on the whole in pintata at least now. I'm going to focus on 3 air main areas of that cave which has hundreds of photo of paintings in it. Um I I don't know how many exactly I should know right off the tip of my tongue ellenie would know exactly and um. Okay, so what are we looking at animals are going out and they're zigzagging up now. For example, the bottom row where there are to the left. There are a number of deer that seem to be butting into a big. Um, us a sea lion and that has a person on above its a flipper and Ron Smith considers that to be the master of of the underworld or the master of the sea world or. 04:54.56 Eve Very least the master of sea lions for sure and they love these animals that lived in 2 worlds at least like sea lions and turtles. Um, they would live in the water and the turtle come out and lay its babies saw in the land. And then the elephant seal and the sea lions and the seals would live in the water but they'd come out on the rocks and things like that and this this fifteen foot Sea Lion it's rather interesting. There's a shape in the cliff behind it. Angle slightly to the left and the sea lion painting however is painted sort of straight down. So it's as if the sheep are butting into that sea lion and trying to tilt it a little bit. Off so it's going to end it and the person that's above him who that's coming that's by his flipper is pointing towards this gigantic crack and gigantic crack then ah a deer is is of. 06:01.41 Alan Um. 06:07.65 Eve Flowing out of or following the direction. It's and and is about to and touches this big crack. So It's as if you know and there's an early kilviwa myth in the Peninsula Ah that talks about women Creator god. First did things one day he was taking a nap I guess and his assistant took over or something and he had the seed he had ah the mountain sheep go down first to the to the underworld into the ah into the ocean and the fish were. Supposed to be up in this in this in in towards the sky. Well that kind of was a screw up everybody figured out so they switched it around again. But the thing about a dualistic system and this is some wonderful example is in Duality. There's something about the other side that the opposite knows of if you think of the ying and yang symbol from the from the orient. Ah, that's a perfect example and in the in The. White female Side. There's a little black dot and then in the black female sight. There's a little white dot In other words, twins are another expression of Dualities. You have your elder brother and your younger brother and they're not equal in size. They're not equal in size. 07:38.66 Eve And it's usually the younger brother. That's always screwing up and causing problems and the the older brother. So what you look then at the top of the cave. So here you have this sea lion is if he is being told that he's he's just not doing it right? He's he's got to aim. Towards that crack that's going to go up. Well we know from young study in the southwest that there's a belief system that if you can get a water animal to the sky world. You can bring rain and a very interesting thought on that is. Um, among the papago or the tohona of Odam that ah famous story. It's in ah University Of Arizona press so gosh I can take the title of the book right now anyway and they believe that if this one no chief or shaman. He believed that if he took a horn casing as you know deer have antlers and sheep have horns that have casings if you take the empty casing off of the horn bone and you fill it up with water and you walk up a little hill and you pour it down. You can make it rain and so la is a connection between rain and sheep and it been in the underworld. It's done all these things and now it's up in the skywall or it's supposed to be or the top of the mountains and things like that. So at the very peak at the top. 09:14.58 Eve Is an enormously long shaman type figure and he has his arms up and he's painted red and black in the typical way and down underneath him are these. Older brother and younger brother sort of figures. They're 2 2 boys 1 longer Legs and another and then he has 2 sheep underneath him one has a black horn and 1 has a red horn and so the stories that must have been. Associated with that is just enormous and all over the southwest we have stories of origin myths that have the 2 brothers the younger brother the older brother and this kind of thing. So um, then this peak. Figure is touching that crack. That's come from the bottom of the cave all the way up and it touches him I think it's his right hand it touches it and it goes all the way up. And the thing about it. That's interesting is there's a little plant that grows in a crack. It's a little tiny banyan tree one of their banyan ah ficus palm ah palm ah palmas pump well anyway and it survives when the summer rains come. 10:41.29 Eve And the summer rains bring the monsoon season now rain is so I'll never forget like on the milling expedition. We went down in a year where we were told it hadn't rained sometimes for 6 sometimes 10 years. It hadn't rained. And there was nothing for these poor animals hardly to eat. We could never camp at a waterhole because those were the the sheep and deer and I mean pardon me and the cattle had already grazed so we'd have to go someplace in between the next waterhole. But waterholes were wonderful places. There was always a green mesquite tree or something by them and there were some birds singing in the morning and and then when you get to quava pintata in the old days long before the sheep over goats overgraze the highlands above. And all these rocks now have covered the tepatates and the tepataes were just smooth surfaces of volcanic tuff that ah layers of volcanic. Ah tough where so the stream cut through and left like little batht. Tus that were cooked up one to another and you could sit in this. Wonderful bathtub if the water flowing over your shoulder as the little stream goes by and look at the cliffs and the trees and hear the birds and it was magical and I realized water is so magical in these incredible dry difficult desert. 12:13.63 Eve So I got more and more interested in that and more and more interested in the indians and in Cueva Pentato of what are they? why? Why are they going there and it seems like the deer are messengers and so are the sheep of these stationary people. And um, that that now um, there's ah as I say a black woman in the lower left part of the southern gallery and she has the head of the deer in the palm of her hand. She's guiding it. There's this There's a stream of deer painted across near below where the female human figures are too so you get this feeling that there's an interconnection between female and male. Ah pardon me female increase and and. Animal increase. It's all interrelated they they all benefit from the same ah same things so you have a system where now there is a she has got this deer and he has an enormous spear in him. He's a beautiful big deer with a beautiful big rack. And she is gently guiding his face towards a crack that goes up and over the top of the and out the the cave again suggesting that that's where they're supposed to go and what they're supposed to be doing. 13:44.53 Eve And the story I tell myself with no evidence is that the the thing about um Quava pentata is. It's a covenant. In fact, my favorite paper I've ever written is called a covetant with Nature. It's volume 10 for the museum of Man's rock art paper series And. Covenant is sort of a relationship um with ah with Promises. You know you do this for me and I'll do this for you and and it's. Defined by obligation and commitment and stuff like that if you look up on the internet What the meaning of the word is but that's different from a contract because they are relational and personal like ah like many vows and in in. Ah. 14:36.65 Eve Um, that are in the in the bible too. Um, yeah, yeah marriage is is definitely one. Okay and co an yeah ok a people in their God and this covenant with nature. 14:37.93 Alan Um, marriage. Yeah yeah, a covet a covenant or or a covenant between a people and there a people in their god. 14:53.58 Eve Was all about how to bring down the rain you see baha California is in a very difficult spot. It's too far south for reliable winter rains. It's too far north for reliable summer tropical rains and sometimes it gets 1 sometimes it gets the other sometimes it gets both and then. They'll separate and they'll be 10 years with no rain now right across the gulf even you can on on hot summer days you can see the the clouds of of thunderstorms. Because that rain system that is birthed out of the Sierra Occidental the west um, the western sierra of the big sierras of of the mainland there ah creates these helps create these monsoons. That then travel into the hopizuni country of the southwest and the the what happens in Baja California and the reason it's the only place in all of Mexico that is not both agricultural. Ah, that doesn't have some kind of agriculture is because of what happens to Baja California and what is that the pacific ocean the japanese current that goes from Japan around Alaskan all the way down and then lands and. 16:23.58 Eve Points out to the pacific again when it hits ah Punte Eugenia it can the shifting of the currents or the shifting of the winds can suddenly happen and turn off the monsoon season in Baja California now the monsoon season is absolutely fascinating a monsoon occurs. When you have the correct temperature the correct pressure and the correct something. You know it has to be four days in a row and then suddenly the sky opens up and you suddenly have this huge thunderstorms happening the monsoon has plumb. It's extraordinary and it's been written about in a number of of locations and then it ends just as fast elenee but was there during one of these horrendous rainstorms and and she and her glad they had to pull there. 17:02.80 Alan Um, it is. 17:16.40 Alan Um, yep. 17:16.24 Eve Sleeping bags a little higher up. There's no good place to to to be out of the the storm when it comes and she was it was fascinating. She said frogs were coming out of the ah and what happens is um, um. 17:23.28 Alan Don't the vo kiddos call it elcambio the yeah the change the the shift. Yeah, you can feel it well we that's about all that's about all it we have about 30 seconds yeah 17:35.68 Eve Okay, in the fall a kombio comes in it. Yes, elcambio is it turns off and it turns on very fast. 17:40.70 Alan Um, yeah, yeah. 17:47.37 Alan So E viewing. What would you have? What would you say to ah to thematically close our interaction today. 18:00.70 Eve I would say that um trying to learn to look at the world from from the Indian's point of view is vital in trying to understand it. And what it's trying to say and how different it is from our World. We don't believe that every rock every tree every Cloud can can be spoken to or prayed to so we have a whole different system. 18:28.69 Alan And yes, rest rest Re Reci Bright reciprocity. 18:30.28 Eve And their system is circular system which simply means that death pops life and life reciprocity right? system of reciprocity and and circular time is vital to understand and how different it It is from linear time until. 18:47.36 Alan Amen. Okay. 18:48.00 Eve Fifth century bc the Greeks were into circular time and circular time means death follows life and life follows death around and round and round and they depend on each other for the next. 18:58.79 Alan Then round it goes I was that was fabulous Eve Eve I Really appreciate your time and I think we ah scratched the surface. 19:06.59 Eve Um, well if it if it hope that's it just barely up my God I Just can't even think there's many things I wanted to say and never did. But anyway. 19:13.48 Alan That's just fair, it us us us guys. Well do what we'll do part two. So it's see all the see all in the flip flop gang see you next week. God bless.