00:00.00 archpodnet Go. 00:01.60 alan Well here we go gang this is episode one twelve of the rock art podcast we are here again on the on the archeology podcast platform and we're pleased and honored to have Tim Wag who's our guest scholar for this kickoff i're going to be talking about rock art from the standpoint of Tim Wag who's a rock art enthusiast but also talk about native California ah cosmology and religion and. Being an advocate for native California rights. Yes, so let's let's kick it off Tim. It's a pleasure you on board. 00:47.44 timwaag Um, yes. 00:52.96 timwaag The pleasure is all mine Dr. Garfinkel I wanted to thank you and frankly I'm honored and humbled to be on your podcast. So very grateful for the opportunity. 01:02.46 alan Well thank you so much? Tim, well you know how we kicked this off. Um, the first segment I ask ah people to sort of get connected with you and and answer a question. The million dollar question is how'd you ever get involved with. study of history the study of native americans and even some enthusiasm with respect to the ah visiting and understanding of rock art. Go ahead. 01:33.72 timwaag Okay, well I grew up going camping with my family and frankly, there's a lot of history, especially we went camping in the western us a lot of a lot of us history and frankly a lot of indigenous native cultural history as well. And so it just became organic that this is what we did when we went on vacation and it moved on to 1 particular year I took my boys I have 2 boys they're growing up now they were like so five and seven years old and. It was just a dad and his son's trip to Death Valley national park and I'd gone hit there myself as a kid and my kids were fascinated by the entire desert environment and of course a number of our outings in. 02:11.64 alan Um, ah. 02:28.52 timwaag Death Valley Proper Furnace Creek We saw rock art sites and of course we had the same reaction that I think the vast majority of people have wow in the middle of this relatively desolate place somebody. Not only lived here. But. Had the energy and the spiritual motivation to record these images in Geometric patterns and things like that and you can't help but ask who actually made these and so the. 03:06.40 alan Makes sense makes a lot of sense Now you told me ah offline when we were chatting that you've been a advocate of Native Americans and also been Ah, ah you know a popular student of history. 03:06.17 timwaag Interest fascination and the quest began. 03:22.11 alan And then specifically an associate or liaison of a number of California Missions tell us a bit about that. Would you. 03:32.18 timwaag You bet same thing just like the fascination with american indian culture I had the same fascination with the California missions and again we can't say what what when we're out in the let's call it in the wild and. You're observing things. We can't define what attracts us to these different things. But the California Missions again much like the native american rock art had this fascinating attraction part of it was simply the fact that this was not from our era. This was not from our time these were ah different people and though obviously they were homo sapiens human beings they lived in a different time and obviously lived in a different way and I ended up taking my 2 boys on 3 different 1 ne-week trips to see all 21 California Missions and it couldn't help but rub rub off in the process of in the beginning was looking at the spanish style buildings. You know all the arches that we're familiar with and the beauty I always point out the great locations of the missions san Diego Monterey Ventura Samulos Ob Thisspo Carmel they got to pick all the great sites. Um, they had their whole pick of California but at the same time as I often point out because I'm a dosin at 3 different missions in California when I do my tours. 05:02.70 timwaag The missions were general the spanish missions of the California Era were generally 2 franciscans 6 soldados de cuirro and a whole bunch of indians and that's who built the place. So obviously we knew a lot about the franciscans st you knew peroscera. We knew a lot about the soldiers and who do we not know a lot about the indians. 05:20.27 alan The Indians. Yeah yeah, interesting. Interesting. So as we're well Aware. There's a lot of controversy and embedded sort of adversarial posture between the. Mission of the missions and the nature of Native American lifeways. How do you deal with such a ah complicated and controversial set of issues. 05:55.64 timwaag Well, it's not easy. It's not simple, nothing about this is I like to point out that that with the advent Columbus Cortez in 500 years the spanish managed to wipe out the vast majority. Indigenous culture in the so-called spanish empire so there was this huge void and it was kind of unprecedented in history. What the spanish did over almost three hundred and fifty years to the so-called new world they pretty much largely. 06:22.67 alan Yeah, yeah. 06:30.65 timwaag And again you can spec. You know we can research how much was malevolent versus benevolent but we know that the diseases were a big part of the ah of the devastation that happened and somehow in 500 years we had a variety of extremely varied cultures throughout North Central and South America and they often did not have a lot in common other than geographic location but we managed to not the spanish. Did not care about the indigenous culture they were looking at what was in it for the spanish empire and they wiped the people out the physical culture out the languages out very few indigenous cultures survive to this day. So. We now have this void to fill and a lot of it begins with rock art because it's the first thing many americans see when they're out looking at indian cultural sites. They see the things they left behind so it's baskets. It's. 07:45.24 alan Absolutely, you're exactly right now when I spoke to you offline you you gave me an interest a fascinating and interesting perspective on rock art that I haven't um I don't think I've espoused on any of these podcasts. 07:45.84 timwaag Sleep circles and it's rock art. 08:01.76 alan And that was to think about rock art as the way in which one could educate the general public to peer into the indigenous cosmology the religious theology a better understanding of the conceptualization of native people. And the natural world maybe talk a bit about that. Would you. 08:27.20 timwaag Yeah, and again in in the process of doing mission tours. One of the things we do yes, it's to educate the public. But of course it's also to entertain the public because we know if if you're giving a boring tour. No one pays attention. No one listens no one comes back. So looking at the american indian culture in the western us which is where I live it became important to observe what non-native non american indian people found the most fascinating. And one of those things was the rock art itself because it was something tangible. It was something you can look at you know wiki ups hakalas all these different dwellings that the indians lived in gone I mean the spanish Adobe buildings. Still here but a lot of the indian cultural physical presence is gone. What's not gone the rock art so that becomes the portal to ah, let's just call it american tourist like myself. Becoming fascinated with who made this art. Why do they make it. What does it mean and that leads you down this wonderful rabbit hole of indian culture and that leads you from the most fascinating part the indigenous rock art and it. 10:02.86 timwaag Pulls you into because you wonder what it means you now learn about indigenous spiritual culture and um, hunting hunting Hunter Gatherer lifestyle all these different things are all pulled in. By the rock art including the fact that subject matter of the rock art is often anamorphs and displays a certain aspect of the activities of the indian culture and that pulls you in to want to know more. 10:31.23 alan Ah, Tim what do you find most difficult in terms of trying to communicate or tangibly ah allow the general public to understand a bit about native americans. 10:48.63 timwaag Well, it's something that I get from working with the tribes more than myself because obviously as I like to point out I'm a white man I'm not an indian um so I don't have their perspectives so I listen to what they have to say and often. The biggest thing that the tribal members tell me is we want the public to know that we had a huge enormous history of which I've talked about just now on on this podcast and that they're still here. They have their history and culture and just like us. We have you know. European Ancestry we have our european culture that means something to us but they have their indigenous culture that means something to them and they want people to know that we're still here and we're still part of the public presence and the public voice. 11:39.39 alan Absolutely is there ah something about trying to understand Native American Perspective Heritage values that are is ah difficult to translate or difficult to communicate. To the general public. 12:02.99 timwaag Yeah, absolutely. We had this wonderful opportunity. There were 3 major crossings of the land bridge. Um, you know into Alaska and 3 separate tracked migrations into North America and these people. Came ten fifteen perhaps Twenty Thousand years ago they spread out rapidly along this these continents north America central America South America not inhabited by any homo sapiens. It was. Crazy wild animals that they had never seen giant slots woolly mammoths I mean it was it was like the lost world that they found and they figured out a way to live in it and they had again 15000 years to develop their cultures. Without any ear interference from a different culture again. The white european culture and so they not surprisingly with the same human brains as the europeans had they completely went on a different tract and. That's reflected in in the differences in their culture. They our culture have all the good note. All the cultures european indigenous have spiritual religious beliefs. Our european beliefs were very human centric you had historical figures. 13:32.41 timwaag You know Jesus Moses Mohammed the indigenous people were far more organic and anamorphic and their deities tended to take the form of things you would find in nature and that's really hard for people who are used to religions based on. Theoretically humans that actually existed on the planet versus again coyotase all these different animals that are most frequently wrapped into the indigenous spiritual world that was completely different and. That kind of was hard to grasp for the european culture and that's why again I know in particular the spanish missionaries they didn't care about indian culture. It was a pagan culture to them. That's what they called it and they had no interest. They had an interest in preserving it. Had no interest in studying it and so that leads us to where we are now we have we have to make up. We have some time to make up in in now we are interested and we're trying to fill in all the whole help the tribes. 14:43.58 alan Great. Well I think that's it that's it for the first segment. Ah, we'll ah pick it up in the next see in the flip flop gang. 14:44.34 timwaag Fill in all the holes in their cultural history.