The White Shaman Mural: An Enduring Creation Narrative in the Rock Art of the Lower Pecos

by Carolyn E. Boyd

Winner, Society for American Archaeology Book Award, 2017
San Antonio Conservation Society Publication Award, 2019 The prehistoric hunter-gatherers of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of Texas and Coahuila, Mexico, created some of the most spectacularly complex, colorful, extensive, and enduring rock art of the ancient world. Perhaps the greatest of these masterpieces is the White Shaman mural, an intricate painting that spans some twenty-six feet in length and thirteen feet in height on the wall of a shallow cave overlooking the Pecos River. In The White Shaman Mural , Carolyn E. Boyd takes us on a journey of discovery as she builds a convincing case that the mural tells a story of the birth of the sun and the beginning of time—making it possibly the oldest pictorial creation narrative in North America. Unlike previous scholars who have viewed Pecos rock art as random and indecipherable, Boyd demonstrates that the White Shaman mural was intentionally composed as a visual narrative, using a graphic vocabulary of images to communicate multiple levels of meaning and function. Drawing on twenty-five years of archaeological research and analysis, as well as insights from ethnohistory and art history, Boyd identifies patterns in the imagery that equate, in stunning detail, to the mythologies of Uto-Aztecan-speaking peoples, including the ancient Aztec and the present-day Huichol. This paradigm-shifting identification of core Mesoamerican beliefs in the Pecos rock art reveals that a shared ideological universe was already firmly established among foragers living in the Lower Pecos region as long as four thousand years ago.

Genres: Archaeology, Nonfiction

219 pages, Hardcover

Published November 29, 2016

Reviews

[Sally · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very academic book discussing the mysteries of the Lower Pecos cave paintings. I saw some of the cave paintings in December and wanted to know more about the mysterious figures and symbols. The author has studied these paintings for over 25 years and associates them with Huichol and Nahua (Aztec) cosmology and mythology. Very interesting, but the best part was the author's painted overlay of the stone images which enabled me to see the images, symbolism and relationships of the painted figures. Not a light read, but worthwhile if just for the images.

[Jim Collett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent and engaging book that examines what may be one of the most amazing examples of prehistoric art to survive. While the book describes the analysis of this rock art panel in the Lower Pecos River region of Texas in considerable detail, this is not a dry and scientific book. Rather, it is a well-written argument that this panel is a single composition detailing an ancient mythic system on the origins of the sun, and its daily journey across the heavens. Boyd supports her points with numerous illustrations, including photographs and artistic renderings that clearly highlight each segment she is analyzing. Even those with little prior knowledge of the rock art of this region can find themselves caught up in the mythic story that Boyd has unravelled, using current beliefs of the Huichol of Mexico and those of the Nahua (Aztec) as recorded early in the conquest period. And the White Shaman for which the painting is named is not a shaman of course. What is she? Read the book to learn this and so much more! Just fascinating!

[York · Rating 4 out of 5]

Academic work analyzing the White Shaman Mural in Texas. Boyd begins by describing the setting of the mural, the people who would have painted it, and the techniques used to study it and other rock paintings in the area. This is followed by extraordinarily in-depth analysis of every aspect of the mural, first through the lens of Huichol and then of Nahua creation mythology and symbolism. By giving such an in-depth analysis Boyd makes a compelling case that the people of the Lower Pecos shared a cultural continuum with the rest of Mesoamerica, as well as a case that the White Shaman Mural depicts an advanced and cosmologically significant narrative.

[Adrianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I visited the White Shaman mural site first, and then was able to borrow this book from my library- I'd recommend doing it the other way around because the book includes wonderful illustrations of the mural side-by-side with photographs which make it much easier to see what's going on. And of course this book is well worth reading for its well-thought out interpretation & explanations. I was in much more awe of the pictograph site after having a better understanding of the context and it was suddenly that much more beautiful and impressive.

[Paul Swacina · Rating 5 out of 5]

A paradigm shifting explication of one of the oldest rock art masterpieces in North America

I bought a his book to prepare for a field course with TAS next month. I was blown away by the level of scholarship and insight. Really looking forward to the course and meeting the author and finding out what she has to say about this ongoing interpretive revolution