Sul Ross State University - Brand Yearbook (Alpine, TX)

Page 14 text:

Bird Mine Shelter J UST a few miles from the Sul Ross campus there are speci¬ mens of perhaps the oldest type of graphic art in the world, an art that prehistoric man practiced, that of placing the im¬ print of his hand on the smoke-blackened walls of his dwelling place. In the side of one of the steep hills that dot Brewster County is a little cave, more properly called a shelter, not more than twenty-five feet wide and fifteen feet deep. The sloping rock walls and roof are blackened by the Indian fires that burned there years ago, and outlined on this dark background along the rear wall are a number of hands, thirty-two in all, varying in size from the hand of a child to that of a man. In some cases the entire fore-arm appears. Evidently the hand was placed on the wall and the soot was wiped from around the fingers, because the hand is black, outlined by the natural color of the rock. Most of these prints are of the left hand, the right being used to trace the outline. There have been many conjectures as to the motives that impelled primitive men of all lands to place the imprints of their hands on the walls of their abodes. Some think that these hand prints were of particular significance; others that they are a re¬ sult of a mere pastime on long winter evenings. Mr. V. J. Smith in his interesting study, “The Human Hand in Primitive Art,” holds that the hand drawings of the North American Indians are of two classes: those resulting from “that instinct which seems to impel the human animal to make his mark,” and those which have “a religious or magical intent.”

Page 16 text:

Lime-Stone Cliff at Comanche Springs M C OMANCHE Springs, not more than three miles from the quaint, sleepy little village of Lajitas, must have been the camping grounds of Indians from time immemorial. One can only conjecture how long ago its first camp fires were built. The great kitchen midden mound, 01 ash bank, found there is strong evidence that it has been hundreds of years since the spot became a customary camp ground. The mound is approximately twenty by fifty feet, the midden ranging from two to three feet in depth. Several metates have been found at Comanche Springs, and many scraps of paintings on the rocks still remain, but the best ones have been worn dim by the elements, and damaged by souvenir collectors. There are no natural shelters or caves in the vicinity, but a lime-stone rock room, more properly known as a slab house, is built against the cliff. All the year round Comanche Springs furnishes water, not now to Indians as in the past, but to the herds of cattle and goats that graze around its borders.