by Randall Derrick

     This is one of the more interesting photographs I’ve taken and the difficulties I encountered are typical of outdoor photography, but the photo location, the wildlife and the natural geography and history add elements that more than likely colored the spirit of the moment, more so than the actual photograph, and given the quickly changing climate, seem to add some legitimacy to my ultimate view of the scene and the final result you see here. This photograph, the one I call Alibate Lightning, can’t tell it’s own story.

     It’s hard to decide where to begin because the photograph was taken at Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument, an area so steeped in history that one is left feeling ignorant due to the lack of a written record and at once overwhelmed by an intellectual vacuum, one containing no explanation of the symbolism: this feeling of ignorance is more one of unsuredness than the usual archaeology-for-dummies ignorance because there are enough artifacts, dwelling sites and petroglyphs to tell a reasonably accurate story of who lived here and why. So why did I this feeling of ignorance? Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument has an area I call the gallery which is a small area with petroglyph carvings of two turtles, a man-like figure, a huge footprint and what appears to be a bison, separated among several rocks and textured by what appears to be small, round dimples in the flat-lying surfaces that contain the footprint and bison. Observers with amplified senses of curiosity and magnetic attention spans can only marvel at the uses of the pocks, and speculations abound. What are the pocks? Mixing bowls for face paint and body ink? Containers for smoldering sage? Metates for grinding peyote or hemp for psychonautic adventures?

     The photograph was taken facing north and looking inward toward circular-shaped group of dolomite rocks that contained the petroglyphs, carved into their surface with a quartz-like chisel slightly harder than the medium, the end result being more powerful and ubiquitous than the persistence and idea behind the action. The petroglyphs, facing the inside of the semi-circle, are few in number but well enough made that they have survived almost a millennia of tearing wind, pounding rain and blazing heat, nature’s most destructive forces. They are only saved from gravity by a ledge anxiously awaiting less than a foot away. Along the Canadian River, the slopes toward the river plain are littered with tons of boulders, ever moving downward, beyond points of no return. The rigid understructure of the caprock fractures over time and the ground under the flora is always moving, ever changing and dynamic.

     Many thousands of feet of exposed dolomite, like an endless flowing ribbon, are exposed along the lip of the precipice and line the ridges above the shallow valley like an isometric drawing, revealing a secret cross section of the geologic history of the Canadian River. These exposed rock breaks off and tumble down the embankment and then over centuries melt into obscurity. The dolomite boulders containing the petroglyphs are about the size of a small recliner in your living room and they are not native to their current location. Most erosion and rock flow happens due to gravity and the movement is downward; these palettes of symbolism somehow set atop the ridge on the edge of the plain and are arranged in a semi arc as if to perform to an audience. The rocks were placed there for a really good reason. I would assume each one would weigh somewhere in the neighborhood of several tons and getting the boulders back atop the ledge was a lot of work for a very important reason.

      I believe these man made carvings were symbolic foundations for the underlying mythology of an fragmented and perpetually youthful culture that ultimately failed to survive the droughts and incursions of the Apaches into the northern Llano Estacado. The symbols are meaningful and specific: for their undetermined duration there is longevity in the turtle, anthropocentrism in the man carving, presence in the footprint and sustenance in the bison. They had metates to grind and stir their brew for their psyhconautic travels. They painted their faces in ritual and in war and probably tattooed themselves for individual distinction. There was a central power with official seals and symbols and revenue from the surrounding tribes like the Anasazi, the Woodlands cultures to the east and tribes further north into modern Nebraska. They built structures by placing sheet-shaped dolomite rocks on their sides and vertically to form footings and walls for dwelling structures, built roofs with sticks and hides, hunted bison on foot, fished for huge catfish from the freshwater tributaries, drank from fossil springs of the Ogallala, created art, traded with their neighbors, cultivated the land with beans and squash, fought their enemies and feuded with and even killed their own kind. Imagine split-level dwellings built on the high ground, these multiple family dwellings were typical in outlying villages built on top of small hilltops that offered panorama-visibility on all sides, the cultivated fields on the flood plain remained under guarded observation below.

     Smoke from their campfires rose high above the plains and they understood distance, the importance of communication and they knew the surrounding world was full of enemies. Five miles upstream atop the cliffs above the river plain near Mullinaw there sits a two hundred year old Juniper with a small fire pit… directly under it. From that point you can nearly see the Canadian River bridge at US 287 and from that elevation of 300 feet above the riparian in a direct line of sight, one can send signals to within a mile of the petroglyphs. Signals travel much faster than armies can march so they were isolated from immediate danger. The quarries were safe. In the end numbers probably defeated them; numbers of Apaches from the west, numbers of inches of annual rainfall and the numbers their own population that had to be supported with a minimum of sustenance, without which they would be displaced, dispersed or defeated.

     Lightning today is still a symbol of power from above. Whatever that symbol may represent, it is powerful and must not be toyed with. Lightning and its symbolic meaning was the last thought on my mind as I descended the ridgeline from the dusty road that carried me across the Palo Duro Ranch and into the Alibates monument. It is the only national monument in Texas and if someone hadn’t told me where to go and showed me where it was at, I would have never found it.

     The original plan was to set up and photograph the petroglyphs at night. The white dolomite would fare well with a flash or a blue filtered flashlight with the stars of Ursa Major plastered onto the heavens above; it would be a perfect and spectacular background for such a spiritual place. It is interesting to note that in my previous ramblings I failed to mention the turtle petroglyphs were carved to where their heads point almost directly north, straight into the cluster of stars that form the Big Dipper. Both the turtle’s heads point inside the magnetic azimuth range between 350º and 360º. That was the plan, get a few shots and that would be it…. But then it clouded up literally out of nowhere and I could tell it was raining back toward the east, almost directly over Sanford and Stinnett. So the plan changed.

     I took a few frames of the petroglyphs and reset my tripod facing east and set the exposure to B and let the camera sit, shutter open. Since it was after dark I could leave it open and safely get some long exposures and even avoid a film reciprocity that would saturate the image with an unwanted shade of green. The lightning came and flashed and bolted and it thundered in the distance while I shot away, getting different angles, zooming in and out and finally exhausted my curiosity. I bagged my gear and left, listening to the coyotes howl in the distance, thinking of the spirits of the Antelope Creek, them howling, smoking, dancing, their faces painted hands and feet dirty form their toil and without the slightest clue their world would soon change and they would be refugees.

     The true, real world result of the photograph does not have the Big Dipper behind the petroglyphs of Alibates, nor does it have the lightning bolt that was over Sanford and Stinnett as a spectacular from–the-heavens-type background. They are just plain old nighttime images of the rock carvings and a few lightning bolts crashing out of the heavens, each on a different frame. Merely good memories and when I snapped the photographs I could see the lightning and the petroglyphs in the same field of view but not through the lens of the camera. Several complications existed, for instance, the width of the view, the magnification requirements of wide-angle subjects, and so on. The spirit of the moment was there, but in reality I would have to create my own myth to get the vision that reared it’s random head. So, in keeping with the ethics of photography and not hiding or pretending the image would be real, I told myself it was okay and I publicized the fact…. I took the lightning from one image and composited it into the background of the petroglyph and in doing so, created a stunning meta image more suited to mystical paintings or Hollywood fantasy flicks. And so there… the story behind the lens: Alibates Lightning.

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