Pictographs/White Shaman: The writing is on the 
wall at one state historic site. We'll tell you more 
coming up on Passport To Texas.


Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife. 


Back in 1952, Jim Zintgraff went hunting out in Val 
Verde County, when he came across ancient pictographs 
on a rock wall.


"And I kinda worked my way back to car and put away 
my gun and got my camera and I've been shooting 
pictures ever since. I have about 13,000 negatives 
of the sites out there. There are about 300 different 
sites, and even more of the lesser sites." 


Seminole Canyon State Park and Historic Site is home 
to many of these spectacular displays. At the Fate Bell 
Shelter, which is one of the oldest cave dwellings 
in North America, a huge cliff overhang contains some 
of North America's oldest Indian pictographs. Guided 
tours are provided by volunteers from the Rock Art 
Foundation, of which Mr. Zintgraff is Executive Director. 


"The paintings are beautiful. Most of them are in pretty 
vivid color and they tell a story and of course we do 
have a lot of discussion about what that story is because 
they were done so long ago and we have no apparent person 
to talk to, to tell us what they might be. Folks in 
Australia are very fortunate because many of the Aborigines 
are still living so they stories are passed down form one 
generation to another and you can figure out what things 
mean." 


To learn more about the White Shaman and pictograph tours 
at Seminole Canyon, come to Passporttotexas.org. 
For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I'm Cecilia Nasti.