00:01.82 Alan Welcome back all you archeology podcasters to the seventy fourth episode of the rock art podcast. We're here with Cynthia Waldman tremendous author on talking about native american books that she's done and I think in this particular segment. And talk about a ah remarkable rock art site that exists and was partly the focus of Cynthia's work on her third and forthcoming book. How about that Cynthia so here's how it goes folks there happens to be. 00:31.41 Cynthia Waldman Sounds good. Allan. 00:40.70 Alan Ah, very unusual and remarkable site that exists a rock art site and rock art sites typically um are impressive yes and have certain attributes. But this one is impressive for a variety of reasons one is. It's one of those sites that the native people have told us the name of the site. So it's Yahura Candina and this particular site besides having you know a remarkable sort of environmental. Context and an oppressive set of attributes or characteristics. It also has a very robust set of oral traditions sacred narratives call it mythology that surround it. We have. I don't know almost a dozen different narratives that are parallel that go along with this painting site that explained to us who is being depicted what went on and what is the story. Surrounding this site. How about that Setia. 01:58.73 Cynthia Waldman Yeah, um, go ahead I'll let you take the lead on this. 02:02.98 Alan So if I was to to you know, sort of talk about the site itself is called yahura kanina it means the home of the animal master or mistress and this home. Is an unusual place. It's an island of limestone literally an island. It's a it's a pillar I think it stands some thirty feet tall is that correct or is that something along those lines Cynthia. 02:35.84 Cynthia Waldman Um, I'm not sure Alan I have actually because it's on private property I've seen photos I've yeah. 02:40.21 Alan Yeah, all these theater seated in photos so it but it but it is a pillar and it is split in two and and water runs out of it and there's a painting on it of an animalhuman figure and also two snakes on either side of the. Of that main figure and a number of other spirit figures in concentric circles and other elements. The the main figure is about four feet tall and Maurice Sigman who's the famous anthropologist ethnographer who ah documented this site. He um. In his research, he never put 2 and 2 together. He had a whole inventory of the narratives sacred narratives the the stories that went along with this but and he did it is ethnogeography talk about a place like this but never connected the dots I don't think he ever visited it. Nor did he know its precise location. So fast forward. Um, when we discovered it. It became more and more transparent that what we're looking at was in fact, the site of the entrance to the animal. Underworld so we have ah we have a um, a limestone pillar that's broken into and kind of water that comes out of it. It's a rather wet place and it also is a natural. But you call it not cavern but a natural amphitheater and one of the prominent individuals that study what's called archaeoacoustics the study of sound and the study of its relationship to archaeology. Went and visited this site and documented it verified substantively that when you stand in front of the site and talk it echoes. It's not just a singular echo. It's a double echo and I wrote an article with Stephen Waller he has been one of the. Interviewees or scholars that have been part of our canvas of various individuals who have greeted me in this program and he talks about how remarkable it is that the stories themselves echo for. And talk about sound it's the sound of the hooves of the deer. It's the sound of the animals as they're talking the echoes the sounds the reverberations they're all identified in these stories. 05:34.15 Alan And so he felt that there was a relationship between those stories and the concept of sound as part of the fabric of this supernatural spot does that make any sense. Ah Cynthia. 05:46.32 Cynthia Waldman Yeah, yeah, I'm familiar with his work and I did hear that really excellent podcast with him which I found to be fascinating and yeah I I took I took the pictures that I saw because I never got to go there. But um, one of the pictures 1 of the pictographs. Seem to be to me looked like a coyote knocking to try to get in and and um so I incorporated that into the story and I incorporated the whole the whole sacred narrative into the story but also it's interesting. What you said that it's limestone because you know limestone is. 06:06.71 Alan Um, yes, ah. 06:25.39 Alan Yes. 06:25.66 Cynthia Waldman Where caverns are you know Cave caverns are so who knows you know? Maybe there is a cave or cavern under there somewhere if it's a limestone outcropping but um, yeah, yeah, the whole thing. It was just a picture that. Took my imagination away and I'd already had you know, read the very wonderful narrative that goes with it and yeah. 06:47.71 Alan So the way the the way the narrative goes is. There's a person who's sick or frustrated or or having ah problems and he decides to visit the animal underworld and yahura who's the animal mistress or master and. The way you get into the cavern was supposedly with some sort of a rope or some sort of a ladder or some sort of a means of moving yourself down into this cavern now. It's not so easy once you get in because it's guarded isn't it Cynthia. 07:18.26 Cynthia Waldman Um, yes, yes, it's guarded by a whole snakes. Um, one nice little. The snakes are actually the door to you whereas house. So yeah, so first you have to you greet a gopher snake which. 07:22.24 Alan Who is it guarded by. 07:30.84 Alan Yes. 07:37.53 Cynthia Waldman They're not so bad. But then there's some big snake mythical snake. That's huge I mean there's different variations of him. Um, yeah, yeah, bigger or you know there's all kinds of stories about this? yeah and they have to get by him and then they have to get by. 07:45.80 Alan Rattlesnake is big as a log. Ah yes, yes. 07:55.57 Alan Yeah, yep, the good. 07:56.21 Cynthia Waldman Bears The Grizzly bear you know? and so yeah, it's that it's It's a lot for them to have to do before they finally meet the terrifying yowera. Yes. 08:03.89 Alan Right? So it's a grizzly bear and a brown bear and they finally finally get through and then they meet the ah wizard Yahura and yahura is both um, ah a man and a woman if if a man dreams of yahura it's a woman. If a woman dreams if you'll wear it. It's a man and he or she is wearing some sort of a a I think a quail feather robe as I understand it am I right? Yeah and and the animal itself is an animal human. 08:32.96 Cynthia Waldman Right? right? yes. 08:42.19 Alan But I think is like some sort of a ah raptor isn't it some so a yellow bird or raptor. 08:46.22 Cynthia Waldman Well I think some people said it was a raptor and some said it was a quail so I went with the quail you know, but it could be either. But I do mention that it could some say it's a raptor. But. 08:50.40 Alan Yes, yes. 08:57.61 Alan Ah, right? and and this quail metaphor is embedded big time with this story. So but but Yahura is supposed to have been rather hospitable because he or she gives the visitor. 09:05.18 Cynthia Waldman Yeah. 09:15.23 Alan A bowl of food. 09:15.34 Cynthia Waldman Yeah, actually he gives him a go various things. It can be just an acorn cup or something else, but they give him like 1 nut as yeah, yes. 09:25.24 Alan Ah, but it's an end but it's an endless nut because no matter how much they eat it keeps reappearing on itself right? right? Yes, yes, So so once once someone's full. 09:34.23 Cynthia Waldman So you have a basket with my little nut right? and you can keep it prostrating way to eat. But yeah, so. 09:44.70 Alan Like a Jewish Mamala you know keep s s gazeta hate keep eating and so then yeah, then the ah the visitor says. Ah you know? Okay I'm full now. What's next? well then Yahura ushers this visitor into a room. 09:59.20 Cynthia Waldman Yeah, the medicine bags full of medicine songs. You know items just all kinds of things. So of course my girls pick a song. But yeah, there's all things in those in those medicine bags. 10:01.90 Alan And what's it and what's in the room right. 10:11.69 Alan Yeah, and and the song is the medicine and so yeah, so once one picks a song and says goodbye to Yahura they have to ah find a way out of this animal. 10:17.71 Cynthia Waldman Yes, yes yeah. 10:29.70 Cynthia Waldman Yeah. 10:30.81 Alan Underworld and 1 ah one of the things we forgot to tell you listeners is that yahura's job is to revivify transmogrify resurrect the spirits of the animals after they have been killed and bring them back because of course they're immortal and they. They come back through portals through holes in the rock or through through ah ponds or or springs or or other means of of sort of bringing them back each spring and so go ahead dearer there? Yes, yes. 10:50.82 Cynthia Waldman Ah, right. 11:01.40 Cynthia Waldman Right? And yeah and the deer are down there the deer which are the food. Yeah, they're the meat food they're down there in the underworld and um with you know the girls see them and and the portal. It's very science Fiction-y you know. 11:08.13 Alan Ah. 11:19.16 Cynthia Waldman My husband when he read the book said oh you gotta change that portal that's too Cliche and I'm like but that's kind of cliche that is actually in the story know that the the kind of portal with like the translucent covering that that was from their real story. So I. 11:22.14 Alan Um, no, it is oh yeah, oh yeah, right? they they go they go through a veil which is translucent. 11:37.20 Cynthia Waldman Um, not changing that. Yeah yeah, right. 11:40.56 Alan It looks like a little waterfall but they don't get wet and and then they leave but they don't exit at the same place they exit somewhere else and they find themselves either at Red Rock Canyon or at little lake or somewhere else. Where they have to then find their way back to their original entrance or back to their home am I correct. Yeah now. 12:03.69 Cynthia Waldman Rough? Yes and then when they get there. They're not allowed to tell anyone for 3 or they die which some just can't can't help themselves and they tell and it's all over but 1 12:13.33 Alan Yes, yes, but what? But what they find is this this revelation this experience and using the song transforms them heals them physiologically spiritually intellectually in every way. 12:29.86 Cynthia Waldman Yeah. 12:31.76 Alan And by this transformational experience. They then get better now. What's interesting about all this when we talk about the layered approach is there is a um. 12:35.22 Cynthia Waldman Yeah, exactly. 12:51.23 Alan Ceremony religious ceremony where the medicine persons help people to get better or to get a um, a personal pet or a guardian spirit as we might understand it and the way they do that is what's called the jimson weed ceremony. It's for men and for women and they can go through it at at different times and they brew that Gibson weed it's detura in ah in a little um basket and a necked basket that has quail feathers all the way around it. And it has a rattlesnake design on it and they brew it and it's called what's that basket called it has oh the terraga body and Tata means quail in in koaau it's a Anamanana poetic. It's from the sound. That the quails make tarra tatta tata tata yeah it tell me. 13:50.90 Cynthia Waldman Yeah, well I've heard different things but some say it's sound. It's the sound that they make when they when they are flying they that really loud noise um could be either thing but um. 13:58.87 Alan Ah, okay, okay, yes, yeah, no, no that both of those sound sound could be correct. Yeah, but the name tata means quail in their language. Yes, so. 14:08.64 Cynthia Waldman Yeah. Yeah. 14:18.46 Alan So There's ah, a very involved multilayered element to the story because it's a story of transformation and and renewal and all of the above and it's one that also may relate. To the ceremony and rituals associated that transform one throughout their life. How about that. 14:43.10 Cynthia Waldman Yeah, and this story saving coyote has that transformational I mean they do save the Sarah does get saved through the doctor song. You know it has an amazing transformational effect. So. So that story is a story of transformation too that goes along they will they walk hand in hand together. The narratives of the newa people and Sarah they all they're all like woven together. You know like a basket and come out at the end but have the same kind of feeling. You know? So I think you learn a lot about the culture and at least the narratives by reading that third book and something about the rock art too. So. 15:28.24 Alan And there's something else to be said about the science and religion of indigenous people because these days we're we're finding more and more that some of the psychotropics and some of the means the methodologies the particular ways in which. 15:35.63 Cynthia Waldman Yeah. 15:46.45 Alan Native people cured are actually very efficacious and scientists have found that if people who are sick or depressed or have some sort of physiological problems often they can be healed by native doctors using those same types of. Plants and other means which is rather remarkable I think so we've come sort of full circle to at least at some point begin to recognize the validity and importance of the native means of healing. 16:19.83 Cynthia Waldman Yeah, um I can't think of the name right now. Alan what's the name of the western museum near the zoo in Los Angeles oh um that museum near the zoo in Los Angeles 16:30.93 Alan Any Anyways Yes, yes. 16:38.38 Cynthia Waldman Western Museum has a wonderful video of a healer and an indigenous healer. She's famous and I was looking for a long time where is this video. How can I get a hold of it and it's right there. So anyone who wants to see an actual healing going on can go to that museum. 16:40.23 Alan Oh well. 16:46.65 Alan We. 16:53.86 Alan No, that's amazing and and again through through the internet we're finding that it's that there's an amazing compendium and almost a transformation going on in the medical profession a revelation showing us. 16:57.11 Cynthia Waldman Watch it. 17:12.83 Alan That there's a way through and the validity of the psychotropic elements of Native Healers has great validity and power and I think on that one we'll call it quits. Thank you so much. 17:24.58 Cynthia Waldman Um, okay, well thank you having me? Yeah, yeah. 17:30.50 Alan Cynthia it was a play. It was an absolute pleasure. Okay gang see on the flip flop see you next week. God bless.