I gave slightly different versions of this presentation at SAA in Sacramento, CA, April 1, 2011 and at ARARA in Idaho Falls, ID, May 28, 2011. This is the (longer) ARARA version.
The entrance to Cueva San Borjitas. San Borjitas is located in the Sierra de Guadalupe south of the more famous Sierra de San Francisco. I want to give special thanks to Lucero Gutiérrez for arranging our trips and accompanying myself and my wife Sheila on visits to the Great Mural sites in the Sierra de Guadalupe.
Diguet was a chemist at the Boleo mining company in Santa Rosalia who later led scientific expeditions on the Peninsula. The photographs in this slide are from Grant's reprint of Diguet's monograph.
Dahlgren and Jordán married and had two children. Jordán died in 1956. Dahlgren went on to a long career in anthropology in Mexico and died in 2002.
Grant's book may not have gotten the attention it deserved since Crosby's book came out the next year.
Dahlgren's drawing is pretty good, but she did not draw the figures in the left rear of the cave.
Grant's drawing is very good, but of course he did not have the advantage of DStretch.
This is a view of the entrance of the cave.
A panorama of the center front of the cave.
DStretch LDS enhancement brings out the varied colors used in the paintings.
DStretch CRGB enhancement shows the varied body patterns used.
Dahlgren's eccentrics were prominent figures that did not fit into her other categories. She gave them colorful names.
This figure style will be familiar to those who have visited the World Heritage sites in the Sierra de San Francisco.
The Sierra de San Francisco has fantastic sites, but compared to the Sierra de Guadalupe and in particular San Borjitas the styles of the human figures are less varied, being mainly bicolors.
This enhancement helps to show the two large female/small male pairs. Females have breasts drawn coming out of their armpits.
Even the ones I can find have some inconsistencies in styles.
The scarecrows are characterized by use of yellow paint, straight arms, and elliptical heads. Dahlgren considered the central figure to be a transitional one.
Named for the ears in his headdress "El Coyote" is one of Dahlgren's eccentrics.
DStretch enhancement shows the polka dot fill in the body.
El Coyote is clearly under (i.e. older) than the cardon.
This is the cardon next to "El Coyote".
Named after the magnificent cactus of the Peninsula it has a bulbous body with vertical stripes.
Next to the cardon is this scarecrow. The scarecrows have straight arms and elliptical heads.
Note that one arm is yellow, the other is red. Many of the non-bicolor figures in San Borjitas have such curious asymmetries.
This is the only place that a cardon overlaps a scarecrow.
The scarecrow seems over (younger than) the cardon. This violates Dahlgren's sequence.
Neither Dahlgren nor Grant noticed the figure in the center.
The yellow man is underneath the bicolors around him.
Enhancement shows that the shark was painted with two tails.
I am not sure if this figure should be called a cardon.
The figure lacks the vertical stripes of a typical cardon.
I call this figure a polka dot.
Closeup of the head. Note the ears.
This scarecrow is over (younger than) the polka dot.
It has asymmetrical hand color.
The cardon is in black on the right beneath the bicolors.
Poorly preserved "Arms Down" is one of Dahlgren's eccentrics and is the only such figure in the cave.
Next to arms down is this scarecrow.
This scarecrow also has asymmetrical body and hand coloring.
One of several parts of the cave that contain many superpositions.
DStretch helps to untangle the figures.
A scarecrow with horizontal arms is underneath the curious horizontal figure.
A polka dot is in the center.
DStretch shows a possible scarecrow on the left and a scarecrow on the right.
This is a possible cardon, but the style is a little different.
On the left is "El Sappo" (the toad), one of Dahlgren's eccentrics. Its face and body have been partially erased by pecking.
The scarecrow peaks out from behind a bicolor with headdress.
DStretch enhancement shows the detail of the scarecrow body.
"El Muerto", a Dahlgren eccentric, is one of the more curious figures in the cave.
"El Cuadriculado" is older than the bicolors to the right and left.
Dahlgren did not consider "El Cuadriculado" to be a scarecrow because of the squarish head.
This figure is the archetypical cardon.
Note the female/male pair on the left.
The cardon has asymmetrical coloring in its hands.
The figures of San Borjitas suggest that the Great Mural style had more variety before settling into the bicolor style. Only then did the style move into the Sierra de San Francisco.
