Essays

Moseying: History of the Southern Llano Estacado

Can you imagine hunting mammoths on the Llano Estacado?
October 11, 2006

“If you give up the past, you naturally detach from the past. You lose your roots in the soil. You turn outward and drift away, exiled, always wandering, detached.” The previous sentence is paraphrased from Carl Jung, one of the founders of the science of psychology. Stories, legends, and myths are how we connect to the past of our home, not the rote memorization of dates of events. Narrative brings the past to us as an active influence in our lives.

We Llaneros, the residents of the Llano Estacado, the great plateau of western Texas and eastern New Mexico, need the stories of our past, including the stories that are rooted in prehistory. It is a spiritual need. Our home is sacred – a gift of the Almighty. The stories of all of our peoples, from Clovis Man on, everyone who has ever lived on the Llano, are part of us, even when we are ignorant of them. To learn of our past is a journey of discovery. The stories of our sufferings and successes are important to our souls.

No great battles occurred on the Llano Estacado. In the “grand scheme,” we live in a place where “nothing of importance in history” happened. Why do we allow that perception to shape our view of our home? History should be viewed as “ourstory.” And from that angle, let’s look at one of our stories from “prehistory.”

During the last week of September I presented a program to the Midland Gem and Mineral Society, and one of the members presented me Sibley with a mammoth tooth found near Jal, New Mexico. During the first week of October I presented a program to the Midland Archaeological Society, and after the meeting several members noticed the tooth. They all had stories of mammoth remains that have been found in the Llano Estacado region – from the dunes to the west to sites on top of the Llano, to the canyons of the headwater breaks on the eastern side.

One of the members had found (near Lamesa) a human tooth near mammoth bones, and both were equally calcified, which indicated the remains might have been contemporaneous and hypothetically associated with each other. That fired up my imagination.

During the end of the Pleistocene the Llano Estacado received approximately 40 inches of rain annually. This information is extrapolated by the type of fossilized pollen that indicated the type of plants present, as well as by the remains of specific animals that need those plants. The researches of palynologists indicate that the Llano was then covered with Post Oak Savannah. The draws would have had running water during the rainy periods, and many of the playas would have been permanent lakes.

Now you might be able to create a mental snapshot – a bucolic scene of a lake with groves of oaks near, and a small herd of elephant-like creatures. One of the mammoths is spraying itself with water from the playa. Another is dozing in the shade of a tree, and nearby a calf suckles its mother. On the other side of the playa is a group of people carefully processing a mammoth that they had just killed the day before – drying the meat, cracking the bones for marrow. Several smaller bands of people had come together to share the food. The hunter that led the hunting party was telling the story of how they killed the beast.

So far, you have viewed the story as an observer. Now, become the hunter telling the story. Read it out loud, and then read it out loud again with dramatic gestures, as if it were truly your story.

“When our scout told us he had found a mammoth mired in the mud at the mouth of this draw of the main watershed to the lake we immediately followed him back. The week before had brought huge thunderstorms each evening, and the floods had deposited a great deal of sand that became quicksand where the mammoths normally came to drink. We have stood on that bluff above us and watched them water here many times, wishing we could isolate one of them from the herd – but they are always so watchful. And now we are successful, and will have plenty of reserve supplies for the next times our hunts of smaller animals are not successful.”

“The most dangerous part of the job was to drive the herd away. They started small fires in the grass where the rest of the herd had gathered. The other mammoths were trumpeting – some of them paced along the shore and walked out toward the mired one, but at the first hint of sinking into the mud, they would return to shore. The biggest male mammoth was tearing up the oak tree, just over there. See – the branches are broken. The firemakers broke off several big branches of that old mostly dead oak over there, and carried them toward the herd when they were burning at the brightest. It maddened the herd, and some made charges at them. They pushed them back into the area where the beebrush grows thickest, and they were able to catch those shrubs on fire, too. They finally panicked and ran a hundred yards, away from the fire. By then the fires were growing larger, and most of the draw became an inferno. With the strong southwest winds, the fire spawned fire tornadoes, and the sound became deafening. The firemakers ran to the lake and joined me and the other lookout.”

“We waded into the water, but could not get close enough to make a strong thrust into the mired mammoth. Our spears just did not penetrate deep enough. I saw an old log that had been washed into the playa during the flood half buried in shallow water. We ran over and dug it up and carried back to the mammoth. We pushed and pushed and pushed and finally got it so it lay close to the side of the mammoth, but out of reach of its trunk. The others offered me the honor of making the first thrust. I crawled out on the branch. The mired mammoth was trumpeting and swinging its trunk. I made the thrust, and by the grace of all the powers greater than us, the thrust was true. When the spear slid between the ribs, I put all of weight behind it – I could feel it cut deeper. The mammoth screamed and writhed – the other hunters were yelling – “it has pulled one leg free, come back, come back!” Instead, I pushed harder. It gave one last cry and shuddered and died. Let us all pause and give thanks to the powers greater than us – all of us have been blessed.”

A story teaches. Every story teaches many things, and this story teaches about human character and the importance of cooperation, of giving an extra effort, of the value of analytical thinking, and scientific knowledge such as paleoecology, erosional effects, fire ecology, animal behavior and physiology.