At the behest of Jim Zintgraff, I am going to devote this response to his request that I expound upon the significance of the panther, mountain lion, puma or generic big cat in the Lower Pecos rock art.

The essence of the mountain lion (which is only colloquially called a panther) was certainly captured by the ancient artists who obviously knew long before they had an anatomy class that the local felines are notable for the length of their tails. Other attributes of importance to the prehistoric artists were claws, ears, and bristling hair but, from there on, artistic license was free to explore. Panthers are bisected down the middle and painted in two colors - front vs rear. In one case, only the front two legs are shown (and we know who walks on two legs, don't we - and I don't mean chickens). Some are almost invisible because they consist of short dashed lines that outline the beast, leaving the interior blank. The ability of the artist probably came into play also given that some of them are shaped like cigars and others like pigs - but the favorite pose is leaping, back bowed, tail bristling, claws unsheathed - often a series of lines or dashes emanate from the mouth, illustrating in my mind either the roar of the cat or its fetid breath. I don't subscribe to the idea that the lines are blood because in no case are these magnificent beasts wounded or hunted (the exception will be noted later). So what does it all mean? In the context of an art style that is as clearly shamanistic as the Pecos River style, the most obvious process at work is transmogrification or the ability to assume the shape of an animal - and what animal is a powerful (or ambitious) shaman going to choose? Not only is the mountain lion the most powerful animal, he/she is crafty and patient, almost invisible at will, and quiet as only a cat can be. The interconnection between shaman and feline is most clearly illustrated in the South American tribes people who believe that the shaman prowls at night in the form of a jaguar - to the extent that shooting a jaguar will result in injury to the human shaman. And of course, we see the residual of this belief in our own Halloween witch, flying by on her broom, with her cat on the back. None of this is surprising because of the awe and dread with which human beings contemplate the King of Beasts but there may be another aspect at work - at least along the Rio Grande where so many variations on the grand feline motif are found in so many sites. There is some evidence (at least in my mind) that the mountain lion may have been the totem or patron animal of at least one tribe of people centering on (where else?) Panther Cave. Some of you may recall that among the differences noted between the Pecos River sites in the mountains of Mexico and those along the Rio Grande is the notable absence of hand-held weapons in the Mexican sites - oh, but wait, these are not pacifists or advocates of non-violent solutions - my favorite recurring motif in these same sites is a line that skewers anywhere from three to eight animals that look awfully like small cats. I can not remember ever seeing this particular design in any of the sites in Texas or along the immediate border but it appears over and over again. I like the idea that wishful thinking, sympathetic magic, or dire predications were being prepared so that when the panther people met up with the group represented by the artists in these caves - Panther shish-kabobs! Finally, the Pecos River artists were not the only ones to draw the mighty mountain lion. At the type site, Red Linear, one of the cartoon characters is a small, striped feline, standing on its hind legs for all the world like the Were-Cougar figures of Panther Cave. Joke or was imitation the sincerest form of flattery?