CCCA Four Fountains

FOUR FOUNTAIN SPRINGS OF TEXAS

Tom Jones is a resident of Comal County and a professional writer and copy editor, as well as a "Friend" of the Comal County Conservation Alliance (CCCA).

Does prehistoric mural depict Comal Springs?

December 17, 2022

Located on a hidden rock wall deep within a canyon of the Pecos River in Southwest Texas is an ancient prehistoric mural, some 13 feet tall and 26 feet wide. Known as the White Shaman Mural, this stunning, fantastical pictograph was created as long ago as 1740-2500 B.C. in a tradition today known as the Pecos River Style. Many experts believe the images and ceremonies depicted within its fading black, red, yellow and white pictographs by ancient Mesoamerican people may depict the birth of time itself.

As a member of one of the indigenous Hokan-speaking groups that were prevalent in our area when Spanish explorers first arrived and a member of the Native American Church that still use the ceremonies depicted on the mural, Gary Perez had unique insight upon approaching this incredible 4,000-year-old artwork. He believed that this archaeological treasure also included something else of even greater importance to New Braunfels.

“When I was invited to look at the rock art and it was explained to me in a narrative,” he explains, “I thought wow, they’re talking about our ceremony. But I also think you’re looking at a map of Texas, probably the oldest one in the world.”

And, as his eyes surveyed the mural in astonishment, that was not all he saw.

Knowing that the ceremonies depicted were not just a mental reenactment of a myth, but that they were tied to particular landscape features and astronomical events, he began to correlate a number of curious parallels in the White Shaman

mural to ceremonies he had practiced with sacred places and astronomical events.

Within its depiction of “four fountains,” he was the first to recognize a stunningly geographically accurate map — a vivid representation of the Great Springs of what we now know as San Antonio, New Braunfels, San Marcos and Austin. Much more than that, however, it was the path of a sacred pilgrimage along the “old buffalo road” where the springs were important stops at which water was gathered and offerings were left.

As his remarkable insight became widely accepted by many within the Native-American, archeological, and geological communities, the story inspired the formation of The Great Springs Project nonprofit group. Their goal is to connect these four Great Springs with a public trail that, when completed, would pass directly through New Braunfels — a trail that would be at once new, but also, according to this ancient mural, as old as time itself.

As both a Centro San Antonio Ambassador and a featured speaker at the Witte Museum in San Antonio, Gary will discuss the White Shaman Mural, its incredible depiction of the springs and their place in Native-American cultures at his presentation of “The Four Fountain Springs of Texas.” Join us for this fascinating and informative discussion at the next community program of the Comal County Conservation Alliance on Jan. 10 at the McKenna Events Center (801 W. San Antonio St, New Braunfels) from 6 to 7:30 p.m. For more information or visit www.comalconservation.org.

White Shaman Mural & the Four Fountain Springs of Texas

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Compiled by Rita Wittwer
December 9, 2022

As they say in song, "a long, long, time ago," over 2,000 years, a creation myth mural was created, likely by the Huichol people from Northern Mexico and Texas, on the wall of a shallow cave overlooking the Pecos River, a trek through a landscape filled with Chihuahuan Desert plants and stunning views of the Pecos River where it converges with the Rio Grande. The White Shaman mural, an impressive 13 feet high by 26 feet long, illustrates the life norms and belief systems of the now-gone hunter-gatherer society. It was probably the first ever map drawn of Texas. The mural belongs to the Pecos River Style, a 4,000 year old form of rock art which depicts human and animal like figures using red, yellow, black, and white colors.

The first study of the painting was conducted by Gary Perez, a tenth generation Tejano and recognized expert and speaker on the indigenous cultures of South Texas. He noticed, among other significant things, that the mural's glyphs of the four fountain springs of Texas traced a gentle Southeast facing arc along the Balcones Escarpment and fault line from west of Del Rio to north of Austin, where the limestone uplift of the Edward’s Plateau stair steps down to the coastal plains, releasing water from its aquifer catacombs, the same route used by indigenous traders.

Those springs are the San Antonio Springs, Comal Springs, San Marcos Springs, and Barton Springs.

Geologist Joe Tellez and Perez were able to translate the painting into a map. Astronomy professor Alfred Alaniz, archaeologist Janet Stock, and geographer Dr. Clarissa Kimber joined the team and further discovered mathematical and astronomical sequences found in the painting, such as the 8-year cycle of Venus and the Saros cycles of lunar and solar eclipses. According to Perez, “The painting tells the story of the deer and its heroic act to bring light and water. Follow the deer and you will find water. Drink the water and you will find life.”

The headwaters remain a powerful symbol of the literal and spiritual life-giving essence of water. Flowing or not, they remain, to many, the sacred springs. These four great springs issue from a common water source, the vast Edwards Aquifer that flows underground along the Balcones Escarpment. The springs give rise to life-giving rivers that have sustained human communities for thousands of years. Evidence of human presence in the headwaters of these rivers dates back nearly 12,000 years, signifying the importance of these great springs to early human civilization.

San Antonio Springs/Blue Hole

At the Congregational home of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio, is a famous artesian spring known as the San Antonio Springs, or the Blue Hole, once rising up to twenty feet in the air. Indigenous peoples called the springs “Yanaguana,” which in the Coahuiltecan language means “Spirit Waters,” or up-flowing waters of the Spirit. Native American creation stories describe how the Spirit Waters rose up, giving birth to all Creation.

The whole river gushes up in one sparkling burst from the earth . . .
The effect is overpowering. It is beyond your possible conceptions of a spring.

— Frederick Law Olmstead, landscape architect and designer of New York's Central Park, 1857

The Blue Hole was understood to be “the source” of the San Antonio River. With an increased population, the city is now dependent on water from the Edwards Aquifer, which is riddled with many artesian wells. The first artesian wells were drilled into the Edwards in the 1890s had the immediate effect of reducing spring flow. Increased pumping to supply water to an expanding population has caused further drawdown of the aquifer, leaving them dry much of the time. Today, the Blue Hole is protected in the Headwaters Sanctuary at Incarnate Word, a 53-acre sanctuary established in 2008 by the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word who have occupied the headwaters of the San Antonio River since 1897. These remarkable springs and the many hundreds of smaller springs in the headwaters remain a powerful symbol of the literal and spiritual life-giving essence of water. Flowing or not, they remain, to many, the sacred springs.

Comal Springs

Comal Springs are the largest spring complex in Texas. The seven major and many smaller spring outlets occur for a distance of 4,300 feet along the Comal Springs Fault, the main southeast-down Balcones normal fault in the area. Many of the springs lie beneath Landa Lake or along its edge. Upthrown to the fault, Edwards carbonate rocks are exposed in Panther Canyon along the nature trail. The same rock layers are over 800 feet below the surface of Landa Lake.

The springs and surrounding area were once home to the indigenous Tonkawa people before being discovered by Spanish explorers. The town of New Braunfels began to take shape with the arrival of German settlers in 1845, and by the 1860s the springs were powering local grist- and sawmills.

The Edwards (Balcones Fault Zone) Aquifer is the largest and most prolific groundwater source in Texas. It provides water for agriculture in the Uvalde, Hondo, and Castroville area; city water for metropolitan San Antonio; and spring flow to the Guadalupe and San Marcos Rivers. A separate segment of the aquifer provides spring flow to Barton Springs in Austin.

The main natural outlets for the water in the Edwards Group carbonate rocks are Comal and San Marcos Springs. Fresh water flows generally south from the Edwards outcrop area into the confined zone (where younger, impervious rocks overlie the porous Edwards rocks). The water then moves eastward from the Uvalde and Hondo area beneath San Antonio and turns northeast toward New Braunfels and San Marcos. The flow is focused within a narrow zone on the southeast side of two large faults of the Balcones Fault Zone. The water rises along the fault planes to the two major springs. Comal Springs, in the valley of the Guadalupe River, is the larger spring, and its flow is nearly entirely from the deep confined aquifer. Some of the confined water continues northeast in the upthrown Edwards Aquifer to the San Marcos Spring (in the Blanco River Valley), where it mixes with more locally recharged waters.

The largest and most conspicuous spring is Spring #1, which lies just south of Landa Park Road (California Street) at the mouth of Panther Canyon. The spring discharge here averages 180 cubic feet per second, a bit over half of the total spring discharge. Other springs can be found across the road along the line of hills (which is the fault line) toward Landa Lake. A historic marker indicates the location of the short-lived Spanish mission "Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe" from 1756 to 1758.

The springs give rise to the Comal River, which runs only five miles before joining the Guadalupe River—it's known as the shortest significant river in the United States. The steady flow of water was developed for water power beginning before 1860. Mills were built downstream of the springs, where the natural spring lake was enlarged by a low dam. A large millrace runs along Landa Park Road to the hydroelectric plant. The old mill buildings now host the annual Wurstfest celebration.

San Marcos Springs

San Marcos Springs, the second largest natural cluster of springs in Texas, is two miles northeast of the county courthouse in San Marcos in southeastern Hays County.

The springs were originally called Canocanayesatetlo (meaning "warm water," although the water is only slightly warm) by the Tonkawa Indians; they have also been known as St. Mark's Spring and recently as Aquarena Springs. The springs' artesian flow issues from the Edwards and associated limestones in three large fissures and some 200 smaller openings along the Balcones fault zone, thus forming Spring Lake and the San Marcos River.

In previous centuries the springs supported a variety of wild fruits and nuts and abundant wildlife; they still support flora and fauna found nowhere else. Excavations indicate that Paleo-Indians used the springs at least 8,000 years ago, and that the Tonkawas farmed in the region 800 years ago. Early travelers and settlers described the large ones as fountains, gushing water several feet above the surface of the stream they created.

The first Europeans to visit the San Marcos Springs were members of the Domingo Terán de los Rios expedition in June of 1691, when they discovered very large gatherings of 2,000 to 3,000 Indians, from the nations they recognized, including Jumano, Cibolo, Cantona, and Casquesa. These members of distant tribes were on an annual hunting and trading expedition to the Springs, which the historian Elizabeth Johns refers to as a "trade fair." It is highly conceivable that tribes passing through the Pecos River area used this mural as the map to follow during their trading expeditions.

Several subsequent expeditions visited the Springs, and a short-lived Spanish settlement occurred in 1755. In that year, several missions on the San Gabriel River were abandoned and re-established temporarily on the San Marcos River. By 1757 the presidio soldiers had been re-assigned to other missions in Menard and San Antonio, and the exact location of the settlement is not known (Bolton, 1915). Another Spanish settlement was established along the San Marcos River in 1808 by Don Filipe Roque de la Portilla, but by 1812 it was abandoned due to Tonkawa and Comanche Indian harassment and severe flooding, and it is unknown whether these settlers utilized the springs or headwaters (Horrell, 1999).

Many archaeologists believe the area around the Springs is one of the oldest continually inhabited site in North America (Shiner, 1983). Sediment cores indicate that humans lived here 11,500 years ago, and there is evidence the area has been occupied during every known period of human habitation in Central Texas (Bousman and Nickels, 2003). In historical times, the Cantona Indians called the Springs Canocanayesatetlo, meaning "warm water" (Hatcher, 1932). Another Indian term for the area was Canaquedista, meaning "headwaters" (Foster, 1995).

A graphic picture of their original condition was written in 1846 by William McClintok (William A. McClintock)

Two miles north of St. Marks we crossed the Blanco, a mountain torent of purest water, narrow and deep, there is the finest spring of springs (for they are not less than 50 in a distance of 200 yds.) I ever beheld. These springs gush from the foot of a high cliff and boil up as from a well in the middle of the channel. One of these, the first you see in going up the stream, is near the center, the channel is here 40 yds. wide, the water 15 or 20 feet deep, yet so strong is the ebulition of the spring, that the water is thrown two or three feet above the surface of the stream. I am told that by approaching it in canoe, you may see down in the chasm from whence the water issues. Large stones are thrown up, as you've seen grains of sand in small springs, it is unaffected by the dryest season. I am persuaded that the quantity of water which is carried off by this stream in the course of a year is greater than that by the South Licking, it is about 60 feet wide and 3 feet deep on an average, with a curant of not less than ten or fifteen miles per hour. Great numbers of the finest fish; and occasionally an alligator may be seen sporting in its chrystal waters... In the eddies of the stream, water cresses and palmettoes grow to a gigantic size.

Of all the springs and sites that would be visited on the annual Indigenous peoples' pilgrimage, the San Marcos Springs are key. This is the creation site of the Coahuiltecan Indian tribes. Natives explain that when they were in their pre-human spirit form, they do not really know what they looked like. After following a deer through the underworld, they took on their human form when they emerged as people from the fountain springs of San Marcos.

Barton Springs

The lifeblood of Austin, originally called Waterloo, has always been its swimming holes, creek filled bastions pausing on their way to the Colorado River that bisects the town. Cold, clear springs bubble forth saving grace during scorching Texas summers. Layers of limestone, sea creature shells laid down in an ancient shallow sea, like sugar at the bottom of a glass of iced tea, inch by inch for thousands upon thousands of years, now shape high cliffs and sculpted creek bottoms.

Barton Springs are located in Austin's Zilker Park not far from the UT campus. There are four main spring orifices. These four springs are the primary discharge point for the Barton Springs segment of the Edwards Aquifer. Main Spring, also known as Parthenia Spring, feeds the 900' long swimming pool. There is a dam at each end of the pool; the upper dam directs flow from Upper Spring and Barton Creek into a bypass culvert so that stormwater flows do not enter the swimming area. Old Mill Spring, sometimes called Walsh or Zenobia Spring, is just south of Barton Creek about 450' below the lower dam and is surrounded by a round limestone enclosure built by the Works Progress Administration. Upper Spring occurs about 1,200' above the swimming pool. The fourth spring, Eliza Spring, is adjacent to the swimming pool and also surrounded by a WPA structure, a deep concrete ampitheatre that used to be a swimming hole.

The land, built from tiny calcium shells, eventually lifted out from a receding shallow sea forming the Edward’s Plateau. Now vegetated, and made porous by rain, these limestone layers filter, purify, and collect water in a vast underground network, the Edwards Aquifer. The water flowing through the aquifer then rises again, sometimes thousands of years later, to the surface in springs, made crisp, clean, and delightfully cold by their condensed journey through time.

This Spotlight relies heavily on the references listed below.