In 1971 Harry Crosby undertook a strenuous trek through the remote and sparsely populated reaches of the Sierra de San Francisco in Baja California to collect oral histories from the isolated mountain communities. On the last day of the trip, and almost as an afterthought, Crosby’s guide, Tacho Arce, suggested one last hike to view a cave painting he remembered in the area. It was not the first such painting Crosby had seen, but it was by far the grandest: an expressive composition of oversized animal and human figures that was astonishing in its sophistication and artistry. Crosby was thrilled; he had seen nothing comparable in the New World. But even beyond that, he writes, he was “overwhelmed by the sense of a people, a living culture expressing itself to me in powerful terms. In my mind, those silent arroyos once again echoed with voices.”
This stunning encounter changed the course of Crosby’s research. As he says in this newly revised and greatly expanded edition of his earlier book, long out of print, “the hunt was on.” When told that this great mural was only one of dozens, perhaps hundreds, scattered throughout the region, Crosby determined to photograph as many of these paintings as he could possibly find. Over the next twenty years, he combed some thousand miles of wildly inhospitable terrain to document more than 200 previously unknown rock art sites. Largely as the result of his efforts, the Baja California region is now considered one of the five most significant areas in the world for pictographic murals and the only one in the Western Hemisphere.
This book, the lavishly illustrated and compellingly written chronicle of Crosby’s dedicated search for the works of the unknown people he calls simply “the Painters,” is both an enthralling adventure story and a thoughtful reflection on the universal human impulse to create. —Elizabeth Greenlee
