12 – Baldy Peak on
Mt. Livermore, Texas

And it says that, three hundred li to the south, T’AI (Bald) Mountain is found. [Then the mountain was called the Eastern YOH or T’AI-TSUNG, which is now called T’AI Mountain. It is in the northwestern part of FUNG-KAO district, and the distance from the foot of the mountain to its summit is forty-eight li and three hundred paces.] Upon this there are many gems, and below it there is much gold. Wild animals are found here which look like suckling pigs, but they have pearls. They are called TUNG-TUNG, their name being given them in imitation of their cry. The HWAN River is found here, a stream flowing easterly into a river (or into the river, i.e. the YANG-TSZ’ River). [One authority says that it flows into the sea.] In this there are many water–gems (quartz crystals). (Vining translation of Shan Hai Jing)

Mertz Note:

Exactly 100 miles south, in the Davis Range, stands Bald Peak – and called “Bald Mountain” by the Chinese, an unusually pointed coincidence. The animals with pearls, are undoubtedly small peccary with tusks. The stream that flows easterly into a river, is the Coyanosa Draw, which flows east into the Pecos. Quartz of countless varieties is present.

Author’s Comments:

The Chinese called this Bald Mountain. Ironically this is now known as Baldy Peak which sits atop Mt. Livermore in Jeff Davis County, Texas. Mt. Livermore rises straight up from the desert floor to the west.

Baldy Peak is in a huge nature conservancy with access only by permission. Between what The Nature Conservancy owns and its conservation easements on adjoining properties, almost 100,000 acres in the Davis Mountains are protected.167

We were told that fewer than 100 people a year enter this area because of the limited access and remote location. In contrast over 2000 people per year climb Mt. Everest.

The Shan Hai Jing says that the stream here flows easterly, which it does. It also describes an animal here which they called TUNG-TUNG that looks like a suckling pig with pearls. Again, the Shan Hai Jing has identified another animal native to the Americas in its correct location.

These are collared peccary (tayassu tajacu), also known as javelina. Hendon and I saw several in this area. According to the Smithsonian they are the only native, wild, pig-like animal found in the United States.168 Today peccary are found in New Mexico, Arizona, and the deserts of southwest Texas. Full grown they typically weigh 35 to 60 pounds.

Collared peccary - courtesy of NPS

Just as the Chinese described them, they look like cute miniature pigs with a white pearl on each side of their mouths. The “pearls” are tips of dagger-like tusks. According to Texas Tech University, normally peccary are harmless to humans and feed on various cacti. However, if threatened, they use their tusks in defense.

Note the tusk

The Shan Hai Jing describes gems here. Agates and japers found in this area are highly prized by collectors worldwide. There is a 3000 acre ranch near Baldy Peak where for a pittance one can hunt agates. Of course, the gem hunters also need to watch for rattlesnakes.

A report by the University of Texas at Austin titled “Texas Gemstones” also lists turquoise, colorless quartz crystals, and sanidine as other gems found in Jeff Davis County. The Shan Hai Jing correctly assessed that several of these are crystals or types of quartz.169

And then the Chinese describe gold. Gold has been found in this area by those panning for gold. There is no recent record of gold mining in this area. However, my brother and I believe we may know where the Chinese gold mine was located. The addendum at the end of this book discusses that.

In a cave “in the shadow of Mt. Livermore,” carbon dated to 1700 BC, is what is believed to be the remains of a man made shelter.170

In this area there were once thousands of art objects – generally small enough to hold in one’s hand. Among items found here were painted bone, carved and incised bone, clay figurines, painted and incised pebbles, and carved gourds.

Miriam A. Lowrance wrote for the El Paso Archaeological Society:

Mrs. Sarah M. Janes lived in Fort Davis in the 1890’s, and much of her time was spent in collecting Indian artifacts….The collection of 1250 artifacts was donated in 1929 by Mrs. Janes to the West Texas Historical and Scientific Society, and is now in the Museum of the Big Bend on the campus of Sul Ross State University, Alpine, Texas.171

Lowrance then quoted Alpine Avalanche, April 1, 1932:

“Mrs. Janes made seven trips up Mount Livermore in order to secure these specimens of Indian days. She rode horseback a part of the way up the mountain and crawled on her hands and knees up the most dangerous and steepest part of the mountain.”172

Just to the south of the Trans-Pecos region of Texas, is Cueva Pilote, Mexico, another cave with some unusual objects. Altogether a minimum of 18 painted deer scapulae (shoulder blades) – several broken, some burned – were recovered from this site. Another deer scapula from another nearby Texas cave was mentioned in A. T. Jackson’s Picture Writing of the Texas Indians. People from Cueva Pilote had contact with those in the Trans-Pecos region.173

History of Cartography reports that in 2000 BC Chinese made maps on copper or bronze vases.174 Ancient Chinese, when not writing on bronze, wrote on turtle shells or cattle scapulae then burned them as oracle bones for divination. Like the Chinese oracle bones, some believe that these North American scapulae were possibly also used for divination or worship.

Note that the rock appears to be cut

Some of the rock on Baldy Peak definitely looks like it was cut or chiseled by someone at some time. There is an unusual abundance of rock art in the Trans-Pecos region including some etched onto rock, some painted. At one location is an arrangement of painted boulders which depict paired dancers. Some of the stone art in this region is so large that researchers made mosaics of photos taken from the sky (Hudspeth County) or use kite aerial photography (Reeves County) to capture each depiction.175

Boulder on the left, near top of knoll, appears to be hollowed out like a parapet

The El Paso Archaeological Society, Inc. produces a journal titled The Artifact. Two entire issues in 1987 reproduced the rock art of Jeff Davis County where Baldy Peak is found. Presidio County (our next stop on this Shan Hai Jing journey) also has so much rock art that in 1988 two issues were devoted to that. It is believed that the individual works of art span a very long period of time.176

Of course, long ago this area was not divided into counties. Brewster, Hudspeth, and Reeves Counties, which are all also in the Trans-Pecos region and border the three counties we list in reference to the Shan Hai Jing, each also has its own remarkable rock art and artifacts.

Ft. Davis was once the site of an Indian camp. In 1854 it was established as a fort to protect settlers from Indians. It was named after Jefferson Davis, then the US Secretary of War. Later during the War Between the States (US Civil War) Davis became president of the confederacy. Texas supported states’ rights and thus the confederacy.

In 1866, following the Civil War, Congress increased the number of troops. For the first time in US history black men served in the peacetime army, but were still segregated. The Ninth United States Cavalry, mainly composed of black soldiers, was sent to serve at Ft. Davis from 1867 to 1885 to continue to protect the settlers from Indian attacks.

The Indians nicknamed them “Buffalo Soldiers” because of their dark skin, curly hair, and fierce fighting spirit. The Buffalo Soldiers adopted that name with pride and even put a buffalo on their regimental crest. During that time Ft. Davis became the “most important town in the Trans-Pecos country” because it was protected and was at a crossroads of two important trails.

Originally part of Presidio County, Jeff Davis County was established in 1887 as the result of an act of the Texas legislature (apparently still supporting their confederate hero, even after the end of the war). At that time Ft. Davis was designated as the county seat. By the early 1890’s the army abandoned the fort, but the town continued.

One can still take a tour of the fort which sits beside the town, just south of the Davis Mountains. In the vicinity of Ft. Davis are numerous large stones which appear to be standing on end, like those of Stonehenge. These are said to be volcanic tuff.

Volcanic tuff near Ft. Davis - courtesy of NPS

Hendon and I commented to each other that some of the local school children that we observed in that area looked Asian. The 2010 US Census listed no Asians and a total population of 1201 for Ft. Davis. Jeff Davis County had a total population of 2342 in 2010 or one person per square mile.

In 2009 on our second visit to study this area of Texas, my brother and I slept in bunks at a rustic building on the conservancy. In the night we heard several coyotes howling right outside. Bears had been seen there a couple of days earlier. Mountain lions, 600 pound wild boars with tusks, and rattlesnakes inhabit this region. The boars are not native and we saw huge cages set to catch them. We were told that after the boars are caught, they are shot and the carcasses dragged out of the trap. By the next morning not even their bones are left.

“Hendiana” Jones & the Lost Raider of the Park,

starring Harris Son’s Ford (OK, it’s only a Jeep)

We were warned that because of our remote location our cell phones would not work until we reached the mountain top. Our guide, Pam, was quiet, but is a self-confident Texan. In a pendant on her necklace she wears a tiny shard of human bone that she found at a site, not far away, where her fiancé died in a small plane crash. This part of Texas is her total universe and she is content with that.

Driving for over an hour within the conservancy, we slowly ascended winding washed out roads in an open jeep. Three coyotes, as large as wolves, sauntered across the road as if they owned it. They looked our way as they crossed, but did not seem at all fearful of us. We stopped till they passed. We also saw deer and wild turkeys along the way.

Finally the jeep could not drive any higher. The last one and a half steep miles we had to ascend on our own.

Both my brother and I were once competitive runners and we still exercise regularly. Hendon was Junior Cross Country Champion twice for the colony of Hong Kong. When we were young teens, Hendon and I took turns riding a unicycle that we co-owned.

In the 1960s in tropical Hong Kong we and our siblings swam and kayaked in a bay, hiked in the mountains, and rode bikes in the New Territories. In 1984 I was one of those who ran and carried the Olympic torch on a leg of its cross country journey to Los Angeles. In 2009 in Texas we were following another youthful adventure, but our bodies, now years later, were not as eager to obey. The air seemed thin at the high altitude. It was very windy, and numerous rocks in our path were unstable.

Pam warned us that anyone who goes up this mountain must be able to return on his own power. If a medical emergency arose we should not expect a helicopter rescue. Sudden down drafts make helicopter rescues here too risky. My brother and I took note to allow plenty of time to descend the mountain before dark. We wondered if we tarried too long, whether even our bones would be eaten like those of the slaughtered boars.

View from Mt. Livermore

Chinese were watching the stars from very early dates. If the Chinese chose this spot in Texas to observe stars, they chose well because this is one of the best star gazing areas in North America. The Milky Way (which both the Chinese and Native Americans call the “River of Heaven”) is clearly visible from there.

McDonald Observatory is on an adjacent mountain. Some originally wanted to put the observatory on Baldy Peak, but access was too difficult.

I can attest that access to Baldy Peak is not easy. The top is over 8300 ft. (2500 meters) in elevation. To reach the summit our guide instructed us how to crawl up the last several yards – straight up rocks that in warm weather rattlesnakes use for sunning. Though it was a cloudy day, from the top my brother and I saw the adjacent stops named by the Chinese to the north and to the south.

View from Mt. Livermore

The Shan Hai Jing’s mention that the mountain 300 li to the south was “Bamboo Mountain,” stopped me in my tracks. Looking south I saw mile after mile of the Chihuahuan Desert. Bamboo needs water. I doubted that bamboo could possibly grow in dry West Texas.

Thinking that surely this reference to bamboo would prove the Shan Hai Jing wrong, the next day we visited the local museum to ask whether there is anything in Texas that looks like bamboo.

“Yes, river cane.”

“Where?”

“By Chinati Peak.” (Where Mertz placed it.)

However, local archeologists would not even discuss with us the possibility that early Chinese may have been in Texas. The only Chinese they would discuss were the ones who built the railroad in the nineteenth century.

Unusual rock formations in the Davis Mountains

Unusual rock formations in the Davis Mountains