By topic: 210
Toronto Star, 6 July 1922
In book: 63
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Texas: sighting over heaps of rock #1

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Watkins quotes this article in The Old Straight Track, pp. 180–181.

SMALL HEAPS OF ROCKS ARE SIGNS OF WATER


Indians Build Them At New Spring as Indications for Other Redmen.

In traveling over the plains of western Texas one now and then comes upon little isolated heaps of rock, in twos, that at first glance seem not at all remarkable.

After a time, however, one notices that one heap is generally about three feet high and the other about a foot lower. The two are always within a few feet of each other and usually on an elevation or a plateau commanding a view of the country for five miles or more. The rocks are roughly heaped together, as if left by children at play.

In time one learns the significance of these rock heaps, as he talks with some of the Indians, who know by heart all the legends and customs and deeds of their people.

According to these Indians, when the Great Spirit lapped up the mighty rivers of the plains, he left springs and water basins here and there for the antelope and the Indians. These the antelope easily found by scent, but the Indian had to search long and anxiously for them. Once found, they were seldom lost, thanks to these rude rock heaps

You may see an Indian crouch down behind the taller heap, sight over the low one and mark the farthest objest in a straight line, which is likely to be a clump of bushes on the horizon. Then he rides towards these bushes and finds—not water, as he expected, but two other heaps of rocks.

Sighting as before, and taking a rockfaced cliff, perhaps toward the south-west, as a goal, he rides a couple of miles farther, and there, trickling out from beneath the cliff’s rocky brow, is a spring of fresh, clear water.

It is said that whenever a band of Indians came upon a new spring they built the rock heaps along the trail. At any rate, it appears that these rude signposts lead either to water or to places that show traces of a former watercourse.—Christian Science Monitor.

 

Source info: MS note by AW “Toronto Star”; date in cutting.