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The school is a microcosm of society and as long as we have these problems in society we're going to have them in our schools. Dr. Marvin Edwards brought metal detectors to a school board meeting last month to show he was serious about keeping gangs out of Dallas public schools. Your supporters need it as we move forward with this plan and these plans as we continue to provide for a safe environment for Dallas and the fitness school districts so that all of our students can learn to achieve. Dr. Edwards promised to attack the latest threat to learning and that's the way the Dallas school board wants it. The board hired Edwards two years ago to make a difference in the classroom. They said they advertised for an educator not a bureaucrat.

They wanted someone who would improve achievement from minority children, attack the high dropout problem, turn around white flight and restore confidence in the Dallas public school system. We talked to some of Edwards bosses employees and those who write about education to find out how well the new superintendent is doing. Dr. Edwards in the interviews that I've done with him would say it's too early to grade him. That generally has been his opinion. I think he has developed a pretty good blueprint for where we need to be going. So I would give him a B-plus in substantive issues. I think in terms of style it would be more of a C-plus because I think he and I'm not sure if he can change this but he he simply lacks the personality to galvanize the community behind him. What kind of grade would you give Marvin Edwards and why? All things considered probably a B-plus. What I think you have to grade him on is the manner which he

approached it, how he dealt with the rather serious racial conflict and political conflict swirling around the school system, how he dealt with what appeared to be a conflict between the teachers and the administrators and lastly what sense of mission he brought to a system that seemed to be at war with itself. I think Marvin is a person and as a potential leader has an A but he's working at the C-minus level right now which gives him a B-average. I just think that he sometimes falls pray to all sorts of factions and he tries to please a little bit more than sometimes a leader has to. He certainly hasn't won everyone over yet. I mean there are the teacher groups which initially sort of definitely welcomed his arrival have tempered their support of him and have opposed him successfully on some issues. We've seen no decrease in paperwork, people just keep saying

things just aren't improving. Do teachers consider him a friend? I think they don't know. I think at this point they just don't know. I'm afraid I have to give him a grade of C. I think he would probably get a B for this past year. It was a very difficult year even for a superintendent who was established and was already here. It would have been a very difficult year. I'd have to give him an A. I think Dr. Edwards came to a district with a lot of challenges and I'd give him somewhere between B plus A minus because I think he's worked very hard and very well in accessing this district which is a very large district. I would hope that we would remember the things that he said to us when he first came here is that I am not one who will come in and turn the district upside down. I'm not flamboyant. I am steady kind of behind the scenes. Very low key. Personally I like to see a superintendent step

up and say hey this is wrong or that is wrong or well since he's telling the board of ed who are his bosses that some of their decisions make no sense publicly. He probably needs to say well now I'm the superintendent of schools and you've hired me to do a job and this is what I really think needs to be done in this particular situation and I want you to support it and I don't think he does that. I think he's a smart man and I think he's a good man and I think he knows what to do. The big question in my mind is whether he can pull it off. Reviewing the grades of the Dallas School Superintendent received from journalists, board members and teachers groups. The average grade is a B plus. You might expect a story about the Fort Worth School Superintendent to begin with the

face of Don Roberts. After all, he holds the position. But to chart the progress of any school district chief, you really need to look at its students. Their achievements and growth are the truest measure of any education systems leader. Academically students in Fort Worth have lagged behind students in other large urban districts across the state. During the almost three years, Don Roberts has been superintendent. Moderate gains have been made, but test scores still fall short of state averages. Let's look at the Texas Educational Assessment of Minimal Skills or Teams Test for some comparisons.

Third, fifth, seventh and ninth graders take the Teams Test statewide in February of each year. The two elementary school groups tested in Fort Worth scored lower on the test in 1989 than they did the previous year. The other two groups showed conservative gains. Students from three of the four grade levels scored below state averages. Only seventh graders tied the statewide numbers, and ninth graders were a full 12 percent behind students from across the state. The exit level Teams Test is given to juniors and seniors across Texas. All high school students must pass the exam to graduate. Juniors in Fort Worth scored 7 percent higher on the test in 1989 than in 1988, but they were still out distance statewide by some 13 percent. Seniors increase their scores by 7 percent from 1988 to 1989, but the statewide average was still 3 percent higher. Test scores of minority students are even more dismal and are significantly lower than the

scores of white students. We're still not where we want to be, but there isn't any doubt. The documentation is there that team scores have improved. They have improved for all of our students. The Hispanic progress on teams has improved. The scores for black students have gone up. Again, we're not where we want to be, but you don't get there, except by improving the instructional programs at the beginning so that it will pay off in the future. Robert says he believes too much emphasis has been placed on the Teams Test anyway. We ought not to continue to consider the Teams score as the measure of a district it isn't. It never has been. When Don Roberts became Superintendent in March of 1987, he visited various school campuses to introduce himself and to get a look at the schools and the staff he

would manage. What I saw was a district that had lost its confidence that they could be a good school district. Robert's predecessor, Dr. Carl Candoli, had left the district under a cloud of controversy. Most board members felt Candoli was too outspoken, too flamboyant, and too liberal for the predominantly conservative board. However, some minorities felt Candoli lost favor because he was often an ally on many issues. While that same kinship is missing between minority groups and Dr. Roberts, his relationship with minority board members is fairly solid. Board member Madri Walton says there is room for improvement, but overall she's pleased with Robert's performance. I think Dr. Roberts truly is interested in all children ever a child, achieving or having the opportunity achieved to his or her fullest. I think he would do more if he could do. I think he is handicapped to some degree, and I say that because if he were to do as much

as I think he wants to do, he might get in hot water with a majority of his constituents. The only school related busing in Fort Worth these days is voluntary. A federal court order last year called for an end to busing to achieve racial desegregation. A federal ruling in September of this year declared the Fort Worth ISD unitary, which means the court found the district to be free of racial inequities. In spite of the number of predominantly one race schools in the district, in spite of lower achievement among minority students. The legal action paves the way for an end to over 25 years of court intervention. Dr. Roberts doesn't take credit for the federal edicts, but he calls them victories. Victories he fought hard for, victories that put him at odds with many in the minority community. The world of segregation should be torn down. Fort Worth attorney George

Sawyer often spoke out against declaring the district unitary. He's disappointed Dr. Roberts fought so hard for the declaration in the courts. He says it shows the superintendent's level of thinking is not where it should be. The superintendent of necessity has to look at budget, has to look at bill bricks and mortar and all the conglomerate that makes up schools and a good school system. But that superintendent must look at the end product and the end product is a bunch of uneducated kids and the majority of the uneducated kids are minority and that's wrong. Modri Walton agrees. I did not feel I didn't then and I don't now think that we are ready for unitary status. We have improved with growing but we haven't reached that point yet. I had hope

that he could have seen that there were, though we had made a much progress that there were too many things that still needed to be done in my way of thinking that we had not accomplished. Dr. Roberts believes higher test scores will come with time. He says the higher level of achievement needed in the district can only be reached by fine-tuning the district's instructional efforts and by involving parents and the community in the process. Roberts believes any changes must be made in a slow deliberate fashion. It's that attitude that has earned the superintendent the reputation of being laid back. The laid back meaning that that's just he's easy to talk to and he's open but he still has a job to do and he makes you know precisely what he wants and that we are going to do those things. The president of the Fort Worth classroom teachers association

sees Roberts a little differently. She says he's very knowledgeable but not very open. He has I feel a lot of times difficulty in expressing how he feels about things and his ideas even though they're extremely good. Again a lot of times there is a breakdown. He's like a person who sits around and thinks a lot. I hope that the he will be able to express so that we can benefit from it. I can't get over that reputation of being fairly quiet and reserved because I guess maybe I am to some extent. I hope I'm a builder. I don't jump in and tear something up to make it better. I try to take what I have and bring people together. During his two and a half year tenure the district has amassed a $12 million reserve. Its physical plan has been improved and attitudes

among staff and parents are improving. You know big district like we are and we do have problems you know we've had problems in the past. He's going to take some time but he started working on that. Speaking of acceleration. It took a while for the diverse board to get used to Roberts but unlike years under Candoli the board finds itself in agreement more often than not especially on votes directly affecting the education of young people. The board voted unanimously in February to award Roberts a five year term contract. For Earth School Board President Gary Manning. We wanted to send a message to the school community and also to the community at large that we were happy with the progress. We were happy with the directions that we had undertaken. We were happy with the directions that he was leading the district and we wanted to make sure that there wasn't going to be any misunderstanding that we were all in this for the long haul. There was a nine and no vote and for a very complex school district like this I think that is

something I'm very proud of and I'm very serious about my commitment to fulfill that contract. If this district isn't a lot better four years from now I think it's better now than it was two and a half years ago. If it isn't a lot better four years from now then I really won't be interested in being superintendent anymore because I will have given all I can to the to the district. Now that the door has been open I believe that now the blacks and the police department will probably feel that they can bring their grievances before the civil service board and have a fair impartial hearing.

The Education Committee concluded that students and adults should learn more about each other to curb racism and prejudice. Dallas together proposed cultural sensitivity training for public school staffers, immediate blitz to educate adults and a multi-racial commission to supervise those programs. That was the plan. Here's the reality. I went to a lot of the sessions that they did say we're going

to do this and the fact is here we are one year later and we're still just a lot of rhetoric. Frank Macklemore with the Dallas School District's American Indian Advisory Committee originally gave Dallas together credit for an ambitious plan but he's disappointed with the results. Well I'd give him a feeling score real fast. Why? Because there's nothing out to visibly that I can see or that I can point to and say hey this is a result of the Dallas together project there's nothing out there. We have had some training with the board but I don't even know if any training programs that help teachers understand what racism means that I know we have not done nearly enough in moving from a monolithic curriculum to a pluralistic curriculum. Dallas together has made one effort to break down racial barriers among students. The group organized a youth leadership program between two ethnically different schools. We're trying to bring students of different diverse backgrounds, bring them together with speakers of different diverse backgrounds and

focus not so much on multicultural awareness or prejudice but focus pretty much on leadership and in the course and context of that discussion bring in the points you deal with institutional racism. This was an effort to kind of put something in the picture to say we have done something but I don't think one shot out of a need for thousands of things like this to happen is going to make a whole lot of difference. The need for change is so clear the city has embraced yet another racial awareness program called a world of difference. This program has the potential. I think the project works through schools the community and the media some Dallas together members are taking credit for bringing the project to Dallas. Well that's that's news to me the people who brought world of difference to Dallas is the anti-deformation league and our underwriters. Mark Riskman the league's director for North Texas says his organization has taken the project to more than 20 cities in five years. Dallas together is a supporter of it and is recommending the project which we welcome but the project is here having nothing to do with whether Dallas together brought it or not.

Dallas together recommended that public schools use more culturally sensitive books and teaching materials but a world of difference is designing classroom activities to help students learn about and understand people of different races and cultures and hopefully that will impact significantly on declining of discrimination and prejudicial attitudes. Members of Dallas together say they have achieved most of the education committee's goals except for the multi-racial commission. They're still working on that. Dallas together's political participation committee didn't have to look far to spot part of the

problem in a city half black Hispanic and Asian only two minorities sit on the 11 member city council. The minority members of our community are not afforded proper access to our political system in the city of Dallas. Dallas together proposed revamping municipal government through a city charter review committee to decide the proper size makeup powers and compensation of the city council as well as campaign finance reform the goal opening political access to all citizens. There's going to have to be some bending. There are going to have to be some leaps of faith. When you talk about changing structure you're really talking about moving power around. Most black and many Hispanic leaders favored a city council with all district representation

but the charter review committee adopted a 1041 plan of 10 district council seats overlaid by four quadrant seats with the mayor elected citywide. We shall overcome the 1041 proposals sparked weekly protests at city hall. At the polls in August white voters overwhelmed minority opposition and approved the 1041 plan. White people in Dallas don't want to give up political power. They don't want to give up economic or that's it. Opponents are now looking to the federal courts charging 1041 could leave minorities with proportionately less representation. A decision is pending before federal judge Jerry Buckmeyer who could choose to call a special election. The 1041 plan adopted by voters is on hold awaiting justice department approval. Voters rejected a proposed council pay hike keeping it at $50 a week. Campaign finance reform has never been addressed. Dallas

together's political participation committee called for change. Its success depends on who you talk to. I think the fact that the recommendations for change that Dallas together came forward with have been accepted generally and the fact that the pursuit for these recognized needed changes

has begun. The pursuit to make the changes has begun isn't itself a very unifying force. But who is charged with implementing those recommendations? Who should be charged with implementing them? Well I think the different committees of Dallas together has done a good job and still has been working and I think the all these ideas will be taken up by different organizations when Dallas together as an organized group dispans. You're suggesting that it's going to take more than Dallas together to really bring about racial harmony in this city? I think the ideas put forth by Dallas together are being helpful and we will continue to be helpful and I think they will form a foundation for changes that will gradually take place not all at one time but gradually you know look how many years it's taken to get where we are. You know the message. The members

of Dallas together for the most part are agreed that something very positive has happened in this city. What about the masses and particularly those who are on the bottom? Do they understand your message? Do you think they feel as positively about this as you do? I think when they are touched by it then they will. We still have a lot of problems in this city and many of them caused by the economic circumstances, people without jobs, people who can't afford housing. We have a need for affordable housing. We have still many needs to be addressed but we're working to address them and Dallas together is the end of just the beginning. And you're telling old doubting me that these are not superficial changes. These are not people being put in place just for show. No. The old Dallas way.

This is for real. This is for real because Dallas cares and Dallas wants to be a city for all its people. Last Sunday, Maestro Nukula Roshimyo entered the Dallas Music Hall Orchestra pit for the last time

as conductor and artistic director of the Dallas Opera. It was a warm welcome for a man who had just turned a cold shoulder to the company he co-founded with Lawrence Kelly in 1957. Roshimyo announced his resignation three weeks ago, charging that budget decisions by general director Plato-Karianas were crippling the opera artistically. I think it's important to remember that Roshimyo had a very special relationship, working professional relationship with Lawrence Kelly who helped found the company with him. They both loved the same things,

European, Italian, things of great culture and style and they were men of culture and style and they were very concerned about putting every penny they could on the stage. I remember Kelly ran the office. John Ardoin is music critic for the Dallas Morning News and he says Roshimyo and Karianas who came in 1977 never quite hit it off. I think Roshimyo felt that he was getting short-changed where it really mattered the most but he sort of tried to work under the system and tried to get along though I think he was very unhappy during those years but the final straw that broke the camel's back shall we say was this year with the orchestra. Before this year the Dallas Symphony had been the orchestra for the opera but because its season was lengthened with the opening up a new symphony hall the opera had to build a new orchestra. Roshimyo claims the general director bungled negotiations with musicians and then settled on agreements which allowed for some inferior and undependable performers in the pit. During the intermission of last Sunday's

performance of Madama Butterfly we talked with some musicians and opera patrons about Roshimyo's departure. Well we're very sad because almost all of us I'm sure we feel that my sister Roshimyo really is a great artist and that Dallas is losing something really special. He's the finest conductor ever played for I don't know of anyone that is better than him or you know knows as much as he does and it's just too bad. I think he's a musical inspiration and a leader that we can respect. We like a heavy mirror. It's hard to say goodbye that same here I really think that we all love him we hate to see him go. Well we're going to miss him because he has really been tremendous and he has brought so much to Dallas. A spokesman for the opera said the administration and the board have decided to make no official comments on Roshimyo's charges. They declined

our invitation to be interviewed for this story. Well the official stance of the board is to try to might say rise above it all pretend that there is no problem but in private a number of them have told me of their great dismay and their great unhappiness with this and that they did not like what was happening. You've also talked to at least one artist who's performed with the Dallas Opera. I've talked to several artists lately who were very very upset with what was happening here. I suppose the most vocal was Marilyn Harne who called the situation outrageous and who said simply that Dallas was one of the few companies that was lucky to have a musician as important as Roshimyo in residence. Roshimyo was the sole of the opera company the conscience whatever he set the style of it within in the last eight or ten years great limitations but he still said it. Maestro on Sunday you had your last bow with the Dallas Opera.

Yes and it was a very emotional one. Do you want me to talk about myself a little bit? Sure I mean how did you feel on that particular moment when you were being yourself the last time? I felt great sadness because I'm leaving but I felt great relation because it sort of kept my work of 32-33 years with the company and the response of the audience and I might say rather than audience my friends was such that it will be a very cherished memory for a long time to come. Of course you're leaving under sort of bad circumstances I mean you're you're resigning because you didn't like the way things were going. That's right I'm resigning because I don't approve of the lack of vision that there is in the company at this point and I we're always trained to to work within financial parameters you know no opera company in the world is rich

at least in the United States and Europe is different because the state subsidizes it you see but here so it's not a question of money it's a question of how money how the money is spent I've said time and time and again that an opera company is as good as what happens on the stage and you think because there are tight tightening of the purse dreams that you're getting an inferior no it's it's not the tightening it's it's just priorities you know I mean um our function is to and we've done it historically so I know that it could be done because we've done it for many years it's it's how you spend your money you know a good housekeeper knows where to where to invest more money or where to spend more money and where less and here I found that that the last thing we were thinking of at least from the standpoint of the management was the the product itself and I can't live with that because I know it's not the right thing

and I know that we've done it better before with the same type of restrictions the housekeeper in this case has played a car honest yes yes that's he's the general director and you two really never get along it's no because from the very beginning you know a title doesn't make the person a person makes the title it's not enough to be called this or that or the other thing you have to have the qualifications to do it and I found that Mr. Cudiannis does not have the qualifications to be a general director a good general director anybody could be a general I mean they're they're not talking at the opera but if they were here I'm sure they would say well wait here's an artistic guy artistic people always have problems with budgets they don't know how to manage they just they only think about the the art form and not about the budget that is true up to a degree but the financial part

of it is not up to me I can't go and spend any amount of money I want I can't I can't tell you it took me three months to persuade the board and everybody else that we needed a new production this year it took me three months to get that Cavalry and Pagliacci approved as a new production whereas our a little bit of what set let's say Dallas opera apart from other opera companies in the United States was that we did have lavish productions that we did works that were offbeat now all look at oh is this going to sell at the box office it's necessary that it sells at the box office don't don't misunderstand me but we also have a cultural mission you understand what I say well one of our things is that has put us on the map is not to do a good butterfly alone but it's to introduce handle to the opera house to introduce Monteverdi to the opera and now all the companies are doing these works we were trailblazers the Dallas opera has been a trailblazer has

been and there's no reason why it shouldn't continue to be because we were never rich we never had money in the bank to say oh let's splurge but we had this vision of doing something important and something useful not only for the community but for art in general and the vision is gone and I find that that vision is gone you help give birth to this baby are you abandoning it now I'm not abandoning it it's abandoning me I think a time comes when you feel that you can do the work that you know you can do and that you have done you've proven yourself when there are such impediments into doing this work was the use of sticking around you know it hurt me a lot don't think it was an easy decision I mean I leave a lot of friends here I coming for over 30 years I mean one makes attachments and one makes friendships and one gets accustomed to a routine of life

that was completely Dallas this will never leave me because it's been too long it's not been a little flirtation of a couple of months it's been a long marriage you know 1957 that's right well I'm wondering who should they get next I mean who feels a shoes that's not up to me to say that's up to them now to do I have no idea I have not been consulted but sure do you care I care I hope for the right person right person in my case and if they go the way of an artistic director because it's possible there are companies that unify both the general director and the artistic director in one person many companies are run that way but as far as I was concerned or I am concerned it just couldn't work out anymore as we just said you've been a part of this arts community since 1957 in Dallas how is Dallas as a support of the arts generally I mean I've

seen other cases where artistic directors just couldn't make it here they didn't feel right here well I think the arts are in pretty good shape I'm a little tired of hearing that because of the financial whatever they call it recession oppression depression or whatever that we're banning this and then the other thing that is not true because we see other cities that flourish I mean Houston for instance that I hear was hit worse than Dallas because of the oil situation built in a opera house does more productions they have a fantastic ballet company they have a good orchestra now as far as the orchestra the symphony orchestra which is the orchestra we've used up to the sear that's one of your concerns too yes a great concern that was that was to be the legacy that I was leaving the company a fine well-trained orchestra four years to come and that again through mistaken and misguided negotiations on Mr. Caryanis's part for the company we really

had a pickup orchestra this year and and yet I mean you say you have less than the quality musician you would want in that pit the reviews for Madonna Butterfly were great well I mean they they would have been greater let's put it that way if you had had the musician well no I mean you see what happened I mean the two parts the musicians themselves and and our management just didn't agree I mean there again they were told you're going to pay get paid so much which was not really a very good salary and so in the meantime we give it these things went on for months it could have been done in two weeks or two months let's say with the proper negotiator with the proper negotiator and and so we kept losing good musicians who kept getting other jobs and they said all right if we are not going to make money on this engagement then you'll have to give us other concessions so

in came tenure in came opt-outs in other words you if I have another job because I've got to pay my rent I've got to feed my kids I go there I go there and then when I and then I so that at one rehearsal I'd have one person and then another rehearsal that we other people I mean you cannot accept these things I mean the orchestra is the soul of an opera company and we've had the good fortune of having four years the the symphony orchestra which really had become with the metropolitan without a doubt the best two pit orchestras in the United States compared to the metropolitan oh yes absolutely where does the Maestro Rishinio go from here Maestro Rishinio goes to New York for a couple of days to see his beloved family my mother 93 years old and then I go to Rome where I own a house but I won't be saying much at home because I'm conducting with the Rome opera house in the Rome opera house I'll be conducting better with a good

friend of the Dallas audiences with Kraus and Ruscon Tini so you're leaving Dallas but you're not leaving conducting oh why shouldn't I gotta eat thank you very much thank you so it is a stark and mysterious land a rugged environment of contrasts

a world of deep canyons swift rivers and desert bluffs a harsh landscape where spirit beings once reigned and ancient Texans left their handprints on canyons walls that who were these people who settled here 10,000 years ago who painted their narratives on the limestone shelters what was their world like well you wake up to bury from the world it's a world that you've seen all your life and you've never seen beyond it like everybody else your basic needs of food clothing and shelter need to

be met and they were met with the very resources right here there was no trade there was no border for any of those needs they were taken care of off the landscape and I think the one thing that the people had was an incredible familiarity with the land that was their comfort that was their security and although there were spirit beings out there that they were afraid of they didn't own the land 50 years of archaeological research tells us that the inhabitants were hunter-gatherers they lived in small bands of eight or ten coming together from time to time to celebrate to socialize to wage war they made seasonal rounds within a 200 or 300 mile radius they cultivated no crops but used every single natural resource available

to them they knew the movement of game and the fruiting cycles of plants archaeological work out here has uncovered remains of the diet in terms of preserved fecal material and analysis of this fecal material has given us an incredibly accurate detail profile of the diet to begin with their basic plant foods that we find over and over again include prickly pear the sotal and the letchugia which is a diminutive form of a gobby that grows in this area these were staple foods this is a letchugia bulb this is really interesting in that it shows you what you see in archaeological sites letchugia forms a large bulb and it grows in the ground and all the leaves pull off like artichokes and that the Indians used to cook these bulbs they take a sharp plant like they'd cut them off

like so and then they eat these much like you would an artichoke they also use these things to make the the frames for their sandals that they would bend these off and make frames like so out of them these ancients knew the land well yet they were natural phenomena they could not explain whether comets in the sky events that must have frightened them there was also incredible beauty the splash of a bullfrog sending waves of light dancing across limestone walls and the magic of illusion they had no written language but instead left-painted messages on the rocky canyon walls near the

mouth of the pecus river impressive art galleries for future generations to interpret the ones that are slightly faded but still run a prominent here these red ones these are the what are known as red monochrome they date to sometime after about 500 AD and one of the things that's unique about the red monochrome is they're much more realistic one of the things that's a key element dating these is this OT fair that has an depiction of a bow and arrow arrowheads in the lower pecus date to sometime after about AD 500 so we know that this had to happen sometime after that the oldest pictographs the pecus river style go back still further perhaps 4,000 years it is impossible to know what these pictographs meant to the people who painted them did they depict real events or were they metaphors were they painted to instill

values or to overcome malevolent spirits the one mistake that we often make and we all make it is to try to interpret this art from our own world and we can't do it we don't have the risetta stone that tells us what these symbols stand for it's it's very difficult I try to stay away from interpretation because there's no way you can prove it or disprove it and I'd rather deal with things are maybe a little bit more empirical and what you can interpret so I don't know what they are it's been suggested that the rock art was produced as part of rituals to ensure the success of the hunt or the continuation of the community let's say for example that this art or some of this art was produced during the course of a male initiation ceremony let's say a circumcision ceremony where the young initiates were undergoing a great deal of

anxiety fear in context with those particular rituals and this art was painted during the course of that instruction their instruction are let's say to conclude the ceremony I can guarantee you in minds of those initiates they would never ever forget this site the art are the stories that were told in conjunction with it one thing does seem clear as you look into the minds of these ancient people through their art the act of painting not the painting itself was paramount time and again paintings have been painted over to emphasize one strength or creator spirit over another or simply perhaps because the artist was running out of space throughout the canyon shelters one figure continues to reappear the shaman that intermediary between the band and the

spirit beings the central figure to us in this particular panel is the white anthropomorph which some people refer to as the white shaman white white white is unusual granted but again we don't know what the color symbolize in primitive worldviews and primitive art colors are very very important and colors stand sometimes for different directions east north and south west they may mean something else and it may just be that white stands out it is possible with time archaeologists may detect a pattern that will unravel the rock art puzzle but time may not be on their side the rock art as we see so vivid displayed in some of the cave walls is being affected by the way we use the land it's affected by the I'm sure by the rise and moisture from the lake it's certainly

affected by a visitation it's affected by people who've analyzed it and it's affected by just the natural processes themselves which have been going on for thousands of years the elements do play a key factor in it of course now the human element is the most unpredictable one we can pretty well predict what the effects nature will have but man is a whole different beast he he does things for no apparent reason holes like this quite often are the product of vandalism and people digging for error heads the archaeological sites in this area beautifully preserved records really archival records back then last nine thousand years have just been ravaged by collectors to the extent that they're virtually none left intact today this is a you know a pre-scientific pre-literate sort of society and they did what they felt was the way the universe worked obviously they were

successful did it very well they lived here for seven thousand years without changing hardly at all so it worked we've only been here a hundred and fifty years and we've almost managed to destroy it all so because it certainly didn't look like this hundred and fifty years ago what remains for now is a legacy of art a legacy of the land a legacy from a people who lived long before the Egyptians flourished and then they were gone you

you I had to build a new orchestra. Machine you claim to General Director of Bungal Negotiations with Musicians, and then