The prevailing theory holds that this art tradition derives from shamanic practices. In the course of carrying out healing and religious ceremonies, shamans strove to obtain power by contacting supernatural beings. Inducing a state of trance, they transported themselves from the here and now to another realm of consciousness. Upon return from their journey, they made pictures to record the visions they had witnessed. In this way, they not only gave some permanence to their experiences but also made it possible to show others what they had seen. Later, when they needed to access ritual power again, they had the sacred images to refer to.

In the morning, we made our coffee early, the weather still rough and uncertain. Shower-laden cloud banks sped across the sky over the Maze, alternating with patches of blue and sunlight. We were captivated by the drama, and I made some photographs.

It took time to find the hand- and toe-hold trail down the cliff; then, with the aid of a rope, we carefully descended to the canyon floor and entered the maze of twisting, meandering branches. Surrounded by steep rock walls, we could not see our landmarks and we lost our sense of direction. Rain showers came and went. At midday, with hopes of finding the pictographs dimmed, we stopped to rest and eat. Afterwards, we set off again, turned a corner, and there they were - tall, elongated, ghostlike anthropomorphic figures, some with striped bodies and horns, others with bulbous heads and thin, fragile legs. One had its arm outstretched, rabbits running along the forearm and a plant sprouting from the delicate fingertips. Further along the cliff, a goggle-wearing humanoid stared at me forbiddingly as I photographed. Each gave the illusion of hovering in a space of its own, somewhere between solid rock and air. They lived in an intangible dimension between worlds and watched us in silence. They had an aura of death and life without end.