Part 3

A general deduction made after several years of study of pictographs of all kinds found among the North American Indians is that they exhibit very little trace of mysticism or of esotericism in any form. They are objective representations, and cannot be treated as ciphers or cryptographs in any attempt at their interpretation. A knowledge of the customs, costumes, including arrangement of hair, paint, and all tribal designations, and of their histories and traditions is essential to the understanding of their drawings, for which reason some of those particulars known to have influenced pictography are set forth in this paper, and others are suggested which possibly had a similar influence.

Comparatively few of their picture signs have become merely conventional. A still smaller proportion are either symbolical or emblematic, but some of these are noted. By far the larger part of them are merely mnemonic records and are treated of in connection with material objects formerly and, perhaps, still used mnemonically.

It is believed that the interpretation of the ancient forms is to be obtained, if at all, not by the discovery of any hermeneutic key, but by an understanding of the modern forms, some of which fortunately can be interpreted by living men; and when this is not the case the more recent forms can be made intelligible at least in part by thorough knowledge of the historic tribes, including their sociology, philosophy, and arts, such as is now becoming acquired, and of their sign-language.

It is not believed that any considerable information of value in an historical point of view will be obtained directly from the interpretation of the pictographs in North America. The only pictures which can be of great antiquity are rock-carvings and those in shell or similar substances resisting the action of time, which have been or may be found in mounds. The greater part of those already known are simply peckings, etchings, or paintings delineating natural objects, very often animals, and illustrate the beginning of pictorial art. It is, however, probable that others were intended to commemorate events or to represent ideas entertained by their authors, but the events which to them were of moment are of little importance as history. They referred generally to some insignificant fight or some season of plenty or of famine, or to other circumstances the evident consequence of which has long ceased.

While, however, it is not supposed that old inscriptions exist directly recording substantively important events, it is hoped that some materials for history can be gathered from the characters in a manner similar to the triumph of comparative philology in resurrecting the life-history and culture of the ancient Aryans. The significance of the characters being granted, they exhibit what chiefly interested their authors, and those particulars may be of anthropologic consequence. The study has so far advanced that, independent of the significance of individual characters, several distinct types of execution are noted which may be expected to disclose data regarding priscan habitat and migration. In this connection it may be mentioned that recent discoveries render it probable that some of the pictographs were intended as guide-marks to point out trails, springs, and fords, and some others are supposed to indicate at least the locality of mounds and graves, and possibly to record specific statements concerning them. A comparison of typical forms may also usefully be made with the objects of art now exhumed in large numbers from the mounds.

Ample evidence exists that many of the pictographs, both ancient and modern, are connected with the mythology and religious practices of their makers. The interpretations obtained during the present year of some of those among the Moki, Zuñi, and Navajo, throw new and strong light on this subject. It is regretted that the most valuable and novel part of this information cannot be included in the present paper, as it is in the possession of the Bureau of Ethnology in a shape not yet arranged for publication, or forms part of the forthcoming volume of the Transactions of the Anthropological Society of Washington, which may not be anticipated.

The following general remarks of Schoolcraft, Vol. I, p. 351, are of some value, though they apply with any accuracy only to the Ojibwa and are tinctured with a fondness for the mysterious:

For their pictographic devices the North American Indians have two terms, namely, _Kekeewin_, or such things as are generally understood by the tribe; and _Kekeenowin_, or teachings of the _medas_ or priests, _jossakeeds_ or prophets. The knowledge of the latter is chiefly confined to persons who are versed in their system of magic medicine, or their religion, and may be deemed hieratic. The former consists of the common figurative signs, such as are employed at places of sepulture, or by hunting or traveling parties. It is also employed in the _muzzinábiks_, or rock-writings. Many of the figures are common to both, and are seen in the drawings generally; but it is to be understood that this results from the figure-alphabet being precisely the same in both, while the devices of the nugamoons, or medicine, wabino, hunting, and war songs, are known solely to the initiates who have learned them, and who always pay high to the native professors for this knowledge.

It must, however, be admitted, as above suggested, that many of the pictographs found are not of the historic or mythologic significance once supposed. For instance, the examination of the rock carvings in several parts of the country has shown that some of them were mere records of the visits of individuals to important springs or to fords on regularly established trails. In this respect there seems to have been, in the intention of the Indians, very much the same spirit as induces the civilized man to record his initials upon objects in the neighborhood of places of general resort. At Oakley Springs, Arizona Territory, totemic marks have been found, evidently made by the same individual at successive visits, showing that on the number of occasions indicated he had passed by those springs, probably camping there, and such record was the habit of the neighboring Indians at that time. The same repetition of totemic names has been found in great numbers in the pipestone quarries of Dakota, and also at some old fords in West Virginia. But these totemic marks are so designed and executed as to have intrinsic significance and value, wholly different in this respect from vulgar names in alphabetic form. It should also be remembered that mere _graffiti_ are recognized as of value by the historian, the anthropologist, and the artist.

One very marked peculiarity of the drawings of the Indians is that within each particular system, such as may be called a tribal system, of pictography, every Indian draws in precisely the same manner. The figures of a man, of a horse, and of every other object delineated, are made by every one who attempts to make any such figure with all the identity of which their mechanical skill is capable, thus showing their conception and motive to be the same.

The intention of the present work is not to present at this time a view of the whole subject of pictography, though the writer has been preparing materials with a reference to that more ambitious project. The paper is limited to the presentation of the most important known pictographs of the North American Indians, with such classification as has been found convenient to the writer, and, for that reason, may be so to collaborators. The scheme of the paper has been to give very simply one or more examples, with illustrations, in connection with each one of the headings or titles of the classifications designated. This plan has involved a considerable amount of cross reference, because, in many cases, a character, or a group of characters, could be considered with reference to a number of noticeable characteristics, and it was a question of choice under which one of the headings it should be presented, involving reference to it from the other divisions of the paper. An amount of space disproportionate to the mere subdivision of Time under the class of Mnemonics, is occupied by the Dakota Winter Counts, but it is not believed that any apology is necessary for their full presentation, as they not only exhibit the device mentioned in reference to their use as calendars, but furnish a repertory for all points connected with the graphic portrayal of ideas.

Attention is invited to the employment of the heraldic scheme of designating colors by lines, dots, etc., in those instances in the illustrations where color appeared to have significance, while it was not practicable to produce the coloration of the originals. In many cases, however, the figures are too minute to permit the successful use of that scheme, and the text must be referred to for explanation.

Thanks are due and rendered for valuable assistance to correspondents and especially to officers of the Bureau of Ethnology and the United States Geological Survey, whose names are generally mentioned in connection with their several contributions. Acknowledgment is also made now and throughout the paper to Dr. W. J. Hoffman who has officially assisted the present writer during several years by researches in the field, and by drawing nearly all the illustrations presented.

DISTRIBUTION OF PETROGLYPHS IN NORTH AMERICA.

Etchings or paintings on rocks in North America are distributed generally.

They are found throughout the extent of the continent, on bowlders formed by the sea waves or polished by ice of the glacial epoch; on the faces of rock ledges adjoining streams; on the high walls of cañons and cliffs; on the sides and roofs of caves; in short, wherever smooth surfaces of rock appear. Drawings have also been discovered on stones deposited in mounds and caves. Yet while these records are so frequent, there are localities to be distinguished in which they are especially abundant and noticeable. Also they differ markedly in character of execution and apparent subject-matter.

An obvious division can be made between characters etched or pecked and those painted without incision. This division in execution coincides to a certain extent with geographic areas. So far as ascertained, painted characters prevail perhaps exclusively throughout Southern California, west and southwest of the Sierra Nevada. Pictures, either painted or incised, are found in perhaps equal frequency in the area extending eastward from the Colorado River to Georgia, northward into West Virginia, and in general along the course of the Mississippi River. In some cases the glyphs are both incised and painted. The remaining parts of the United States show rock-etchings almost exclusive of paintings.

It is proposed with the accumulation of information to portray the localities of these records upon a chart accompanied by a full descriptive text. In such chart will be designated their relative frequency, size, height, position, color, age, and other particulars regarded as important. With such chart and list the classification and determination now merely indicated may become thorough.

In the present paper a few only of the more important localities will be mentioned; generally those which are referred to under several appropriate heads in various parts of the paper. Notices of some of these have been published; but many of them are publicly mentioned for the first time in this paper, knowledge respecting them having been obtained by the personal researches of the officers of the Bureau of Ethnology, or by their correspondents.

NORTHEASTERN ROCK CARVINGS.

A large number of known and described pictographs on rocks occur in that portion of the United States and Canada at one time in the possession of the several tribes constituting the Algonkian linguistic stock. This is particularly noticeable throughout the country of the great lakes, and the Northern, Middle, and New England States.

The voluminous discussion upon the Dighton Rock, Massachusetts, inscription, renders it impossible wholly to neglect it.

The following description, taken from Schoolcraft’s History, Condition, and Prospect of the Indian Tribes of the United States, Vol. IV, p. 119, which is accompanied with a plate, is, however, sufficient. It is merely a type of Algonkin rock-carving, not so interesting as many others:

The ancient inscription on a bowlder of greenstone rock lying in the margin of the Assonet, or Taunton River, in the area of ancient Vinland, was noticed by the New England colonists so early as 1680, when Dr. Danforth made a drawing of it. This outline, together with several subsequent copies of it, at different eras, reaching to 1830, all differing considerably in their details, but preserving a certain general resemblance, is presented in the Antiquatés Americanes [_sic_] (Tab. XI, XII) and referred to the same era of Scandinavian discovery. The imperfections of the drawings (including that executed under the auspices of the Rhode Island Historical Society, in 1830, Tab. XII) and the recognition of some characters bearing more or less resemblance to antique Roman letters and figures, may be considered to have misled Mr. Magnusen in his interpretation of it. From whatever cause, nothing could, it would seem, have been wider from the purport and true interpretation of it. It is of purely Indian origin, and is executed in the peculiar symbolic character of the Kekeewin.

ROCK CARVINGS IN PENNSYLVANIA.

Many of the rocks along the river courses in Northern and Western Pennsylvania bear traces of carvings, though, on account of the character of the geological formations, some of these records are almost, if not entirely, obliterated.

Mr. P. W. Shafer published in a historical map of Pennsylvania, in 1875, several groups of pictographs. (They had before appeared in a rude and crowded form in the Transactions of the Anthropological Institute of New York, N. Y., 1871-’72, p. 66, Figs. 25, 26, where the localities are mentioned as “Big” and “Little” Indian Rocks, respectively.) One of these is situated on the Susquehanna River, below the dam at Safe Harbor, and clearly shows its Algonkin origin. The characters are nearly all either animals or various forms of the human body. Birds, bird-tracks, and serpents also occur. A part of this pictograph is presented below, Figure 149, page 226.

On the same chart a group of pictures is also given, copied from the originals on the Allegheny River, in Venango County, 5 miles south of Franklin. There are but six characters furnished in this instance, three of which are variations of the human form, while the others are undetermined.

Mr. J. Sutton Wall, of Monongahela City, describes in correspondence a rock bearing pictographs opposite the town of Millsborough, in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. This rock is about 390 feet above the level of Monongahela River, and belongs to the Waynesburg stratum of sandstone. It is detached, and rests somewhat below its true horizon. It is about 6 feet in thickness, and has vertical sides; only two figures are carved on the sides, the inscriptions being on the top, and are now considerably worn. Mr. Wall mentions the outlines of animals and some other figures, formed by grooves or channels cut from an inch to a mere trace in depth. No indications of tool marks were discovered. It is presented below as Figure 147, page 224.

The resemblance between this record and the drawings on Dighton Rock is to be noted, as well as that between both of them and some in Ohio.

Mr. J. Sutton Wall also contributes a group of etchings on what is known as the “Geneva Picture Rock,” in the Monongahela Valley, near Geneva. These are foot-prints and other characters similar to those mentioned from Hamilton Farm, West Virginia, which are shown in Figure 148, page 225.

Schoolcraft (Vol. IV, pp. 172, 173, Pll. 17, 18), describes also, presenting plates, a pictograph on the Allegheny River as follows:

One of the most often noticed of these inscriptions exists on the left bank of this river [the Allegheny], about six miles below Franklin (the ancient Venango), Pennsylvania. It is a prominent point of rocks, around which the river deflects, rendering this point a very conspicuous object. * The rock, which has been lodged here in some geological convulsion, is a species of hard sandstone, about twenty-two feet in length by fourteen in breadth. It has an inclination to the horizon of about fifty degrees. During freshets it is nearly overflown. The inscription is made upon the inclined face of the rock. The present inhabitants in the country call it the ‘Indian God.’ It is only in low stages of water that it can be examined. Captain Eastman has succeeded, by wading into the water, in making a perfect copy of this ancient record, rejecting from its borders the interpolations of modern names put there by boatmen, to whom it is known as a point of landing. The inscription itself appears distinctly to record, in symbols, the triumphs in hunting and war.

ROCK CARVINGS IN OHIO.

In the Final Report of the Ohio State Board of Centennial Managers, Columbus, 1877, many localities showing rock carvings are noted. The most important (besides those mentioned below) are as follows: Newark, Licking County, where human hands, many varieties of bird tracks, and a cross are noticed. Independence, Cuyahoga County, showing human hands and feet and serpents. Amherst, Lorain County, presenting similar objects. Wellsville, Columbiana County, where the characters are more elaborate and varied.

Mr. James W. Ward describes in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute of New York, Vol. I, 1871-’72, pp. 57-64, Figs. 14-22, some sculptured rocks. They are reported as occurring near Barnesville, Belmont County, and consist chiefly of the tracks of birds and animals. Serpentine forms also occur, together with concentric rings. The author also quotes Mr. William A. Adams as describing, in a letter to Professor Silliman in 1842, some figures on the surface of a sandstone rock, lying on the bank of the Muskingum River. These figures are mentioned as being engraved in the rock and consist of tracks of the turkey, and of man.

ROCK CARVINGS IN WEST VIRGINIA.

Mr. P. W. Norris, of the Bureau of Ethnology, reports that he found numerous localities along the Kanawha River, West Virginia, bearing pictographs. Rock etchings are numerous upon smooth rocks, covered during high water, at the prominent fords of the river, as well as in the niches or long shallow caves high in the rocky cliffs of this region. Although rude representations of men, animals, and some deemed symbolic characters were found, none were observed superior to, or essentially differing from, those of modern Indians.

Mr. John Haywood mentions (The Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, Nashville, 1823, pp. 332, 333) rock etchings four miles below the Burning Spring, near the mouth of Campbell’s Creek, Kanawha County, West Virginia. These consist of forms of various animals, as the deer, buffalo, fox, hare; of fish of various kinds; “infants scalped and scalps alone,” and men of natural size. The rock is said to be in the Kanawha River, near its northern shore, accessible only at low water, and then only by boat.

On the rocky walls of Little Coal River, near the mouth of Big Horse Creek, are cliffs upon which are many carvings. One of these measures 8 feet in length and 5 feet in height, and consists of a dense mass of characters.

About 2 miles above Mount Pleasant, Mason County, West Virginia, on the north side of the Kanawha River, are numbers of characters, apparently totemic. These are at the foot of the hills flanking the river.

On the cliffs near the mouth of the Kanawha River, opposite Mount Carbon, Nicholas County, West Virginia, are numerous pictographs. These appear to be cut into the sandstone rock.

See also page 225, Figure 148.

ROCK CARVINGS IN THE SOUTHERN STATES.

Charles C. Jones, jr., in his Antiquities of the Southern Indians, etc., New York, 1873, pp. 62, 63, gives some general remarks upon the pictographs of the southern Indians, as follows:

In painting and rock writing the efforts of the Southern Indians were confined to the fanciful and profuse ornamentation of their own persons with various colors, in which red, yellow, and black predominated, and to marks, signs, and figures depicted on skins and scratched on wood, the shoulder blade of a buffalo, or on stone. The smooth bark of a standing tree or the face of a rock was used to commemorate some feat of arms, to indicate the direction and strength of a military expedition, or the solemnization of a treaty of peace. High up the perpendicular sides of mountain gorges, and at points apparently inaccessible save to the fowls of the air, are seen representations of the sun and moon, accompanied by rude characters, the significance of which is frequently unknown to the present observer. The motive which incited to the execution of work so perilous was, doubtless, religious in its character, and directly connected with the worship of the sun and his pale consort of the night.

The same author, page 377, particularly describes and illustrates one in Georgia, as follows:

In Forsyth County, Georgia, is a carved or incised bowlder of fine-grained granite, about 9 feet long, 4 feet 6 inches high, and 3 feet broad at its widest point. The figures are cut in the bowlder from one-half to three-fourths of an inch deep. * It is generally believed that they are the work of the Cherokees.

These figures are chiefly circles, both plain, nucleated, and concentric, sometimes two or more being joined by straight lines, forming what is now known as the “spectacle-shaped” figure.

Dr. M. F. Stephenson mentions, in Geology and Mineralogy of Georgia, Atlanta, 1871, p. 199, sculptures of human feet, various animals, bear tracks, etc., in Enchanted Mountain, Union County, Georgia. The whole number of etchings is reported as one hundred and forty-six.

ROCK CARVINGS IN IOWA.

Mr. P. W. Norris found numerous caves on the banks of the Mississippi River, in Northeastern Iowa, 4 miles south of New Albion, containing incised pictographs. Fifteen miles south of this locality paintings occur on the cliffs.

ROCK CARVINGS IN MINNESOTA.

Mr. P. W. Norris has discovered large numbers of pecked totemic characters on the horizontal face of the ledges of rock at Pipe Stone Quarry, Minnesota, of which he has presented copies. The custom prevailed, it is stated, for each Indian who gathered stone (Catlinite) for pipes to inscribe his totem upon the rock before venturing to quarry upon this ground. Some of the cliffs in the immediate vicinity were of too hard a nature to admit of pecking or scratching, and upon these the characters were placed in colors.

ROCK CARVINGS IN WYOMING AND IN IDAHO.

A number of pictographs in Wyoming are described in the report on Northwestern Wyoming, including Yellowstone National Park, by Capt. William A. Jones, U. S. A., Washington, 1875, p. 268 _et seq._, Figures 50 to 53 in that work. The last three in order of these figures are reproduced in Sign Language among North American Indians, in the First Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology, pages 378 and 379, to show their connection with gesture signs. The most important one was discovered on Little Popo-Agie, Northwestern Wyoming, by members of Captain Jones’s party in 1873. The etchings are upon a nearly vertical wall of the yellow sandstone in the rear of Murphy’s ranch, and appear to be of some antiquity.

Further remarks, with specimens of the figures, are presented in this paper as Figure 150, on page 227.