Part 4

Dr. William H. Corbusier, U. S. Army, in a letter to the writer, mentions the discovery of rock etchings on a sandstone rock near the headwaters of Sage Creek, in the vicinity of Fort Washakie, Wyoming. Dr. Corbusier remarks that neither the Shoshoni nor the Arapaho Indians know who made the etchings. The two chief figures appear to be those of the human form, with the hands and arms partly uplifted, the whole being surrounded above and on either side by an irregular line.

The method of grouping, together with various accompanying appendages, as irregular lines, spirals, etc., observed in Dr. Corbusier’s drawing, show great similarity to the Algonkin type, and resemble some etchings found near the Wind River Mountains, which were the work of Blackfeet (Satsika) Indians, who, in comparatively recent times, occupied portions of the country in question, and probably also etched the designs near Fort Washakie.

A number of examples from Idaho appear _infra_, pages 228 and 229.

ROCK CARVINGS IN NEVADA.

At the lower extremity of Pyramid Lake, Nevada, pictographs have been found by members of the United States Geological Survey, though no accurate reproductions are available. These characters are mentioned as incised upon the surface of basalt rocks.

On the western slope of Lone Butte, in the Carson Desert, Nevada, pictographs occur in considerable numbers. All of these appear to have been produced, on the faces of bowlders and rocks, by pecking and scratching with some hard mineral material like quartz. No copies have been obtained as yet.

Great numbers of incised characters of various kinds are found on the walls of rock flanking Walker River, near Walker Lake, Nevada. Waving lines, rings, and what appear to be vegetable forms are of frequent occurrence. The human form and footprints are also depicted.

Among the copies of pictographs obtained in various portions of the Northwestern States and Territories, by Mr. G. K. Gilbert, is one referred as to as being on a block of basalt at Reveillé, Nevada, and is mentioned as being Shinumo or Moki. This suggestion is evidently based upon the general resemblance to drawings found in Arizona, and known to have been made by the Moki Indians. The locality is within the territory of the Shoshonian linguistic division, and the etchings are in all probability the work of one or more of the numerous tribes comprised within that division.

ROCK CARVINGS IN OREGON AND IN WASHINGTON.

Numerous bowlders and rock escarpments at and near the Dalles of the Columbia River, Oregon, are covered with incised or pecked pictographs. Human figures occur, though characters of other forms predominate.

Mr. Albert S. Gatschet reports the discovery of rock etchings near Gaston, Oregon, in 1878, which are said to be near the ancient settlement of the Tuálati (or Atfálati) Indians, according to the statement of these people. These etchings are about 100 feet above the valley bottom, and occur on six rocks of soft sandstone, projecting from the grassy hillside of Patten’s Valley, opposite Darling Smith’s farm, and are surrounded with timber on two sides. The distance from Gaston is about 4 miles; from the old Tuálati settlement probably not more than 2-1/2 miles in an air-line.

This sandstone ledge extends for one-eighth of a mile horizontally along the hillside, upon the projecting portions of which the inscriptions are found. These rocks differ greatly in size, and slant forward so that the inscribed portions are exposed to the frequent rains of that region. The first rock, or that one nearest the mouth of the cañon, consists of horizontal zigzag lines, and a detached straight line, also horizontal. On another side of the same rock is a series of oblique parallel lines. Some of the most striking characters found upon other exposed portions of the rock appear to be human figures, _i. e._, circles to which radiating lines are attached, and bearing indications of eyes and mouth, long vertical lines running downward as if to represent the body, and terminating in a bifurcation, as if intended for legs, toes, etc. To the right of one figure is an arm and three-fingered hand (similar to some of the Moki characters), bent downward from the elbow, the humerus extending at a right angle from the body. Horizontal rows of short vertical lines are placed below and between some of the figures, probably numerical marks of some kind.

Other characters occur of various forms, the most striking being an arrow pointing upward, with two horizontal lines drawn across the shaft, vertical lines having short oblique lines attached thereto.

Mr. Gatschet, furthermore, remarks that the Tuálati attach a trivial story to the origin of these pictures, the substance of which is as follows: The Tillamuk warriors living on the Pacific coast were often at variance with the several Kalapuya tribes. One day, passing through Patten’s Valley to invade the country of the Tuálati, they inquired of a passing woman how far they were from their camp. The woman, desirous not to betray her own countrymen, said that they were yet at a distance of one (or two?) days’ travel. This made them reflect over the intended invasion, and holding a council they preferred to retire. In commemoration of this the inscription with its numeration marks, was incised by the Tuálati.

Capt. Charles Bendire, U. S. Army, states in a letter that Col. Henry C. Merriam, U. S. Army, discovered pictographs on a perpendicular cliff of granite at the lower end of Lake Chelan, lat. 48° N., near old Fort O’Kinakane, on the upper Columbia River. The etchings appear to have been made at widely different periods, and are evidently quite old. Those which appeared the earliest were from twenty-five to thirty feet above the present water level. Those appearing more recent are about ten feet above water level. The figures are in black and red colors, representing Indians with bows and arrows, elk, deer, bear, beaver, and fish. There are four or five rows of these figures, and quite a number in each row. The present native inhabitants know nothing whatever regarding the history of these paintings.

For another example of pictographs from Washington see Figure 109, p. 190.

ROCK CARVINGS IN UTAH.

A locality in the southern interior of Utah has been called Pictograph Rocks, on account of the numerous records of that character found there.

Mr. G. K. Gilbert, of the United States Geological Survey, in 1875 collected a number of copies of inscriptions in Temple Creek Cañon, Southeastern Utah, accompanied by the following notes: “The drawings were found only on the northeast wall of the cañon, where it cuts the Vermillion cliff sandstone. The chief part are etched, apparently by pounding with a sharp point. The outline of a figure is usually more deeply cut than the body. Other marks are produced by rubbing or scraping, and still other by laying on colors. Some, not all, of the colors are accompanied by a rubbed appearance, as though the material had been a dry chalk.

“I could discover no tools at the foot of the wall, only fragments of pottery, flints, and a metate.

“Several fallen blocks of sandstone have rubbed depressions that may have been ground out in the sharpening of tools. There have been many dates of inscriptions, and each new generation has unscrupulously run its lines over the pictures already made. Upon the best protected surfaces, as well as the most exposed, there are drawings dimmed beyond restoration and others distinct. The period during which the work accumulated was longer by far than the time which has passed since the last. Some fallen blocks cover etchings on the wall, and are themselves etched.

“Colors are preserved only where there is almost complete shelter from rain. In two places the holes worn in the rock by swaying branches impinge on etchings, but the trees themselves have disappeared. Some etchings are left high and dry by a diminishing talus (15-20 feet), but I saw none partly buried by an increasing talus (except in the case of the fallen block already mentioned).

“The painted circles are exceedingly accurate, and it seems incredible that they were made without the use of a radius.”

In the collection contributed by Mr. Gilbert there are at least fifteen series or groups of figures, most of which consist of the human form (from the simplest to the most complex style of drawing), animals, either singly or in long files, as if driven, bird tracks, human feet and hands, etc. There are also circles, parallel lines, and waving or undulating lines, spots, and other unintelligible characters.

Mr. Gilbert also reports the discovery, in 1883, of a great number of pictographs, chiefly in color, though some are etched, in a cañon of the Book Cliff, containing Thompson’s spring, about 4 miles north of Thompson’s station, on the Denver and Colorado Railroad, Utah.

Collections of drawings of pictographs at Black Rock spring, on Beaver Creek, north of Milford, Utah, have been furnished by Mr. Gilbert. A number of fallen blocks of basalt, at a low escarpment, are filled with etchings upon the vertical faces. The characters are generally of an “unintelligible” nature, though the human figure is drawn in complex forms. Foot-prints, circles, etc., also abound.

Mr. I. C. Russell, of the United States Geological Survey, furnished rude drawings of pictographs at Black Rock spring, Utah (see Figure 153). Mr. Gilbert Thompson, of the United States Geological Survey, also discovered pictographs at Fool Creek Cañon, Utah (see Figure 154). Both of those figures are on page 230.

ROCK CARVINGS IN COLORADO.

Captain E. L. Berthoud furnished to the Kansas City Review of Science and Industry, VII, 1883, No. 8, pp. 489, 490, the following:

The place is 20 miles southeast of Rio Del Norte, at the entrance of the cañon of the Piedra Pintada (Painted Rock) Creek. The carvings are found on the right of the cañon, or valley, and upon volcanic rocks. They bear the marks of age and are cut in, not painted, as is still done by the Utes everywhere. They are found for a quarter of a mile along the north wall of the cañon, on the ranches of W. M. Maguire and F. T. Hudson, and consist of all manner of pictures, symbols, and hieroglyphics done by artists whose memory even tradition does not now preserve. The fact that these are carvings, done upon such hard rock merits them with additional interest, as they are quite distinct from the carvings I saw in New Mexico and Arizona on soft sand-stone. Though some of them are evidently of much greater antiquity than others, yet all are ancient, the Utes admitting them to have been old when their fathers conquered the country.

ROCK CARVINGS IN NEW MEXICO.

On the north wall of Cañon de Chelly, one fourth of a mile east of the mouth of the cañon, are several groups of pictographs, consisting chiefly of various grotesque forms of the human figure, and also numbers of animals, circles, etc. A few of them are painted black, the greater portion consisting of rather shallow lines which are in some places considerably weathered.

Further up the cañon, in the vicinity of cliff-dwellings, are numerous small groups of pictographic characters, consisting of men and animals, waving or zigzag lines, and other odd and “unintelligible” figures.

Lieut. J. H. Simpson gives several illustrations of pictographs copied from rocks in the northwest part of New Mexico in his Report of an Expedition into the Navajo Country. (Sen. Ex. Doc. No. 64, 31st Cong., 1st sess., 1856, Pl. 23, 24, 25.)

Inscriptions have been mentioned as occurring at El Moro, consisting of etchings of human figures and other unintelligible characters. This locality is better known as Inscription Rock. Lieutenant Simpson’s remarks upon it, with illustrations, are given in the work last cited, on page 120. He states that most of the characters are no higher than a man’s head, and that some of them are undoubtedly of Indian origin.

At Arch Spring, near Zuñi, figures are cut upon a rock which Lieutenant Whipple thinks present some faint similarity to those at Rocky Dell Creek. (Rep. Pac. R. R, Exped., Vol. III, 1856, Pt. III, p. 39, Pl. 32.)

Near Ojo Pescado, in the vicinity of the ruins, are pictographs, reported in the last mentioned volume and page, Plate 31, which are very much weather-worn, and have “no trace of a modern hand about them.”

ROCK-CARVINGS IN ARIZONA.

On a table land near the Gila Bend is a mound of granite bowlders, blackened by augite, and covered with unknown characters, the work of human hands. On the ground near by were also traces of some of the figures, showing some of the pictographs, at least, to have been the work of modern Indians. Others were of undoubted antiquity, and the signs and symbols intended, doubtless, to commemorate some great event. (See Ex. Doc. No. 41, 30th Cong., 1st sess. (Emory’s Reconnaissance), 1848, p. 89; Ill. opposite p. 89, and on p. 90.)

Characters upon rocks, of questionable antiquity, are reported in the last-mentioned volume, Plate, p. 63, to occur on the Gila River, at 32° 38′ 13″ N. lat., and 109° 07′ 30″ long. [According to the plate, the figures are found upon bowlders and on the face of the cliff to the height of about 30 feet.]

The party under Lieutenant Whipple (see Rep. Pac. R. R. Exped., III, 1856, Pt. III, p. 42) also discovered pictographs at Yampais Spring, Williams River. “The spot is a secluded glen among the mountains. A high, shelving rock forms a cave, within which is a pool of water and a crystal stream flowing from it. The lower surface of the rock is covered with pictographs. None of the devices seem to be of recent date.”

Many of the country rocks lying on the Colorado plateau of Northern Arizona, east of Peach Springs, bear traces of considerable artistic workmanship. Some observed by Dr. W. J. Hoffman, in 1871, were rather elaborate and represented figures of the sun, human beings in various styles approaching the grotesque, and other characters not yet understood. All of those observed were made by pecking the surface of basalt with a harder variety of stone.

Mr. G. K. Gilbert discovered etchings at Oakley Spring, eastern Arizona, in 1878, relative to which he remarks that an Oraibi chief explained them to him and said that the “Mokis make excursions to a locality in the cañon of the Colorado Chiquito to get salt. On their return they stop at Oakley Spring and each Indian makes a picture on the rock. Each Indian draws his crest or totem, the symbol of his gens [(?)]. He draws it once, and once only, at each visit.” Mr. Gilbert adds, further, that “there are probably some exceptions to this, but the etchings show its general truth. There are a great many repetitions of the same sign, and from two to ten will often appear in a row. In several instances I saw the end drawings of a row quite fresh while the others were not so. Much of the work seems to have been performed by pounding with a hard point, but a few pictures are scratched on. Many drawings are weather-worn beyond recognition, and others are so fresh that the dust left by the tool has not been washed away by rain. Oakley Spring is at the base of the Vermillion Cliff, and the etchings are on fallen blocks of sandstone, a homogeneous, massive, soft sandstone. Tubi, the Oraibi chief above referred to, says his totem is the rain cloud but it will be made no more as he is the last survivor of the gens.”

A group of the Oakley Spring etchings of which Figure 1 is a copy, measures six feet in length and four feet in height. Interpretations of many of the separated characters of Figure 1 are presented on page 46 _et seq._, also in Figures 156 _et seq._, page 237.

Mr. Gilbert obtained sketches of etchings in November, 1878, on Partridge Creek, northern Arizona, at the point where the Beale wagon road comes to it from the east. “The rock is cross-laminated Aubrey sandstone and the surfaces used are faces of the laminæ. All the work is done by blows with a sharp point. (Obsidian is abundant in the vicinity.) Some inscriptions are so fresh as to indicate that the locality is still resorted to. No Indians live in the immediate vicinity, but the region is a hunting ground of the Wallapais and Avasupais (Cosninos).”

Notwithstanding the occasional visits of the above named tribes, the characters submitted more nearly resemble those of other localities known to have been made by the Moki Pueblos.

Rock etchings are of frequent occurrence along the entire extent of the valley of the Rio Verde, from a short distance below Camp Verde to the Gila River.

Mr. Thomas V. Keam reports etchings on the rocks in Cañon Segy, and in Keam’s Cañon, northeastern Arizona. Some forms occurring at the latter locality are found also upon Moki pottery.

ROCK CARVINGS IN CALIFORNIA.

From information received from Mr. Alphonse Pinart, pictographic records exist in the hills east of San Bernardino, somewhat resembling those at Tule River in the southern spurs of the Sierra Nevada, Kern County.

These pictographic records are found at various localities along the hill tops, but to what distance is not positively known.

In the range of mountains forming the northeastern boundary of Owen Valley are extensive groups of petroglyphs, apparently dissimilar to those found west of the Sierra Nevada. Dr. Oscar Loew also mentions a singular inscription on basaltic rocks in Black Lake Valley, about 4 miles southwest of the town of Benton, Mono County. This is scratched in the basalt surface with some sharp instrument and is evidently of great age. (Ann. Report upon the Geog. Surveys west of the 100th meridian. Being Appendix J J, Ann. Report of Chief of Engineers for 1876. Plate facing p. 326.)

Dr. W. J. Hoffman, of the Bureau of Ethnology, reports the occurrence of a number of series of etchings scattered at intervals for over twenty miles in Owen’s Valley, California. Some of these records were hastily examined by him in 1871, but it was not until the autumn of 1884 that a thorough examination of them was made, when measurements, drawings, etc., were obtained for study and comparison. The country is generally of a sandy, desert, character, devoid of vegetation and water. The occasional bowlders and croppings of rock consist of vesicular basalt, upon the smooth vertical faces of which occur innumerable characters different from any hitherto reported from California, but bearing marked similarity to some figures found in the country now occupied by the Moki and Zuñi, in New Mexico and Arizona, respectively.

The southernmost group of etchings is eighteen miles south of the town of Benton; the next group, two miles almost due north, at the Chalk Grade; the third, about three miles farther north, near the stage road; the fourth, half a mile north of the preceding; then a fifth, five and a half miles above the last named and twelve and a half miles south of Benton. The northernmost group is about ten or twelve miles northwest of the last-mentioned locality and south west from Benton, at a place known as Watterson’s Ranch. The principal figures consist of various simple, complex, and ornamental circles, some of the simple circles varying as nucleated, concentric, and spectacle-shaped, zigzag, and serpentine lines, etc. Animal forms are not abundant, those readily identified being those of the deer, antelope, and jack-rabbits. Representations of snakes and huge sculpturings of grizzly-bear tracks occur on one horizontal surface, twelve and a half miles south of Benton. In connection with the latter, several carvings of human foot-prints appear, leading in the same direction, _i. e._, toward the south-southwest.

All of these figures are pecked into the vertical faces of the rocks, the depths varying from one-fourth of an inch to an inch and a quarter. A freshly broken surface of the rock presents various shades from a cream white to a Naples yellow color, though the sculptured lines are all blackened by exposure and oxidation of the iron contained therein. This fact has no importance toward the determination of the age of the work.

At the Chalk Grade is a large bowlder measuring about six feet in height and four feet either way in thickness, upon one side of which is one-half of what appears to have been an immense mortar. The sides of this cavity are vertical, and near the bottom turn abruptly and horizontally in toward the center, which is marked by a cone about three inches high and six inches across at its base. The interior diameter of the mortar is about twenty-four inches, and from the appearance of the surface, being considerably grooved laterally, it would appear as if a core had been used for grinding, similar in action to that of a millstone. No traces of such a core or corresponding form were visible. This instance is mentioned as it is the only indication that the authors of the etchings made any prolonged visit to this region, and perhaps only for grinding grass seed, though neither grass nor water is now found nearer than the remains at Watterson’s Ranch and at Benton.

The records at Watterson’s are pecked upon the surfaces of detached bowlders near the top of a mesa, about one hundred feet above the nearest spring, distant two hundred yards. These are also placed at the southeast corner of the mesa, or that nearest to the northern most of the main group across the Benton Range. At the base of the eastern and northeastern portion of this elevation of land, and but a stone’s throw from the etchings, are the remains of former camps, such as stone circles, marking the former sites of brush lodges, and a large number of obsidian flakes, arrowheads, knives, and some jasper remains of like character. Upon the flat granite bowlders are several mortar-holes, which perhaps were used for crushing the seed of the grass still growing abundantly in the immediate vicinity. Piñon nuts are also abundant in this locality.

Upon following the most convenient course across the Benton Range to reach Owen’s Valley proper, etchings are also found, though in limited numbers, and seem to partake of the character of “indicators as to course of travel.” By this trail the northernmost of the several groups of etchings above mentioned is the nearest and most easily reached.

The etchings upon the bowlders at Watterson’s are somewhat different from those found elsewhere. The number of specific designs is limited, many of them being reproduced from two to six or seven times, thus seeming to partake of the character of personal names.

One of the most frequent is that resembling a horseshoe within which is a vertical stroke. Sometimes the upper extremity of such stroke is attached to the upper inside curve of the broken ring, and frequently there are two or more parallel vertical strokes within one such curve. Bear-tracks and the outline of human feet also occur, besides several unique forms. A few of these forms are figured, though not accurately, in the Ann. Report upon the Geog. Surveys west of the 100th meridian last mentioned (1876), Plate facing p. 326.

Lieutenant Whipple reports (Rep. Pac. R. R. Exped. III, 1856, Pt. III, p. 42, Pl. 36) the discovery of pictographs at Pai-Ute Creek, about 30 miles west of the Mojave villages. These are carved upon a rock, “are numerous, appear old, and are too confusedly obscure to be easily traceable.”

These bear great general resemblance to etchings scattered over Northeast Arizona, Southern Utah, and Western New Mexico.

Remarkable pictographs have also been found at Tule River Agency. See Figure 155, page 235.

COLORED PICTOGRAPHS ON ROCKS.