Picture-Writing of the American Indians - Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the - Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1888-89, - Government Printing Office, Washington, 1893, pages 3-822

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Title: Picture-Writing of the American Indians - Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the - Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1888-89, - Government Printing Office, Washington, 1893, pages 3-822
Author: Mallery, Garrick
Language: English
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LIBRARY CATALOGUE SLIPS.

Series title.

Smithsonian institution. _Bureau of ethnology._

Washington | government printing office | 1893

8^o. xxx, 742 pp. 54 pl.

Author title.

Powell (John Wesley).

Washington | government printing office | 1893

8^o. xxx, 742 pp. 54 pl.

[SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. _Bureau of ethnology._]

Title for subject entry.

Washington | government printing office | 1893

8^o. xxx, 742 pp. 54 pl.

[SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. _Bureau of ethnology._]

TENTH ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY

TO THE
SECRETARY OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

1888-’89

BY
J. W. POWELL
DIRECTOR

[Illustration]

WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1893

REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR.

CONTENTS.

Page.

Letter of transmittal VII

Introduction IX

Publications X

Field work X
Mound explorations X
Work of Mr. Cyrus Thomas X
Work of Mr. Gerard Fowke XI
Work of Mr. J. D. Middleton XI
Work of Mr. H. L. Reynolds XI
Work of Mr. J. W. Emmert XII
General field studies XII
Work of Col. Garrick Mallery XII
Work of Mr. W. J. Hoffman XIII
Work of Mr. H. W. Henshaw XIV
Work of Mr. James Mooney XV
Work of Mr. Jeremiah Curtin XVI
Work of Mr. A. S. Gatschet XVII
Work of Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt XVII
Work of Mr. Victor Mindeleff XVII
Work of Mr. A. M. Stephen XVII

Office work XVIII
Work of Major J. W. Powell XVIII
Work of Mr. H. W. Henshaw XVIII
Work of Col. Garrick Mallery XVIII
Work of Mr. J. Owen Dorsey XVIII
Work of Mr. A. S. Gatschet XIX
Work of Mr. Jeremiah Curtin XIX
Work of Mr. James Mooney XIX
Work of Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt XX
Work of Mr. J. C. Pilling XX
Work of Mr. W. H. Holmes XXI
Work of Mr. Cyrus Thomas XXII
Work of Mr. H. L. Reynolds XXII
Work of Mr. Victor Mindeleff XXII
Work of Mr. Cosmos Mindeleff XXII
Work of Mr. J. K. Hillers XXIII
Work of Mr. Franz Boas XXIII
Work of Mr. Lucien M. Turner XXIV

Necrology XXIV
Mr. James Stevenson XXIV

Accompanying paper XXV
Picture-writing of the American Indians, by Garrick Mallery XXVI

Financial statement XXX

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL.

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY,
_Washington, D. C., October 1, 1889_.

SIR: I have the honor to submit my Tenth Annual Report as Director of
the Bureau of Ethnology.

The first part of it presents an exposition of the operations of the
Bureau during the fiscal year 1888-’89; the second part consists of a
work on the Picture-writing of the American Indians, which has been in
preparation for several years.

I desire to express my thanks for your earnest support and your valuable
counsel relating to the work under my charge.

I am, with respect, your obedient servant,

[Illustration: signature]

_Director_.

Prof. S. P. LANGLEY,
_Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution_.

TENTH ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.

BY J. W. POWELL, DIRECTOR.

INTRODUCTION.

Research among the North American Indians, in obedience to acts of
Congress, was continued during the fiscal year 1888-’89.

The explanation presented in several former annual reports of the
general plan upon which the work of the Bureau has been performed
renders a detailed repetition superfluous. The lines of investigation
which from time to time have appeared to be the most useful or the
most pressing have been confided to persons trained in or known to be
specially adapted to their pursuit. The results of their labors are
presented in the three series of publications of the Bureau which are
provided for by law. A brief statement of the work upon which each one
of the special students was actively engaged during the fiscal year is
furnished below; but it should be noted that this statement does not
specify all the studies made or services rendered by them.

The assistance of explorers, writers, and students who are not and may
not desire to be officially connected with the Bureau is again invited.
Their contributions, whether in suggestions or extended communications,
will always be gratefully acknowledged and will receive proper credit.
They may be published as Congress will allow, either in the series of
annual reports or in monographs or bulletins. Several valuable papers of
this class have already been contributed and published.

The report now submitted consists of three principal divisions. The
first relates to the publications made during the fiscal year; the
second, to the work prosecuted in the field; the third, to the office
work, which chiefly consists of the preparation for publication of the
results of field work, with the corrections and additions obtained from
exhaustive researches into the literature of the subjects discussed and
by correspondence relative to them.

PUBLICATIONS.

The publications actually issued and distributed during the year were as
follows, all octavo:

Bibliography of the Iroquoian Languages, by James C. Pilling; pages i-vi
+ 1-208. Facsimile reproductions, at pages 44 and 56, of title pages of
early publications relating to Indian languages, and, at page 72, of the
Cherokee alphabet.

Textile Fabrics of Ancient Peru, by William H. Holmes; pages 1-17, Figs.
1-11.

The Problem of the Ohio Mounds, by Cyrus Thomas; pages 1-54, Figs. 1-8.

FIELD WORK.

The field work of the year is divided into (1) mound explorations
and (2) general field studies, the latter being directed chiefly to
archeology, linguistics, and pictography.

MOUND EXPLORATIONS.

WORK OF MR. CYRUS THOMAS.

The work of exploring the mounds of the eastern United States was, as in
former years, under the superintendence of Mr. Cyrus Thomas. The efforts
of the division were chiefly confined to the examination of material
already collected and to the arrangement and preparation for publication
of the data on hand. Field work received less attention, therefore,
than in previous years, and was mainly directed to such investigations
as were necessary to elucidate doubtful points and to the examination
and surveys of important works which had not before received adequate
attention.

The only assistants to Mr. Thomas whose engagements embraced the entire
year were Mr. James D. Middleton and Mr. Henry L. Reynolds. Mr. Gerard
Fowke, one of the assistants, ceased his connection with the Bureau
at the end of the second month. Mr. John W. Emmert was engaged as a
temporary assistant for a few months.

WORK OF MR. GERARD FOWKE.

During the short time in which he remained with the division, Mr. Fowke
was engaged in exploring certain mounds in the Sciota valley, Ohio, a
field to which Messrs. Squier and Davis had devoted much attention.
Its reexamination was for the purpose of investigating certain typical
mounds which had not been thoroughly examined by those explorers.

WORK OF MR. J. D. MIDDLETON.

Mr. Middleton was employed from July to the latter part of October in
the exploration of mounds and other ancient works in Calhoun county,
Illinois, a territory to which special interest attaches because it
seems to be on the border line of different archeologic districts. From
October until December he was engaged at Washington in preparing plats
of Ohio earthworks. During the next month he made resurveys of some of
the more important inclosures in Ohio, after which he resumed work in
the office at Washington until the latter part of March, when he was
sent to Tennessee to examine several mound groups and to determine, so
far as possible, the exact locations of the old Cherokee “over-hill
towns.” The result of the last-mentioned investigation was valuable, as
it indicated that each of these “over-hill towns” was, with possibly one
unimportant exception, in the locality of a mound group.

WORK OF MR. H. L. REYNOLDS.

Near the close of October Mr. Reynolds, having already examined the
inclosures of the northern, eastern, and western sections of the mound
region, went to Ohio and West Virginia to study the different types
found there, with reference to the chapters he was preparing on the
various forms of ancient inclosures in the United States. While thus
engaged he explored a large mound connected with one of the typical
works in Paint creek valley, obtaining unexpected and important results.
The construction of this tumulus was found to be quite different from
most of those in the same section examined by Messrs. Squier and Davis.

WORK OF MR. J. W. EMMERT.

Mr. Emmert devoted the few months in which he was employed to the
successful exploration of mounds in eastern Tennessee. Some important
discoveries were made and additional interesting facts were ascertained
in regard to the mounds of that section.

GENERAL FIELD STUDIES.

WORK OF COL. GARRICK MALLERY.

Early in the month of July Col. Garrick Mallery proceeded to Maine, Nova
Scotia and New Brunswick to continue investigation into the pictographs
of the Abnaki and Micmac Indians, which had been commenced in 1887. He
first visited rocks in Maine, on the shore near Machiasport, and on Hog
island, in Holmes bay, a part of Machias bay. In both localities pecked
petroglyphs were found, accurate copies of which were taken. Some of
them had not before been reported. They are probably of Abnaki origin,
of either the Penobscot or the Passamaquoddy division, the rocks lying
on the line of water communication between the territories of those
divisions. From Maine he proceeded to Kejemkoojik lake, on the border
of Queens and Annapolis counties, Nova Scotia, and resumed the work
of drawing and tracing the large number of petroglyphs found during
the previous summer. Perfect copies were obtained of so many of them
as to be amply sufficient for study and comparison. These are incised
petroglyphs, and were made by Micmacs. The country of the Malecites, on
the St. Johns river, New Brunswick, was next visited. No petroglyphs
were discovered, but a considerable amount of information was obtained
upon the old system of pictographs on birch bark and its use.
Illustrative specimens were gathered, together with myths and legends,
which assisted in the elucidation of some of the pictographs observed
elsewhere.

WORK OF MR. W. J. HOFFMAN.

Mr. W. J. Hoffman proceeded in July to visit the Red Lake and White
Earth Indian reservations in Minnesota. At Red lake he obtained copies
of birch bark records pertaining to the Midē'wiwin or Grand Medicine
Society of the Ojibwa, an order of shamans professing the power to
prophesy, to cure disease, and to confer success in the chase. The
introductory portion of the ritual of this society pertains particularly
to the Ojibwa cosmogony. At the same place he secured several birch
bark records of hunting expeditions, battles with neighboring tribes of
Indians, maps, and songs. He also investigated the former and present
practice of tattooing, and the Ojibwa works of art in colors, beads, and
quills.

At White Earth Reservation two distinct charts of the Grand Medicine
Society were obtained, together with full explanations by two of the
chief midé or shamans, one of whom was the only fourth-degree priest in
either of the reservations. Although a considerable difference between
these three charts is apparent, their principles and the general course
of the initiation of the candidates are similar. The survival of archaic
forms in the charts and ritual indicates a considerable antiquity. Some
mnemonic songs were also obtained at this reservation. In addition to
the ritual, secured directly from the priests, in the Ojibwa language,
translations of the songs were also recorded, with musical notation.
On leaving the above reservations, Mr. Hoffman proceeded to Pipestone,
Minnesota, to copy the petroglyphs upon the cliffs of that historic
quarry.

He then returned to St. Paul, Minnesota, to search the records of the
library of the Minnesota Historical Society for copies of pictographs
reported to have been made near La Pointe, Wisconsin. Little information
was obtained, although it is known that such pictographs, now nearly
obliterated, existed upon conspicuous cliffs and rocks near Lake
Superior, at and in the vicinity of Bayfield and Ashland.

Mr. Hoffman afterward made an examination of the “pictured cave,”
eight miles northeast of La Crosse, Wisconsin, to obtain copies of the
characters appearing there. These are rapidly being destroyed by the
disintegration of the rock. The colors employed in delineating the
various figures were dark red and black. The figures represent human
beings, deer, and other forms not now distinguishable.

WORK OF MR. H. W. HENSHAW.

Mr. H. W. Henshaw spent the months of August, September, and October on
the Pacific coast, engaged in the collection of vocabularies of several
Indian languages, with a view to their study and classification. The
Umatilla Reservation in Oregon was first visited with the object of
obtaining a comprehensive vocabulary of the Cayuse. Though there are
about four hundred of these Indians on the reservation, probably not
more than six speak the Cayuse tongue. The Cayuse have extensively
intermarried with the Umatilla, and now speak the language of the
latter, or that of the Nez Percé. An excellent Cayuse vocabulary was
obtained, and at the same time the opportunity was embraced to secure
vocabularies of the Umatilla and the Nez Percé languages. His next
objective point was the neighborhood of the San Rafael Mission, Marin
county, California, the hope being entertained that some of the Indians
formerly gathered at the mission would be found there. He learned that
there were no Indians at or near San Rafael, but subsequently found a
few on the shores of Tomales bay, to the north. A good vocabulary was
collected from one of these, which, as was expected, was subsequently
found to be related to the Moquelumnan family of the interior, to the
southeast of San Francisco bay. Later the missions of Santa Cruz and
Monterey were visited. At these points there still remain a few old
Indians who retain a certain command of their own language, though
Spanish forms their ordinary means of intercourse. The vocabularies
obtained are sufficient to prove, beyond any reasonable doubt, that
there are two linguistic families instead of one, as had been formerly
supposed, in the country above referred to. A still more important
discovery was made by Mr. Henshaw at Monterey, where an old woman was
found who succeeded in calling to mind more than one hundred words and
short phrases of the Esselen language, formerly spoken near Monterey,
but less than forty words of which had been previously known. Near the
town of Cayucas, to the south, an aged and blind Indian was visited
who was able to add somewhat to the stock of Esselen words obtained at
Monterey, and to give valuable information concerning the original home
of that tribe. As a result of the study of this material Mr. Henshaw
determines the Esselen to be a distinct linguistic family, a conclusion
first drawn by Mr. Curtin from a study of the vocabularies collected by
Galiano and Lamanon in the eighteenth century. The territory occupied by
the tribe and linguistic family lies coastwise, south of Monterey bay,
as far as the Santa Lucia mountains.

WORK OF MR. JAMES MOONEY.

On July 5 Mr. James Mooney started on a second trip to the territory
of the Cherokee in North Carolina, returning after an absence of
about four months. During this time he made considerable additions
to the linguistic material already obtained by him, and was able to
demonstrate the former existence of a fourth, and perhaps even of a
fifth, well-marked Cherokee dialect in addition to the upper, lower, and
middle dialects already known. The invention of a Cherokee syllabary
which was adapted to the sounds of the upper dialect has tended to make
that dialect universal. A number of myths were collected, together with
a large amount of miscellaneous material relating to the Cherokee tribe,
and the great tribal game of ball play, with its attendant ceremonies
of dancing, conjuring, scratching the bodies of the players, and going
to water, was witnessed. A camera was utilized to secure characteristic
pictures of the players. Special attention was given to the subject
of Indian medicine, theoretic, ceremonial, and therapeutic. The most
noted doctors of the tribe were employed as informants, and nearly
five hundred specimens of medicinal and food plants were collected
and their Indian names and uses ascertained. The general result of
this investigation shows that the medical and botanical knowledge of
the Indians has been greatly overrated. A study was made of Cherokee
personal names, about five hundred of which were translated, being
all the names of Indian origin now remaining in that region. The most
important results of Mr. Mooney’s investigations were the discovery of a
large number of manuscripts containing the sacred formulas of the tribe,
written in Cherokee characters by the shamans for their own secret use,
and jealously guarded from the knowledge of all but the initiated. The
existence of such manuscripts had been ascertained during a visit in
1887, and several of them had been procured. This discovery of genuine
aboriginal material, written in an Indian language by shamans for
their own use, is believed to be unique in the history of aboriginal
investigation, and was only made possible through the invention of
the Cherokee syllabary by Sequoia in 1821. Every effort was made by
Mr. Mooney to obtain all the existing manuscripts, with the result of
securing all of that material which was in the possession of the tribe.
The whole number of formulas obtained is about six hundred. They consist
of prayers and sacred songs, explanations of ceremonies, directions for
medical treatment, and underlying theories. They relate to medicine,
love, war, hunting, fishing, self-protection, witchcraft, agriculture,
the ball play, and other similar subjects, thus forming a complete
exposition of an aboriginal religion as set forth by its priests in
their own language.

WORK OF MR. JEREMIAH CURTIN.

Early in October Mr. Jeremiah Curtin left Washington for the Pacific
coast. During the remainder of the year he was occupied in Shasta and
Humboldt counties, California, in collecting vocabularies and data
connected with the Indian system of medicine. This work was continued in
different parts of Humboldt and Siskiyou counties until June 30, 1889.
Large collections of linguistic and other data were gathered and myths
were secured which show that the whole system of medicine of these
Indians and the ministration of remedies originated in and are limited
to sorcery practices.

WORK OF MR. A. S. GATSCHET.

The field work of Mr. Albert S. Gatschet during the year was short.
It had been ascertained that Mrs. Alice M. Oliver, now in Lynn,
Massachusetts, formerly lived on Trespalacios bay, Texas, near the homes
of the Karánkawa, and Mr. Gatschet visited Lynn with a view of securing
as complete a vocabulary as possible of their extinct language. Mrs.
Oliver was able to recall about one hundred and sixty terms of the
language, together with some phrases and sentences. She also furnished
many valuable details regarding the ethnography of the tribe. Ten days
were spent in this work.

WORK OF MR. J. N. B. HEWITT.

Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt was occupied in field work from August 1 to November
8, as follows: From the first of August to September 20 he was on the
Tuscarora reserve, in Niagara county, New York, in which locality
fifty-five legends and myths were collected. A Penobscot vocabulary
was also obtained here, together with other linguistic material. From
September 20 to November 8 Mr. Hewitt visited the Grand River reserve,
Canada, where a large amount of text was obtained, together with notes
and other linguistic material.

WORK OF MR. VICTOR MINDELEFF.

Mr. Victor Mindeleff left Washington on October 23 for St. John’s,
Arizona, where he examined the Hubbell collection of ancient pottery
and secured a series of photographs and colored drawings of the more
important specimens. Thence he went to Zuñi and obtained drawings
of interior details of dwellings and other data necessary for the
completion of his studies of the architecture of this pueblo. He
returned to Washington December 7.

WORK OF MR. A. M. STEPHEN.

Mr. A. M. Stephen continued work among the Tusayan pueblos under the
direction of Mr. Victor Mindeleff. He added much to the knowledge
of the traditionary history of Tusayan, and made an extensive study
of the house lore and records of house-building ceremonials. He
also reported a full nomenclature of Tusayan architectural terms as
applied to the various details of terraced-house construction, with
etymologies. He secured from the Navajo much useful information of the
ceremonial connected with the construction of their conical lodges or
“hogans,” supplementing the more purely architectural records of their
construction previously collected by Mr. Mindeleff. As opportunity
occurred he gathered typical collections of baskets and other textile
fabrics illustrative of the successive stages of their manufacture,
including specimens of raw materials and detailed descriptions of the
dyes used. These collections are intended to include also the principal
patterns in use at the present time, with the Indian explanations of
their significance.

OFFICE WORK.

Major J. W. POWELL, the Director, devoted much time during the year
to the preparation of the paper to accompany a map of the linguistic
families of America north of Mexico, the scope of which has been alluded
to in previous reports. This report and map appear in the Seventh Annual
Report of the Bureau.

Mr. HENSHAW was chiefly occupied with the administrative duties of the
office, which have been placed in his charge by the Director, and with
the completion of the linguistic map.

Col. MALLERY, after his return from the field work elsewhere mentioned,
was engaged in the elaboration of the new information obtained and
in further continued study of and correspondence relating to sign
language and pictography. In this work he was assisted by Mr. HOFFMAN,
particularly in the sketches made by the latter during previous field
seasons, and in preparing a large number of the illustrations for the
paper on Picture-writing of the American Indians which appears in the
present volume.

Mr. J. OWEN DORSEY did no field work during the year, but devoted much
of the time to original investigations. Samuel Fremont, an Omaha
Indian, came to Washington in October, 1888, and until February,
1889, assisted Mr. Dorsey in the revision of the entries for the
Ȼegiha-English Dictionary. Similar assistance was rendered by Little
Standing Buffalo, a Ponka Indian from the Indian Territory, in April and
May, 1889. Mr. Dorsey also completed the entries for the Ȼegiha-English
Dictionary, and a list of Ponka, Omaha, and Winnebago personal names. He
translated from the Teton dialect of the Dakota all the material of the
Bushotter collection in the Bureau of Ethnology, and prepared therefrom
a paper on Teton folklore. He also prepared a brief paper on the camping
circles of Siouan tribes, and in addition furnished an article on the
modes of predication in the Athapascan dialects of Oregon and in several
dialects of the Siouan family. He also edited the manuscript of the
Dakota grammar, texts, and ethnography, written by the late Rev. Dr. S.
R. Riggs, which has been published as Volume VII, Contributions to North
American Ethnology. In May, 1889, he began an extensive paper on Indian
personal names, based on material obtained by himself in the field, to
contain names of the following tribes, viz: Omaha and Ponka, Kansa,
Osage, Kwapa, Iowa, Oto and Missouri, and Winnebago.

Mr. ALBERT S. GATSCHET’S office work was almost entirely restricted to
the composition and completion of his Ethnographic Sketch, Grammar,
and Dictionary of the Klamath Language of Oregon, with the necessary
appendices. These works have been published as Parts 1 and 2, Vol. II,
of Contributions to North American Ethnology.

Mr. JEREMIAH CURTIN during the year arranged and copied myths of various
Indian families, and also transcribed Wasco, Sahaptin, and Yanan
vocabularies previously collected.

Mr. JAMES MOONEY, on his return from the Cherokee reservation in 1888,
began at once to translate a number of the prayers and sacred songs
obtained from the shamans during his visit. The result of this work has
appeared in a paper in the Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau entitled
“Sacred formulas of the Cherokees.” Considerable time was devoted also
to the elaboration of the botanic and linguistic notes obtained in
the field. In the spring of 1889 he began the collection of material
for a monograph on the aborigines of the Middle Atlantic slope, with
special reference to the Powhatan tribes of Virginia. As a preliminary,
about one thousand circulars, requesting information in regard to local
names, antiquities, and surviving Indians, were distributed throughout
Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and northeastern Carolina. Sufficient
information was obtained in responses to afford an excellent basis for
future work in this direction.

Mr. JOHN N. B. HEWITT, from July 1 to August 1, was engaged in arranging
alphabetically the recorded words of the Tuscarora-English dictionary
mentioned in former reports, and in the study of adjective word forms
to determine the variety and kind of the Tuscarora moods and tenses.
After his return from the field Mr. Hewitt classified and tabulated all
the forms of the personal pronouns employed in the Tuscarora language.
Studies were also prosecuted to develop the predicative function in
the Tuscarora speech. All the terms of consanguinity and affinity as
now used among the Tuscarora were recorded and tabulated. Literal
translations of many myths collected in the field were made, and free
translations added to four of them. In all appropriate instances
linguistic notes were added relating to etymology, phonesis, and verbal
change.

Mr. JAMES C. PILLING gave much time to bibliographies of North American
languages. The bibliography of the Iroquoian languages was completed
early in the fiscal year, and the edition was issued in February. In the
meantime a bibliography of the Muskhogean languages was compiled, the
manuscript of which was sent to the Public Printer in January, 1889,
though the edition was not delivered during the fiscal year. Early in
March, 1889, Mr. Pilling went to Philadelphia to inspect the manuscripts
belonging to the American Philosophical Society, the authorities of
which gave him every facility, and much new material was secured. In
June he visited the Astor, Lenox, and Historical Society libraries in
New York; the libraries of the Boston Athenæum, Massachusetts Historical
Society, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and
the Boston Public Library, in Boston; that of Harvard University, in
Cambridge; of the American Antiquarian Society, in Worcester; and the
private library of Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull, in Hartford. In Canada he
visited the library of Laval University, and the private library of Mr.
P. Gagnon, in Quebec, of St. Mary’s College and Jacques Cartier School
in Montreal, and various missions along the St. Lawrence river, to
inspect the manuscripts left by the early missionaries. The result was
the accumulation of much new material for insertion in the Algonquian
bibliography.

Mr. WILLIAM H. HOLMES continued to edit the illustrations for the
publications of the Bureau, and besides was engaged actively in his
studies of aboriginal archeology. He completed papers upon the pottery
of the Potomac valley, and upon the objects of shell collected by the
Bureau during the last eight years, and he has others in preparation.
As curator of Bureau collections he makes the following statement of
accessions for the year: From Mr. Thomas and his immediate assistants,
working in the mound region of the Mississippi valley and contiguous
portions of the Atlantic slope, the Bureau has received one hundred and
forty-six specimens, including articles of clay, stone, shell, and bone.
Mr. Victor Mindeleff obtained sixteen specimens of pottery from the
Pueblo country. Other collections by members of the Bureau and the U. S.
Geological Survey are as follows: Shell beads and pendants (modern) from
San Buenaventura, California, by Mr. Henshaw; fragments of pottery and
other articles from the vicinity of the Cheroki agency, North Carolina,
by Mr. Mooney; a large grooved hammer from the bluff at Three Forks,
Montana, by Mr. A. C. Peale; a large series of rude stone implements
from the District of Columbia, by Mr. De Lancey W. Gill. Donations have
been received as follows: An important series of earthen vases from a
mound on Perdido bay, Alabama, given by F. H. Parsons; ancient pueblo
vases from southwestern Colorado, by William M. Davidson; a series of
spurious earthen vessels, manufactured by unknown persons in eastern
Iowa, from C. C. Jones, of Augusta, Georgia; fragments of pottery,
etc., from Romney, West Virginia, given by G. H. Johnson; fragments
of a steatite pot from Ledyard, Connecticut, by G. L. Fancher; an
interesting series of stone tools, earthen vessels, etc., from a mound
on Lake Apopka, Florida, by Thomas Featherstonhaugh; fragments of gilded
earthenware and photographs of antiquities from Mexico, by F. Plancarte;
fragments of gold ornaments from Costa Rica, by Anastasio Alfaro.
Important specimens have been received as follows: Articles of clay from
a mound on Perdido bay, Alabama, loaned by Mrs. A. T. Mosman; articles
of clay from the last mentioned locality, by A. B. Simons; pottery from
the Potomac valley, by W. Hallett Phillips, by S. V. Proudfit, and by H.
L. Reynolds; articles of gold and gold-copper alloy from Costa Rica, by
Anastasio Alfaro, Secretary of the National Museum at San Jose.

Mr. THOMAS was chiefly occupied during the year in the preparation of
the second and third volumes of his reports upon the mounds. He also
prepared a bulletin on the Circular, Square, and Octagonal Earthworks
of Ohio, with a view of giving a summary of the recent survey by the
mound division of the principal works of the above character in southern
Ohio. A second bulletin was completed, entitled “The Problem of the Ohio
Mounds,” in which he presented evidence to show that the ancient works
of the state are due to Indians of several different tribes, and that
some, at least, of the typical works were built by the ancestors of the
modern Cherokees.

Mr. REYNOLDS after his return from the field was engaged in the
preparation of a general map of the United States, showing the area
of the mounds and the relative frequency of their occurrence. He also
assisted Mr. Thomas in the preparation of the monograph upon the
inclosures.

Mr. VICTOR MINDELEFF, assisted by Mr. Cosmos Mindeleff, was engaged
in preparing for publication a “Study of Pueblo Architecture” as
illustrated in the provinces of Tusayan and Cibola, material for which
he had been collecting for a number of years. This report has appeared
in the Eighth Annual Report of the Bureau.

Mr. COSMOS MINDELEFF with the force of the modeling room at the
beginning of the fiscal year completed the exhibit of the Bureau for the
Cincinnati Exposition, and during the early part of the year he was at
Cincinnati in charge of that exhibit. Owing to restricted space it was
limited to the Pueblo culture group, but this was illustrated as fully
as the time would permit. The exhibit covered about 1,200 feet of floor
space, as well as a large amount of wall space, and consisted of models
of pueblo and cliff ruins, models of inhabited pueblos, ancient and
modern pottery, examples of weaving, basketry, etc.; a representative
series of implements of war, the chase, agriculture, and the household;
manikins illustrating costumes, and a series of large photographs
illustrative of aboriginal architecture of the pueblo region, and of
many phases of pueblo life. Upon Mr. Mindeleff’s return from Cincinnati
he resumed assistance to Mr. Victor Mindeleff upon the report on pueblo
architecture, and by the close of the fiscal year the two chapters which
had been assigned to him were completed. They consist of a review of
the literature on the pueblo region and a summary of the traditions of
the Tusayan group from material collected by Mr. A. M. Stephen. Work
was also continued on the duplicate series of models, and twelve were
advanced to various stages of completion. Some time was devoted to
repairing original models which had been exhibited at Cincinnati and
other exhibitions, and also to experiments in casting in paper, in order
in find a suitable paper for use in large models. The experiments were
successful.

Mr. J. K. HILLERS has continued the collection of photographs of
prominent Indians in both full-face and profile, by which method all
the facial characteristics are exhibited to the best advantage. In
nearly every instance a record has been preserved of the sitter’s status
in the tribe, his age, biographic notes of interest, and in cases of
mixed bloods, the degree of intermixture of blood. The total number
of photographs obtained during the year is 27, distributed among the
following tribes, viz: Sac and Fox, 5; Dakota, 6; Omaha, 6, and mixed
bloods (Creeks), 10.

Mr. FRANZ BOAS was employed from February to April in preparing for
convenient use a series of vocabularies of the several Salish divisions,
previously collected by him in British Columbia.

Mr. LUCIEN M. TURNER was for two years stationed at the Hudson Bay
Company’s post, Fort Chimo, near the northern end of the peninsula of
Labrador, as a civilian observer in the employ of the Signal Service, U.
S. Army. He was appointed to that position at the request of the late
Prof. Baird, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, in order that
his skill might be made available in a complete investigation of the
ethnology and natural history of the region. Mr. Turner left Washington
in June, 1882, and returned in the autumn of 1884. During the last year
he was engaged in the preparation of a report which will appear in one
of the forthcoming annual reports of the Bureau.

NECROLOGY.

MR. JAMES STEVENSON.

The officers of the Bureau of Ethnology and all persons interested in
researches concerning the North American Indians were this year called
to lament the death of Mr. James Stevenson, who had made regular and
valuable contributions to the publications and collections of the Bureau.

Mr. Stevenson was born in Maysville, Kentucky, on the 24th of December,
1840. When but a boy of 16 he became associated with Prof. F. V.
Hayden, and accompanied him upon expeditions into the regions of the
upper Missouri and Yellowstone rivers. Although the main objects of
these expeditions were geological, his tastes led him chiefly to
the observation of the customs and dialects of the Indians, and the
facilities for such study afforded him by the winters spent among the
Blackfoot and Dakota Indians excited and confirmed the anthropologic
zeal which absorbed the greater part of his life.

After military service during the civil war he resumed, in 1866, the
studies which had been interrupted by it, and accompanied Prof. Hayden
to the Bad Lands of Dakota. From this expedition and the action of the
Congress of the United States in 1866-’67, sprang the Hayden survey, and
during its existence Mr. Stevenson was its executive officer. In one
of the explorations from 1868 to 1878, which are too many to be here
enumerated, he climbed the Great Teton, and was the first white man
known to have reached the ancient Indian altar on its summit.

In 1879 the Hayden survey was discontinued, the Bureau of Ethnology
was organized, and the U. S. Geological Survey was established. Mr.
Stevenson, in addition to his duties as the executive officer of the
new survey, was detailed for research in connection with the Bureau of
Ethnology. In the subsequent years he devoted the winters--from the
incoming of the field parties to their outgoing in the spring--chiefly
to business of the survey; his summers to his favorite researches.
He explored the cliff and cave dwellings of Arizona and New Mexico;
he unearthed in the Canyon de Chelly two perfect skeletons of its
prehistoric inhabitants; he investigated the religious mythology of the
Zuñi, and secured a complete collection of fetich-gods, never before
allowed out of their possession; he studied the history and religions
of the Navajo and the Tusayan, and made an invaluable collection of
pottery, costumes, and ceremonial objects, which are now prominent in
the U. S. National Museum. But in the high mesas which were the field
of his explorations in 1885 he was attacked by the “mountain fever” in
its worst form. It was his first serious illness, and his regular and
temperate life saved him for the time. But a visit to the same region
in 1887 brought on a second attack of this peculiar and distressing
disease. He came home prostrated, with symptoms of serious heart failure.

He died at the Gilsey House, in New York city, on the 25th of July,
1888, and was buried in the cemetery of Rock Creek church, near
Washington.

ACCOMPANYING PAPER.

For the first time in the series of the Annual Reports of this Bureau a
single paper is submitted to exhibit the character of the investigations
undertaken and the facts collected by its officers, with the results
of their studies upon such collections. But while the paper is single
in form and in title, it includes, in its illustrations and the text
relating to them, nearly all topics into which anthropology can properly
be divided, and therefore shows more diversity than would often be
contained in a volume composed of separate papers by several authors.
Its subject-matter being essentially pictorial, it required a large
number of illustrations, twelve hundred and ninety-five figures being
furnished in the text, besides fifty-four full-page plates, which, with
their explanation and discussion, expanded the volume to such size as to
exclude other papers.

PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS, BY GARRICK MALLERY.

The papers accompanying the Fourth Annual Report of this Bureau,
which was for the fiscal year 1882-’83, included one under the title
“Pictographs of the North American Indians, a Preliminary Paper,
by Garrick Mallery.” Although that work was of considerable length
and the result of much research and study, it was in fact as well
as in title preliminary. The substance and general character of the
information obtained at that time on the subject was published not
only for the benefit of students already interested in it, but also
to excite interest in that branch of study among active explorers in
the field and, indeed, among all persons engaged in anthropologic
researches. For the convenience of such workers as were invited in
general terms to become collaborators, suggestions were offered for
the examination, description, and study of the objects connected with
this branch of investigation which might be noticed or discovered by
them. The result of this preliminary publication has shown the wisdom
of the plan adopted. Since the distribution of the Fourth Annual Report
pictography in its various branches has become, far more than ever
before, a prominent feature in the publications of learned societies, in
the separate works of anthropologists, and in the notes of scientific
explorers. The present paper includes, with proper credit to the authors
quoted or cited, many contributions to this branch of study which
obviously have been induced by the preliminary paper before mentioned.

The interest thus excited has continued to be manifested by the
publication of new information of importance, in diverse shapes and in
many languages, some of which has been received too late for proper
attention in this paper.

Col. Mallery’s studies in pictography commenced in the field. He was
stationed with his military command at Fort Rice, on the upper Missouri
river, in the autumn of 1876, and obtained a copy of the remarkable
pictograph which he then called “A Calendar of the Dakota Nation,” and
published under that title, with interpretation and explanation, in
Vol. III, No. 1, of the series of bulletins of the U. S. Geological
and Geographical Survey of the Territories, issued April 9, 1877. This
work attracted attention, and at the request of the Secretary of the
Interior he was ordered by the Secretary of War, on June 13, 1877,
to report for duty, in connection with the ethnology of the North
American Indians, to the present Director of this Bureau, then in
charge of the Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain
Region. Upon the organization of the Bureau of Ethnology, in 1879,
Col. Mallery was appointed ethnologist, and has continued in that duty
without intermission, supplementing field explorations by study of all
accessible anthropologic literature and by extensive correspondence.
His attention has been steadily directed to pictography and to
sign-language, which branches of study are so closely connected that
neither can be successfully pursued to the exclusion of the other, but
his researches have by no means been confined to those related subjects.

The plan and scope of the present work may be very briefly stated as
follows:

After some introductory definitions and explanations general remarks
are submitted upon the grand division of petroglyphs or pictures upon
rocks as distinct from other exhibitions of pictography. This division
is less susceptible of interpretation than others, but it claims special
interest and attention because the locality of production is fixed, and
also because the antiquity of workmanship may often be determined with
more certainty than can that of pictures on less enduring and readily
transportable objects. Descriptions, with illustrations, are presented
of petroglyphs in North America, including those in several provinces of
Canada, in many of the states and territories of the United States, in
Mexico, and in the West Indies. A large number from Central and South
America also appear, followed by examples from Australia, Oceanica,
Europe, Africa, and Asia, inserted chiefly for comparison with the
picture-writings in America, to which the work is specially devoted, and
therefore styled extra-limital petroglyphs. The curious forms called
cup sculptures are next discussed, followed by a chapter on pictographs
considered generally, which condenses the results of much thought. The
substances, apart from rocks, on which picture-writing is found are next
considered, and afterwards the instruments and materials by which they
are made. The subjects of pictography and the practices which elucidate
it are classified under several headings, viz: _Mnemonic_, subdivided
into (1) Knotted cords and objects tied, (2) Notched or marked sticks,
(3) Wampum, (4) Order of songs, (5) Traditions, (6) Treaties, (7)
Appointment, (8) Numeration, (9) Accounting; _Chronology_, in which the
charts at first called calendars, but now, in correct translation of
the Indian terms, styled winter-counts, are discussed and illustrated
with the care required by their remarkable characteristics; _Notices_,
which chapter embraces (1) Notice of visit, departure, and direction,
(2) Direction by drawing topographic features, (3) Notice of condition,
(4) Warning and guidance; _Communications_, including (1) Declaration
of war, (2) Profession of peace and friendship, (3) Challenge, (4)
Social and religious missives, (5) Claim or demand; _Totems, titles,
and names_, divided into (1) Pictorial tribal designations, (2) Gentile
and clan designation, (3) Significance of tattoo marks, which topic is
discussed at length, with ample illustration, and (4) Designations of
individuals, subdivided into insignia or tokens of authority, signs of
individual achievements, property marks, and personal names. Some of the
facts presented are to be correlated with the antique forms of heraldry
and others with proper names in modern civilization.

The topic _Religion_, considered in the popular significance of that
term, is divided into (1) Symbols of the supernatural, (2) Myths and
mythic animals, (3) Shamanism, (4) Charms and amulets, (5) Religious
ceremonies, and (6) Mortuary practices. _Customs_ are divided into (1)
Cult associations, (2) Daily life and habits, (3) Games. The chapter
entitled _Historic_ presents (1) Record of expeditions, (2) Record of
battle, which includes a highly interesting Indian pictured account
of the battle of the Little Big Horn, commonly called the “Custer
massacre,” (3) Record of migration, (4) Record of notable events. The
_Biographic_ chapter gives too many minutiæ for particularization here,
but is divided into (1) Continuous record of events in life and (2)
Particular exploits or events. _Ideography_ permeates and infuses all
the matter under the other headings, but is discussed distinctively and
with evidential illustrations in the sections of (1) abstract ideas
expressed objectively, and (2) symbols and emblems. In the latter
section the author suggests that the proper mode of interpretation of
pictographs whose origin and significance are unknown is that they are
to be primarily supposed to be objective representations, but may be,
and often are, ideographic, and in a limited number of cases may have
become symbolic, but that the strong presumption without extrinsic
evidence is against the occult or esoteric symbolism often attributed to
the markings under discussion. The significance of colors is connected
with ideography and examples are given of the colors used in many parts
of the world for mere decoration, in ceremonies, for death and mourning,
for war and peace, and to designate social status. The depiction of
gesture and posture signs is next discussed, showing the intimate
relation between a thought as expressed without words by signs, and a
thought expressed without words by pictures corresponding to those signs.

_Conventionalizing_ is divided into conventional devices, which were the
precursors of writing, and the syllabaries and alphabets evolved. The
pictographic origin of all the current alphabets of the world, often
before discussed, receives further explanation.

While comparison by the reader between all the illustrations and the
facts recorded and the suggestions submitted about them is essential
to the utility of the work, the author gives, as representing his own
mode of study, found to be advantageous in use, a chapter on _Special
Comparison_, divided into (1) Typical style, (2) Homomorphs and
symmorphs, (3) Composite forms, (4) Artistic skill and methods. This
chapter is followed by one with which it is closely connected, styled
_Means of Interpretation_, divided into (1) Marked characters of known
significance, (2) Distinctive costumes, weapons, and ornaments, (3)
Ambiguous characters with known meanings, the latter being chiefly a
collection of separate figures which would not be readily recognized
without labels, but which are understood through reliable authority.
Finally, under the rather noncommittal title of _Controverted
Pictographs_, the subjects of fraud and error are discussed with
striking examples and useful cautions.

From this brief paraphrase of the table of contents, it is obvious
that nearly all branches of anthropology are touched upon. It is also
to be remarked that the work is unique because it presents the several
anthropologic topics recorded by the Indians themselves according to
their unbiased conceptions, and in their own mode of writing. From this
point of view the anonymous and generally unknown pictographers may be
considered to be the primary authors of the treatise and Col. Mallery a
discoverer, compiler, and editor. But such depreciative limitation of
his functions would ignore the originality of treatment pervading the
work and the systematic classification and skillful analysis shown in it
which enhance its value and interest.

FINANCIAL STATEMENT.

_Classification of expenditures made from the appropriation for North
American ethnology for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1889._

Amount of appropriation 1888-’89 $40,000.00
===========
EXPENSES.

Services $29,546.20
Traveling expenses 3,243.45
Transportation of property 128.05
Field supplies 47.00
Instruments 16.00
Laboratory material 95.60
Photographic material 44.20
Books for library 202.39
Stationery and drawing material 59.36
Illustrations for report 114.00
Office furniture 92.50
Office supplies and repairs 218.75
Correspondence 4.17
Specimens 500.00
Bonded railroad accounts forwarded to Treasury for settlement 61.19
Balance on hand to meet outstanding liabilities 5,627.14
-----------
Total 40,000.00

ACCOMPANYING PAPER.

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION--BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.

PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS.

GARRICK MALLERY.

CONTENTS.

Page.

Introduction 25
Chapter I. Petroglyphs 31
Chapter II. Petroglyphs in North America 37
Section 1. Petroglyphs in Canada 37
Nova Scotia 37
Ontario 42
Manitoba 43
British Columbia 44
Section 2. Petroglyphs in the United States 45
Alaska 47
Arizona 48
California 52
Owens Valley 56
Colorado 72
Connecticut 75
Georgia 76
Idaho 77
Illinois 77
Iowa 80
Kansas 80
Kentucky 81
Maine 81
Maryland 83
Massachusetts 86
Minnesota 87
Montana 90
Nebraska 90
Nevada 92
New Mexico 96
New York 98
North Carolina 99
Ohio 101
Oregon 104
Pennsylvania 106
Rhode Island 113
South Dakota 114
Tennessee 114
Texas 115
Utah 116
Virginia 121
Washington 122
West Virginia 124
Wisconsin 126
Wyoming 128
Section 3. Petroglyphs in Mexico 131
Section 4. Petroglyphs in the West Indies 136
Puerto Rico 136
The Bahama islands 137
Guadeloupe 139
Aruba 139
Chapter III. Petroglyphs in Central and South America 141
Section 1. Petroglyphs in Central America 141
Nicaragua 141
Guatemala 142
Section 2. Petroglyphs in South America 142
United States of Colombia 143
Guiana 144
Venezuela 147
Brazil 150
Argentine Republic 157
Peru 157
Chile 159
Chapter IV. Extra-limital petroglyphs 161
Section 1. Petroglyphs in Australia 161
Section 2. Petroglyphs in Oceanica 165
New Zealand 165
Kei islands 167
Easter island 169
Section 3. Petroglyphs in Europe 171
Great Britain and Ireland 171
Sweden 173
France 175
Spain 177
Italy 178
Section 4. Petroglyphs in Africa 178
Algeria 178
Egypt 179
South Africa 180
Canary islands 183
Section 5. Petroglyphs in Asia 185
China 185
Japan 185
India 186
Siberia 186
Chapter V. Cup sculptures 189
Chapter VI. Pictographs generally 201
Chapter VII. Substances on which pictographs are made 205
Section 1. The human body 205
Section 2. Natural objects other than the human body 205
Stone 205
Bone 206
Skins 206
Feathers and quills 207
Gourds 208
Shells 209
Earth and sand 210
Copper 212
Wood 213
Section 3. Artificial objects 215
Fictile fabrics 215
Textile fabrics 215
Chapter VIII. Instruments and materials by which pictographs
are made 218
Section 1. Instruments for carving 218
Section 2. Instruments for drawing 219
Section 3. Coloring matter and its application 219
Chapter IX. Mnemonic 223
Section 1. Knotted cords and objects tied 223
Section 2. Notched or marked sticks 227
Section 3. Wampum 228
Section 4. Order of songs 231
Section 5. Traditions 250
The origin of the Indians 255
Section 6. Treaties 256
Section 7. Appointment 257
Section 8. Numeration 258
Section 9. Accounting 259
Chapter X. Chronology 265
Section 1. Time 265
Section 2. Winter counts 266
Lone-Dog’s winter count 273
Battiste Good’s winter count 287
Chapter XI. Notices 329
Section 1. Notice of visit, departure and direction 329
Section 2. Direction by drawing topographic features 341
Section 3. Notice of condition 347
Section 4. Warning and guidance 353
Chapter XII. Communications 358
Section 1. Declaration of war 358
Section 2. Profession of peace and friendship 359
Section 3. Challenge 362
Section 4. Social and religious missives 362
Australian message sticks 369
West African aroko 371
Section 5. Claim or demand 374
Chapter XIII. Totems, titles, and names 376
Section 1. Pictorial tribal designations 377
Iroquoian 377
Eastern Algonquian 378
Siouan and other designations 379
Absaroka, or Crow 380
Arapaho 381
Arikara, or Ree 381
Assiniboin 381
Brulé 382
Cheyenne 382
Dakota, or Sioux 383
Hidatsa, Gros Ventre or Minitari 384
Kaiowa 384
Mandan 385
Mandan and Arikara 385
Ojibwa 385
Omaha 385
Pawnee 386
Ponka 386
Shoshoni 387
Section 2. Gentile and clan designations 388
Section 3. Significance of tattoo 391
Tattoo in North America 392
On the Pacific coast 396
Tattoo in South America 407
Extra-limital tattoo 407
Scarification 416
Summary of studies on tattooing 418
Section 4. Designations of individuals 419
Insignia, or tokens of authority 419
Signs of individual achievements 433
Property marks 441
Personal names 442
Objective 447
Metaphoric 453
Animal 455
Vegetable 458
Chapter XIV. Religion 461
Section 1. Symbols of the supernatural 462
Section 2. Myths and mythic animals 468
Thunder birds 483
Section 3. Shamanism 490
Section 4. Charms and amulets 501
Section 5. Religious ceremonies 505
Section 6. Mortuary practices 517
Chapter XV. Customs 528
Section 1. Cult societies 528
Section 2. Daily life and habits 530
Section 3. Games 547
Chapter XVI. History 551
Section 1. Record of expedition 552
Section 2. Record of battle 554
Battle of the Little Bighorn 563
Section 3. Record of migration 566
Section 4. Record of notable events 567
Chapter XVII. Biography 571
Section 1. Continuous record of events in life 571
Section 2. Particular exploits or events 575
Chapter XVIII. Ideography 583
Section 1. Abstract ideas expressed pictorially 584
After; age--old and young; bad; before; big; center;
deaf; direction; disease; fast; fear; freshet; good; high;
lean; little; lone; many, much; obscure; opposition;
possession; prisoner; short; sight; slow; tall; trade;
union; whirlwind; winter, cold, snow 585-606
Section 2. Signs, symbols, and emblems 607
Section 3. Significance of colors 618
Decorative use of color 619
Ideocrasy of colors 622
Color in ceremonies 623
Color relative to death and mourning 629
Colors for war and peace 631
Color designating social status 633
Section 4. Gesture and posture signs depicted 637
Water 642
Child 643
Negation 644
Chapter XIX. Conventionalizing 649
Section 1. Conventional devices 650
Peace; war; chief; council; plenty of food; famine;
starvation; horses; horse stealing; kill and death;
shot; coming rain 650-662
Hittite emblems 662
Section 2. Syllabaries and alphabets 664
The Micmac “hieroglyphics” 666
Pictographs in alphabets 674
Chapter XX. Special comparison 676
Section 1. Typical style 676
Section 2. Homomorphs and symmorphs 692
Sky; sun and light; moon; day; night; cloud; rain;
lightning; human form; human head and face; hand;
feet and tracks; broken leg; voice and speech; dwellings;
eclipse of the sun; meteors; the cross 694-733
Section 3. Composite forms 735
Section 4. Artistic skill and methods 738
Chapter XXI. Means of interpretation 745
Section 1. Marked characters of known significance 745
Section 2. Distinctive costumes, weapons, and ornaments 749
Section 3. Ambiguous characters with ascertained meaning 755
Chapter XXII. Controverted pictographs 759
Section 1. The Grave creek stone 761
Section 2. The Dighton rock 762
Section 3. Imitations and forced interpretations 764
Chapter XXIII. General conclusions 768
List of works and authors cited 777

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Page.

PL. I-XI. Petroglyphs in Owens Valley, California 56-76
XII. Petroglyph in Maine 82
XIII. Petroglyphs in Nebraska 92
XIV. The Stone of the Giants. Mexico 134
XV. Powhatan’s mantle 210
XVI. Peruvian quipu and birch-bark drawings 226
XVII. Order of songs. Ojibwa 232
XVIII. Mnemonic songs. Ojibwa 236
XIX. Mnemonic songs. Ojibwa 244
XX. Lone-Dog’s winter count 266
XXI. Battiste Good’s cycles. A. D. 901-1000 290
XXII. Battiste Good’s cycles. A. D. 1141-1280 292
XXIII. Battiste Good’s cycles. A. D. 1421-1700 294
XXIV. Haida double thunder-bird 400
XXV. Haida dog-fish 402
XXVI. Oglala chiefs 420
XXVII. Oglala subchiefs 422
XXVIII. Mexican military insignia 432
XXIX. Mexican military insignia 434
XXX. Hidatsa dancers, bearing exploit marks 440
XXXI. Petroglyph in rock shelter, West Virginia 476
XXXII. Wasko and mythic raven, Haida 480
XXXIII. Mantle of invisibility 504
XXXIV. Mexican treatment of new-born children 542
XXXV. Education of Mexican children. Three to six years 544
XXXVI. Education of Mexican children. Seven to ten years 546
XXXVII. Education of Mexican children. Eleven to fourteen years 548
XXXVIII. Adoption of profession and marriage. Mexican 550
XXXIX. Map of Little Bighorn battlefield 564
XL. Battle of Little Bighorn. Indian camp 566
XLI. Battle of Little Bighorn. Soldiers charging Indian camp 568
XLII. Battle of Little Bighorn. Sioux charging soldiers 570
XLIII. Battle of Little Bighorn. Sioux fighting Custer’s battalion 572
XLIV. Battle of Little Bighorn. The dead Sioux 574
XLV. Battle of Little Bighorn. The dead Sioux 576
XLVI. Battle of Little Bighorn. Custer’s dead cavalry 578
XLVII. Battle of Little Bighorn. Indians leaving battle-ground 580
XLVIII. Battle of Little Bighorn. Indians leaving battle-ground 582
XLIX. Mexican symbols 614
L. Tablets at Ancon, Peru 706
LI. Thruston tablet, Tennessee 734
LII. Pictures on Dōtaku, Japan 736
LIII. German knights and Apache warriors 740
LIV. Dighton rock 762
FIG. 1-2. Palimpsests on Fairy rocks, Nova Scotia 40-41
3. Petroglyph on Vancouver island 44
4. Petroglyphs in Alaska 47
5-8. Petroglyphs in Arizona 48-50
9. Petroglyph in Shinumo canyon, Arizona 51
10. Petroglyph in Mound canyon, Arizona 52
11. Petroglyphs near Visalia, California 53
12-16. Petroglyphs at Tule river, California 54-57
17. View of Chalk grade petroglyphs, Owens valley, California 59
18. Petroglyphs in Death valley, California 60
19. Rattlesnake rock, Mojave desert, California 61
20. Petroglyph near San Marcos pass, California 62
21-22. Petroglyphs near San Marcos pass, California 62-63
23-28. Petroglyphs in Najowe valley, California 63-67
29-30. Petroglyphs near Santa Barbara, California 67-68
31. Petroglyphs in Azuza canyon, California 69
32-33. Petroglyphs in Santa Barbara county, California 70-71
34-35. Petroglyphs on the Rio Mancos, Colorado 73
36-37. Petroglyphs on the Rio San Juan 74-75
38. Petroglyphs in Georgia 76
39. Petroglyphs in Idaho, Shoshonean 77
40-41. The Piasa Petroglyph 78-79
42. Petroglyph on the Illinois river 79
43. Petroglyph near Alton, Illinois 80
44. Petroglyphs in Kansas 81
45. Bald Friar rock, Maryland 84
46. Slab from Bald Friar rock 85
47. Top of Bald Friar rock 85
48. Characters from Bald Friar rock 86
49. Dighton rock, Massachusetts 86
50. Petroglyphs at Pipestone, Minnesota 88
51. Petroglyphs in Brown’s valley, Minnesota 89
52-53. Characters from Nebraska petroglyphs 91-92
54. Petroglyphs on Carson river, Nevada 92
55. Petroglyphs at Reveillé, Nevada 94
56. Petroglyphs at Dead mountain, Nevada 95
57. Inscription rock, New Mexico 96
58-59. Petroglyphs at Ojo de Benado, New Mexico 97-98
60. Petroglyph at Esopus, New York 98
61. Paint rock, North Carolina 100
62. Petroglyphs on Paint rock, North Carolina 100
63. Newark Track rock, Ohio 101
64. Independence stone, Ohio 102
65. Barnesville Track rock, Ohio 103
66. Characters from Barnesville Track rock 103
67. Barnesville Track rock, No. 2 104
68. Petroglyphs, Wellsville, Ohio 104
69. Petroglyphs in Lake county, Oregon 106
70. Big Indian rock, Pennsylvania 107
71. Little Indian rock, Pennsylvania 108
72. Petroglyph at McCalls ferry, Pennsylvania 108
73. Petroglyph near Washington, Pennsylvania 109
74. Petroglyphs on “Indian God Rock,” Pennsylvania 110
75. Petroglyph at Millsboro, Pennsylvania 111
76. Petroglyphs near Layton, Pennsylvania 112
77-78. Glyphs in Fayette county, Pennsylvania 112-113
79. Petroglyphs in Roberts county, South Dakota 114
80. Petroglyphs near El Paso, Texas 116
81. Petroglyphs near Manti, Utah 118
82-85. Petroglyphs on Colorado river, Utah 118-120
86. Petroglyphs at Pipe Spring, Utah 120
87-88. Petroglyphs on Colorado river, Utah 120
89. Petroglyphs in Shinumo canyon, Utah 121
90. Petroglyphs in Tazewell county, Virginia 121
91. Petroglyphs in Browns cave, Wisconsin 126
92. Petroglyphs at Trempealeau, Wisconsin 127
93-95. Petroglyphs in Wind river valley, Wyoming 128-129
96-97. Petroglyphs near Sage creek, Wyoming 130
98. Petroglyphs in Mexico 132
99. The emperor Ahuitzotzin 134
100-102. Petroglyphs in the Bahamas 138-139
103. Petroglyph in Guadeloupe 140
104. Petroglyphs in Nicaragua 141
105. Petroglyphs in Colombia 144
106. Shallow carvings in Guiana 145
107. Sculptured rock in Venezuela 147
108. Rock near Caïcara, Venezuela 148
109. Petroglyphs of Chicagua rapids, Venezuela 149
110. Petroglyphs on the Cachoeira do Ribeirão, Brazil 151
111. The rock Itamaraca, Brazil 151
112. Petroglyphs on the Rio Negro, Brazil 152
113. Petroglyphs at Caldierão do Inferno, Brazil 152
114. Petroglyphs at the falls of Girão, Brazil 153
115. Petroglyphs at Pederneira, Brazil 153
116. Petroglyphs at Araras rapids, Brazil 154
117. Petroglyphs at Ribeirão, Brazil 154
118. Character at Madeira rapid, Brazil 155
119. Petroglyphs at Pao Grande, Brazil 155
120. Petroglyph in Ceará, Brazil 156
121-122. Petroglyphs in Morcego, Brazil 156
123. Petroglyphs in Inhamun, Brazil 157
124. Petroglyphs Pedra Lavrada, Brazil 158
125. Inscribed rock at Bajo de Canota, Argentine Republic 158
126. Petroglyphs near Araquipa, Peru 159
127. Petroglyph in Huaytara, Peru 159
128. Sculptured boulder in Chile 160
129. Petroglyph in Cajon de los Cipreses, Chile 160
130. Petroglyph on Finke river, Australia 162
131. Petroglyph in Depuch island, Australia 163
132. Petroglyph at Bantry bay, Australia 164
133. Petroglyph in New Zealand 166
134. Petroglyphs in Kei islands 168
135. Petroglyphs in Easter island 169
136. Tablet from Easter island 170
137-138. Petroglyph in Bohuslän, Sweden 174-175
139. Petroglyph in Épone, France 176
140. Petroglyphs at Tyout, Algeria 179
141. Petroglyphs at Moghar, Algeria 180
142. Petroglyph in Léribé, South Africa 182
143. Petroglyphs in Basutoland, South Africa 183
144-145. Petroglyphs in the Canary islands 183-184
145_a_. Petroglyph in Yezo, Japan 185
146. Petroglyphs at Chandeshwar, India 187
147. Types of cup sculptures 190
148. Variants of cup sculptures 191
149. Cup sculptures at Auchnabreach, Scotland 192
150. Cup sculptures at Ballymenach, Scotland 193
151. Cup sculptures in Chiriqui 194
152-153. Cup sculptures in Venezuela 195
154-155. Cup sculptures in Brazil 195-196
156. Cup sculptures in India 197
157. Comanche drawing on shoulder blade 206
158. Quill pictograph 208
159. Pictograph on gourd 208
160. Pictographs on wood, Washington 214
161. Haida basketry hat 216
162. Tshimshian blanket 217
163. Wampum strings 228
164. Penn wampum belt 230
165. Song for medicine hunting 247
166. Song for beaver hunting 249
167. Osage chart 251
168. Midē' record 252
169. Midē' records 253
170. Minabō'zho 254
171. Midē' practicing incantation 254
172. Jĕssakkī'd curing a woman 254
173. The origin of the Indians 256
174. Record of treaty 257
175-177. Shop account 259-261
178-180. Book account 262
181. Notched sticks 263
182. Device denoting the succession of time. Dakota 265
183-196. Lone-Dog’s Winter Count 273-276
197. Whooping-cough. The-Flame’s Winter Count, 1813-’14 276
198. Whooping-cough. The-Swan’s Winter Count, 1813-’14 276
199-255. Lone-Dog’s Winter Count 276-286
256. Battiste Good’s Revelation 289
257-436. Battiste Good’s Winter Count 293-328
437. Petroglyphs at Oakley Springs, Arizona 329
438. Hunting notices 331
439. Alaskan notice of hunt 332
440. Alaskan notice of departure 332
441. Alaskan notice of hunt 333
442-444. Alaskan notice of direction 333-334
445. Abnaki notice of direction 335
446. Amalecite notice of trip 336
447-448. Ojibwa notice of direction 337-338
449. Penobscot notice of direction 338
450. Passamaquoddy notice of direction 339
451. Micmac notice of direction 341
452. Lean-Wolf’s map. Hidatsa 342
453. Chart of battlefield 343
454. Topographic features 344
455. Greenland map 345
456-458. Passamaquoddy wikhegan 348-350
459. Alaskan notice of distress 351
460. Alaskan notice of departure and refuge 351
461. Alaskan notice of departure to relieve distress 351
462. Ammunition wanted. Alaskan 352
463. Assistance wanted in the hunt. Alaskan 352
464-465. Starving hunters. Alaskan 352-353
466. No thoroughfare 354
467. Rock paintings in Azuza canyon, California 354
468. Site of paintings in Azuza canyon, California 355
469. Sketches from Azuza canyon 355
470. West African message 361
471. Ojibwa love letter 363
472. Cheyenne letter 364
473. Ojibwa invitations 365
474. Ojibwa invitation sticks 366
475. Summons to Midé ceremony 367
476. Passamaquoddy wikhegan 367
477. Australian message sticks 370
478-479. West African aroko 371
480-481. Jebu complaint 375
482. Samoyed requisition 375
483. Eastern Algonquian tribal designations 379
484-487. Absaroka tribal designations 380-381
488. Arapaho tribal designation 381
489-490. Arikara tribal designations 381
491. Assiniboin tribal designation 381
492-493. Brulé tribal designations 382
494-497. Cheyenne tribal designations 382-383
498. Dakota tribal designation 383
499. Hidatsa tribal designation 384
500-501. Kaiowa tribal designations 384
502. Mandan tribal designation 385
503. Mandan and Arikara tribal designations 385
504-506. Omaha tribal designations 385
507-509. Pawnee tribal designations 386
510-512. Ponka tribal designations 386-387
513. Tamga of Kirghise tribes 387
514. Dakota gentile designations 389
515. Kwakiutl carvings 390
516. Virginia tattoo designs 393
517. Haida tattooing. Sculpin and dragon-fly 397
518. Haida tattooing. Thunder-bird 398
519. Haida tattooing. Thunder-bird and tshimos 399
520. Haida tattooing. Bear 399
521. Haida tattooing. Mountain goat 400
522. Haida tattooing. Double thunder-bird 401
523. Haida tattooing. Double raven 401
524. Haida tattooing. Dog-fish 400
525-526. Tattooed Haidas 402-403
527. Two forms of skulpin. Haida 404
528. Frog. Haida 405
529. Cod. Haida 405
530. Squid. Haida 405
531. Wolf. Haida 405
532. Australian grave and carved trees 408
533. New Zealand tattooed head and chin mark 409
534. Tattoo design on bone. New Zealand 409
535. Tattooed woman. New Zealand 410
536. Tattoo on Papuan chief 411
537. Tattooed Papuan woman 412
538. Badaga tattoo marks 413
539. Chukchi tattoo marks 414
540. Big-Road 421
541. Charging-Hawk 422
542. Feather-on-his-head 422
543. White-Tail 423
544. White-Bear 423
545. Standing-Bear 423
546. Four horn calumet 424
547. Two-Strike as partisan 424
548. Lean-Wolf as partisan 425
549. Micmac headdress in pictograph 425
550. Micmac chieftainess in pictograph 426
551. Insignia traced on rocks, Nova Scotia 427
552. Chilkat ceremonial shirt 428
553. Chilkat ceremonial cloak 429
554. Chilkat ceremonial blanket 430
555. Chilkat ceremonial coat 430
556. Bella Coola Indians 431
557. Guatemala priest 431
558. Mark of exploit. Dakota 433
559. Killed with fist. Dakota 433
560. Killed an enemy. Dakota 434
561. Cut throat and scalped. Dakota 434
562. Cut enemy’s throat. Dakota 434
563. Third to strike. Dakota 434
564. Fourth to strike. Dakota 434
565. Fifth to strike. Dakota 434
566. Many wounds. Dakota 434
567-568. Marks of exploits. Hidatsa 437
569. Successful defense. Hidatsa 438
570. Two successful defenses. Hidatsa 438
571. Captured a horse. Hidatsa 438
572. Exploit marks. Hidatsa 438
573. Record of exploits 439
574. Record of exploits 439
575. Exploit marks as worn 439
576. Scalp taken 440
577. Scalp and gun taken 440
578. Boat paddle. Arikara 442
579. African property mark 442
580. Owner’s marks. Slesvick 442
581. Signature of Running Antelope. Dakota 445
582. Solinger sword makers’ marks 445
583-613. Personal names. Objective 447-453
614-621. Personal names. Metaphoric 453-454
622-634. Personal names. Animal 455-458
635-637. Personal names. Vegetable 458
638. Loud-Talker 459
639. Mexican names 460
640-651. Symbols of the supernatural 462-466
652. Dream. Ojibwa 466
653. Religious symbols 467
654. Myth of Pokinsquss 469
655. Myth of Atosis 470
656. Myth of the Weasel girls 471
657. The giant bird Kaloo 472
658. Kiwach, the strong blower 473
659. Story of Glooscap 474
660. Ojibwa shamanistic symbols 474
661. Baho-li-kong-ya. Arizona 476
662. Mythic serpents. Innuit 476
663. Haida wind-spirit 477
664. Orca. Haida 477
665. Bear mother. Haida 478
666. Thunder-bird grasping whale 479
667. Haokah. Dakota giant 480
668. Ojibwa mánidō 480
669. Menomoni white bear mánidō 481
670. Mythic wild cats. Ojibwa 482
671. Winnebago magic animal 482
672. Mythic buffalo 482
673-674. Thunder-birds. Dakota 483
675. Wingless thunder-bird. Dakota 483
676-677. Thunder-birds. Dakota 484
678. Thunder-bird. Haida 485
679. Thunder-bird. Twana 485
680. Medicine-bird. Dakota 486
681. Five-Thunders. Dakota 486
682. Thunder-pipe. Dakota 486
683. Micmac thunder-bird 487
684. Venezuelan thunder-bird 487
685. Ojibwa thunder-birds 487
686. Moki rain-bird 488
687. Ahuitzotl 488
688. Peruvian fabulous animals 488
689. Australian mythic personages 489
690. Ojibwa Midē' wigwam 493
691. Lodge of a Midē' 493
692. Lodge of a Jĕssakkī'd 493
693-697. Making medicine. Dakota 494
698. Magic killing 495
699. Held-a-ghost-lodge 495
700-701. Muzzin-ne-neence. Ojibwa 495-496
702. Ojibwa divination. Ojibwa 497
703. Shaman exorcising demon. Alaska 497
704. Supplication for success. Alaska 499
705. Skokomish tamahous 498
706. Mdewakantawan fetich 500
707. Medicine bag, as worn 501
708. Medicine bag, hung up 502
709-711. Magic arrows 503
712. Hunter’s charm. Australia 504
713. Moki masks traced on rocks. Arizona 506
714. Shaman’s lodge. Alaska 507
715. Ah-tón-we-tuck 509
716. On-sáw-kie 510
717. Medicine lodge. Micmac 510
718. Juggler lodge. Micmac 511
719. Moki ceremonial 511
720. Peruvian ceremony 513
721-723. Tartar and Mongol drums 515-517
724. Votive offering. Alaska 519
725-726. Grave posts. Alaska 520
727. Village and burial ground. Alaska 520
728. Menomoni grave post 521
729. Incised lines on Menomoni grave post 522
730. Grave boxes and posts 523
731. Commemoration of dead. Dakota 523
732. Ossuary ceremonial. Dakota 523
733. Kalosh grave boxes 524
734. New Zealand grave effigy 525
735. New Zealand grave post 526
736. Nicobarese mortuary tablet 526
737. The policeman 529
738. Ottawa pipestem 530
739-740. Shooting fish. Micmac 531
741. Lancing fish. Micmac 531
742. Whale hunting. Innuit 531
743. Hunting in canoe. Ojibwa 532
744. Record of hunting. Ojibwa 532
745. Fruit gatherers. Hidatsa 533
746. Hunting antelope. Hidatsa 533
747. Hunting buffalo. Hidatsa 534
748. Counting coups. Dakota 534
749-750. Counting coup. Dakota 535
751-752. Scalp displayed. Dakota 535-536
753. Scalped head. Dakota 536
754. Scalp taken. Dakota 536
755-757. Antelope hunting. Dakota 536-537
758. Wife’s punishment. Dakota 537
759. Decorated horse. Dakota 537
760. Suicide. Dakota 537
761. Eagle hunting. Arikara 537
762. Eagle hunting. Ojibwa 538
763. Gathering pomme blanche 538
764. Moving tipi 538
765. Claiming sanctuary 538
766-769. Raising war party. Dakota 540
770. Walrus hunting. Alaska 541
771. Records carved on ivory. Alaska 541
772-773. Haka game. Dakota 547
774. Haida gambling sticks 548
775. Pebbles from Mas d’Azil 549
776-781. Records of expeditions. Dakota 553-554
782-783. Records of battles 556
784. Battle of 1797. Ojibwa 557
785. Battle of Hard river. Winnebago 559
786. Battle between Ojibwa and Sioux 559
787. Megaque’s last battle 560
788-795. Records of battles. Dakota 561-563
796. Record of Ojibwa migration 566
797. Origin of Brulé. Dakota 567
798. Kiyuksas 568
799-802. First coming of traders 568
803. Boy scalped 568
804. Boy scalped alive 569
805. Horses killed 569
806-808. Annuities received 569
809. Mexican blankets bought 569
810. Wagon captured 570
811. Clerk killed 570
812. Flagstaff cut down 570
813. Horses taken 570
814. Killed two Arikara 571
815. Shot and scalped an Arikara 572
816. Killed ten men and three women 572
817. Killed two chiefs 573
818. Killed one Arikara 573
819. Killed two Arikara hunters 574
820. Killed five Arikara 574
821. Peruvian biography 575
822. Hunting record. Iroquois 575
823. Martial exploits. Iroquois 576
824. Cross-Bear’s death 576
825. A dangerous trading trip 577
826. Shoshoni raid for horses 578
827. Life risked for water 578
828. Runs by the enemy 579
829. Runs around 579
830. Goes through the camp 579
831. Cut through 579
832. Killed in tipi 579
833. Killed in tipi 579
834. Took the warpath 579
835. White-Bull killed 580
836. Brave-Bear killed 580
837. Brave-man killed 580
838. Crazy Horse killed 580
839. Killed for whipping wife 580
840. Killed for whipping wife 580
841-842. Close shooting 581
843. Lean-Wolf’s exploits. Hidatsa 581
844. Record of hunt. Alaska 581
845. Charge after 585
846. Killed after 585
847. Old-Horse 585
848. Old-Mexican 585
849. Young-Rabbit 585
850. Bad-Boy 585
851. Bad-Horn 585
852. Bad-Face 586
853. Bad. Ojibwa 586
854. Got-there-first 586
855-860. Big 586-587
861. Center-Feather 587
862. Deaf Woman 587
863-867. Direction 588
868. Whooping cough 588
869. Measles 589
870. Measles or smallpox 589
871. Ate buffalo and died 589
872. Died of “whistle” 589
873-874. Smallpox 589
875. Smallpox. Mexican 589
876. Died of cramps 589
877-878. Died in childbirth 590
879. Sickness. Ojibwa 590
880. Sickness. Chinese 590
881. Fast-Horse 590
882. Fast-Elk 590
883-887. Fear 591
888-890. River freshet 591-592
891. Good-Weasel 592
892-897. High 592-593
898-903. Lean 593-594
904-915. Little 594-595
916. Lone-Woman 595
917. Lone-Bear 596
918. Many shells 596
919. Many deer 596
920. Much snow 596
921. Great, much 596
922. Ring-Cloud 597
923. Cloud-Ring 597
924. Fog 597
925. Kills-Back 597
926. Keeps-the-Battle 597
927. Keeps-the-Battle 597
928. His-Fight 597
929. River fight 598
930. Owns-the-arrows 598
931. Has-something-sharp 598
932. Prisoner. Dakota 598
933. Takes enemy 598
934. Iroquois triumph 599
935. Prisoners. Dakota 599
936. Prisoners. Iroquois 600
937. Prisoners. Mexico 600
938. Short bull 600
939-944. Sight 600-601
945. Slow bear 601
946-954. Tall 601-602
955-956. Trade 603
957. Brothers 603
958. Same tribe 603
959. Husband and wife 604
960. Same tribe 604
961. Same tribe 604
962-966. Whirlwind 604-605
967-975. Winter, cold, snow 605-606
976. Peruvian garrison 607
977. Comet. Mexican 613
978. Robbery. Mexican 613
979. Guatemalan symbols 614
980. Chibcha symbols 616
981. Syrian symbols 616
982. Piaroa color stamps 621
983. Rock painting. Tule river, California 638
984-998. Gesture signs in pictographs 639-641
999. Water symbols 642
1000. Gesture sign for drink 642
1001. Water. Egyptian 642
1002. Gesture for rain 643
1003. Water signs. Moki 643
1004. Symbols for child and man 644
1005. Gestures for birth 644
1006. Negation 645
1007. Hand 645
1008. Signal of discovery 645
1009. Pictured gestures. Maya 646
1010. Pictured gestures. Guatemala 647
1011-1019. Peace 650-651
1020-1022. War 651-652
1023. Chief-Boy 652
1024. War chief. Passamaquoddy 652
1025-1029. Council 653-654
1030-1037. Plenty of food 654-655
1038-1043. Famine 655-656
1044-1046. Starvation 656
1047-1051. Horses 656-657
1052-1060. Horse stealing 657-658
1061-1069. Kill and death 658-660
1070. Killed. Dakota 660
1071. Life and death. Ojibwa 660
1072. Dead. Iroquois 660
1073. Dead man. Arikara 660
1074-1078. Shot 661
1079. Coming rain 662
1080. Hittite emblems of known sound 663
1081. Hittite emblems of uncertain sound 664
1082. Title page of Kauder’s Micmac Catechism 668
1083. Lord’s Prayer in Micmac “hieroglyphics” 669
1084-1085. Religious story. Sicasica 672
1086. Mo-so MS. Desgodins 673
1087. Pictographs in alphabets 675
1088. Algonquian petroglyph, Hamilton farm, West Virginia 677
1089. Algonquian petroglyphs, Safe Harbor, Pennsylvania 677
1090. Algonquian petroglyphs, Cunningham’s Island, Lake Erie 679
1091. Algonquian petroglyphs, Wyoming 680
1092. Shoshonean petroglyphs, Idaho 680
1093. Shoshonean petroglyphs, Utah 681
1094. Shoshonean rock painting, Utah 681
1095-1096. Arizona petroglyphs 682-683
1097-1098. Petroglyphs in Lower California 683
1099. Haida totem post 684
1100. New Zealand house posts 685
1101. New Zealand tiki 686
1102-1103. Nicaraguan petroglyphs 686
1104. Deep carvings in Guiana 687
1105-1106. Venezuelan petroglyphs 688
1107. Brazilian petroglyphs 689
1108. Spanish and Brazilian petroglyphs 690
1109-1111. Brazilian petroglyphs 690-691
1112. Brazilian pictograph 691
1113-1114. Brazilian petroglyphs 692
1115. Tree 693
1116. Grow 693
1117. Sky 694
1118. Sun. Oakley Springs 694
1119. Sun. Gesture sign 695
1120. Devices for sun 695
1121. Sun and light 695
1122. Light 695
1123. Light and sun 696
1124. Sun. Kwakiutl 696
1125. Sun mask. Kwakiutl 696
1126. Suns 696
1127. Gesture for moon 696
1128. Moon 697
1129. Stars 697
1130. Day. Ojibwa 697
1131. Morning. Arizona 698
1132. Day 698
1133. Days. Apache 698
1134. Clear, stormy. Ojibwa 699
1135-1139. Night 699
1140. Night. Ojibwa 699
1141. Sign for night 700
1142. Night. Egyptian 700
1143. Night. Mexican 700
1144. Cloud shield 700
1145. Clouds. Moki 700
1146. Cloud. Ojibwa 700
1147. Rain. Ojibwa 701
1148. Rain. Pueblo 701
1149. Rain. Moki 701
1150. Rain. Chinese 701
1151-1153. Lightning. Moki 701-702
1154. Lightning. Pueblo 702
1155-1158. Human form 703
1159. Human form. Alaska 704
1160. Bird man. Siberia 704
1161. American. Ojibwa 704
1162. Man. Yakut 704
1163. Human forms. Moki 704
1164. Human form. Navajo 705
1165. Man and woman. Moki 705
1166. Human form. Colombia 705
1167. Human form. Peru 707
1168. Human face. Brazil 708
1169-1170. Human faces. Brazil 708
1171. Double-faced head. Brazil 708
1172. Funeral urn. Marajo 709
1173. Marajo vase 709
1174. Marajo vases 710
1175. Human heads 711
1176. Hand. Ojibwa 711
1177. Joined hands. Moki 712
1178. Cave-painting. Australia 713
1179. Irish cross 715
1180. Roman standard 715
1181-1185. Tracks 716
1186. Feet 716
1187-1192. Broken leg. Dakota 716-717
1193. Broken leg. Chinese 717
1194-1198. Voice 717-718
1199. Speech. Ojibwa 719
1200. Talk. Mexican 719
1201. Talk. Maya 719
1202. Talk. Guatemala 720
1203. Dwellings 720
1204-1210. Dwellings. Dakota 721
1211. Dwellings. Moki 721
1212. Dwelling. Maya 722
1213. House. Egyptian 722
1214. Eclipse of the sun 722
1215-1223. Meteors 722-723
1224. Meteors. Mexican 724
1225. Cross. Dakota 725
1226. Cross. Ohio mound 725
1227. Dragon fly 725
1228. Crosses. Eskimo 727
1229. Cross. Tulare valley, California 727
1230. Crosses. Owens valley, California 728
1231. Cross. Innuit 729
1232. Crosses. Moki 729
1233. Crosses. Maya 729
1234. Crosses. Nicaragua 730
1235-1236. Crosses. Guatemala 730-731
1237. Crosses. Sword-makers’ marks 732
1238. Cross. Golasecca 733
1239-1251. Composite forms 735-736
1252. Wolf-man. Haida 737
1253. Panther-man. Haida 737
1254. Moose. Kejimkoojik 739
1255. Hand. Kejimkoojik 740
1256. Engravings on bamboo. New Caledonia 743
1257. Typical character. Guiana 745
1258. Moki devices 746
1259. Frames and arrows. Moki 746
1260. Blossoms. Moki 746
1261. Moki characters 748
1262. Mantis. Kejimkoojik 749
1263. Animal forms. Sonora 749
1264-1278. Weapons and ornaments. Dakota 750-752
1279. Weapons 753
1280. Australian wommera and clubs 754
1281. Turtle. Maya 756
1282. Armadillo. Yucatan 756
1283. Dakota drawings 756
1284. Ojibwa drawings 757
1285-1287. Grave creek stone 761-762
1288. Imitated pictograph 765
1289. Fraudulent pictograph 767
1290. Chinese characters 767

PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS.

BY GARRICK MALLERY.

INTRODUCTION.

An essay entitled “Pictographs of the North American Indians: A
Preliminary Paper,” appeared in the Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau
of Ethnology. The present work is not a second edition of that essay,
but is a continuation and elaboration of the same subject. Of the
eighty-three plates in that paper not one is here reproduced, although
three are presented with amendments; thus fifty-one of the fifty-four
plates in this volume are new. Many of the text figures, however, are
used again, as being necessary to the symmetry of the present work, but
they are now arranged and correlated so as to be much more useful than
when unmethodically disposed as before, and the number of text figures
now given is twelve hundred and ninety-five as against two hundred and
nine, the total number in the former paper. The text itself has been
rewritten and much enlarged. The publication of the “Preliminary Paper”
has been of great value in the preparation of the present work, as it
stimulated investigation and report on the subject to such an extent
that it is now impossible to publish within reasonable limits of space
all the material on hand. Indeed, after the present work had been
entirely written and sent to the Public Printer, new information came to
hand which ought to be published, but can not now be inserted.

It is also possible to give more attention than before to the
picture-writing of the aboriginal inhabitants of America beyond the
limits of the United States. While the requirements of the acts of
Congress establishing the Bureau of Ethnology have been observed by
directing main attention to the Indians of North America, there is
sufficient notice of Central and South America to justify the present
title, in which also the simpler term “picture-writing” is used instead
of “pictographs.”

Picture-writing is a mode of expressing thoughts or noting facts by
marks which at first were confined to the portrayal of natural or
artificial objects. It is one distinctive form of thought-writing
without reference to sound, gesture language being the other and
probably earlier form. Whether remaining purely ideographic, or
having become conventional, picture-writing is the direct and durable
expression of ideas of which gesture language gives the transient
expression. Originally it was not connected with the words of any
language. When adopted for syllabaries or alphabets, which is the
historical course of its evolution, it ceased to be the immediate
and became the secondary expression of the ideas framed in oral
speech. The writing common in civilization may properly be styled
sound-writing, as it does not directly record thoughts, but presents
them indirectly, after they have passed through the phase of sound. The
trace of pictographs in alphabets and syllabaries is discussed in the
present work under its proper heading so far as is necessary after the
voluminous treatises on the topic, and new illustrations are presented.
It is sufficient for the present to note that all the varied characters
of script and print now current are derived directly or mediately from
pictorial representations of objects. Bacon well said that “pictures are
dumb histories,” and he might have added that in the crude pictures of
antiquity were contained the germs of written words.

The importance of the study of picture-writing depends partly upon the
result of its examination as a phase in the evolution of human culture.
As the invention of alphabetic writing is admitted to be the great
step marking the change from barbarism to civilization, the history
of its earlier development must be valuable. It is inferred from
internal evidence, though not specifically reported in history, that
picture-writing preceded and generated the graphic systems of Egypt,
Assyria, and China, but in America, especially in North America, its
use is still current. It can be studied here without any requirement
of inference or hypothesis, in actual existence as applied to records
and communications. Furthermore, the commencement of its evolution
into signs of sound is apparent in the Aztec and the Maya characters,
in which transition stage it was arrested by foreign conquest. The
earliest lessons of the genesis and growth of culture in this important
branch of investigation may, therefore, be best learned from the
western hemisphere. In this connection it should be noticed that
picture-writing is found in sustained vigor on the same continent where
sign language has prevailed and has continued in active operation to an
extent historically unknown in other parts of the world. These modes
of expression, i. e., transient and permanent thought-writing, are so
correlated in their origin and development that neither can be studied
to the best advantage without including the other. Unacquainted with
these facts, but influenced by an assumption that America must have
been populated from the eastern hemisphere, some enterprising persons
have found or manufactured American inscriptions composed of characters
which may be tortured into identity with some of the Eurasian alphabets
or syllabaries, but which sometimes suggest letters of indigenous
invention. This topic is discussed in its place.

For the purposes of the present work there is no need to decide whether
sign-language, which is closely connected with picture-writing, preceded
articulate speech. It is sufficient to admit the high antiquity of
thought-writing in both its forms, and yet it is proper to notice a
strong current of recent opinions as indicated by Prof. Sayce (_a_) in
his address to the anthropologic section of the British Association for
the Advancement of Science, as follows:

I see no escape from the conclusions that the chief distinctions
of race were established long before man acquired language. If the
statement made by M. de Mortillet is true, that the absence of
the mental tubercle, or bony excrescence in which the tongue is
inserted, in a skull of the Neanderthal type found at La Naulette,
indicates an absence of the faculty of speech, one race at least of
palæolithic man would have existed in Europe before it had as yet
invented an articulate language. Indeed it is difficult to believe
that man has known how to speak for any very great length of time.
* * * We can still trace through the thin disguise of subsequent
modifications and growth the elements, both lexical and grammatical,
out of which language must have arisen. * * * The beginnings of
articulate language are still too transparent to allow us to refer
them to a very remote era. * * * In fact the evidence that he is a
drawing animal * * * mounts back to a much earlier epoch than the
evidence that he is a speaking animal.

When a system of ideographic gesture signs prevailed and at the same
time any form of artistic representation, however rude, existed, it
would be expected that the delineations of the former would appear in
the latter. It was but one more and an easy step to fasten upon bark,
skins, or rocks the evanescent air pictures that still in pigments or
carvings preserve their ideography or conventionalism in their original
outlines. A transition stage between gestures and pictographs, in which
the left hand is used as a supposed drafting surface, upon which the
index draws lines, is exhibited in the Dialogue between Alaskan Indians
in the First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (_a_). This device
is common among deaf-mutes, without equal archeologic importance, as it
may have been suggested by the art of writing, with which, even when not
instructed in it, they are generally acquainted.

The execution of the drawings, of which the several forms of
picture-writing are composed, often exhibits the first crude efforts of
graphic art, and their study in that relation is of value.

When pictures are employed for the same purpose as writing, the
conception intended to be presented is generally analyzed and only its
most essential points are indicated, with the result that the characters
when frequently repeated become conventional, and in their later form
cease to be recognizable as objective portraitures. This exhibition of
conventionalizing has its own historic import.

It is not probable that much valuable information will ever be obtained
from ancient rock carvings or paintings, but they are important as
indications of the grades of culture reached by their authors, and
of the subjects which interested those authors, as is shown in the
appropriate chapters following. Some portions of these pictures can
be interpreted. With regard to others, which are not yet interpreted
and perhaps never can be, it is nevertheless useful to gather together
for synoptic study and comparison a large number of their forms from
many parts of the world. The present collection shows the interesting
psychologic fact that primitive or at least very ancient man made the
same figures in widely separated regions, though it is not established
that the same figures had a common significance. Indications of priscan
habitat and migrations may sometimes be gained from the general style or
type of the drawings and sculptures, which may be divided into groups,
although the influence of the environing materials must always be
considered.

The more modern specimens of picture-writing displayed on skins, bark,
and pottery are far more readily interpreted than those on rocks, and
have already afforded information and verification as to points of
tribal history, religion, customs, and other ethnologic details.

A criticism has been made on the whole subject of picture-writing by the
eminent anthropologist, Dr. Andree, who, in Ethnographische Parallelen
und Vergleiche (_a_), has described and figured a large number of
examples of petroglyphs, a name given by him to rock-drawings and now
generally adopted. His views are translated as follows:

But if we take a connected view of the petroglyphs to which the
rock pictures, generally made with red paint, are equivalent, and
make a comparison of both, it becomes evident that they are usually
made for mere pastime and are the first artistic efforts of rude
nations. Nevertheless, we find in them the beginnings of writing,
and in some instances their transition to pictography as developed
among North American Indians becomes evident.

It appears, therefore, that Dr. Andree carefully excludes the
picture-writings of the North American Indians from his general censure,
his conclusion being that those found in other parts of the world
usually occupy a lower stage. It is possible that significance may yet
be ascertained in many of the characters found in other regions, and
perhaps this may be aided by the study of those in America; but no doubt
should exist that the latter have purpose and meaning. The relegation to
a trivial origin of such pictographs as are described and illustrated
in the present work will be abandoned after a thorough knowledge of the
labor and thought which frequently were necessary for their production.
American pictographs are not to be regarded as mere curiosities. In some
localities they represent the only intellectual remains of the ancient
inhabitants. Wherever found, they bear significantly upon the evolution
of the human mind.

Distrust concerning the actual significance of the ancient American
petroglyphs may be dispelled by considering the practical use of similar
devices by historic and living Indians for purposes as important to them
as those of alphabetic writing, these serving to a surprising extent the
same ends. This paper presents a large number of conclusive examples.
The old devices are substantially the same as the modern, though
improved and established in the course of evolution. The ideography
and symbolism displayed in these devices present suggestive studies in
psychology more interesting than the mere information or text contained
in the pictures. It must also be observed that when Indians now make
pictographs it is with intention and care--seldom for mere amusement.
Even when the labor is undertaken merely to supply the trade demand
for painted robes or engraved pipes or bark records, it is a serious
manufacture, though sometimes only imitative and not intrinsically
significant. In all other known instances in which pictures are made
without such specific intent as is indicated under the several headings
of this work, they are purely ornamental; but in such cases they are
often elaborate and artistic, not idle scrawls.

This paper is limited in its terms to the presentation of the most
important known pictographs of the American Indians, but examples
from other parts of the world are added for comparison. The proper
classification and correlation of the matter collected has required more
labor and thought than is apparent. The scheme of the work has been
to give in an arrangement of chapters and sections some examples with
illustrations in connection with each heading in the classification.
This plan has involved a large amount of cross reference, because in
many cases a character or a group of characters could be considered
with reference to a number of different characteristics, and it was
necessary to choose under which one of the headings it should be
presented, involving reference to that from the other divisions of the
work. Sometimes the decision was determined by taste or judgment, and
sometimes required by mechanical considerations.

It may be mentioned that the limitation of the size of the present
volume required that the space occupied by the text should be
subordinated to the large amount of illustration. It is obvious that a
work on picture-writing should be composed largely of pictures, and to
allow room for them many pages of the present writer’s views have been
omitted. Whatever may be the disadvantage of this omission it leaves to
students of the work the opportunity to form their own judgments without
bias. Indeed, this writer confesses that although he has examined and
studied in their crude shape, as they went to the printer, all the
illustrations and descriptions now presented, he expects that after
the volume shall be delivered to him in printed form with its synoptic
arrangement he will be better able than now to make appropriate remarks
on its subject-matter. Therefore he anticipates that careful readers
will judiciously correct errors in the details of the work which may
have escaped him and that they will extend and expand what is yet
limited and partial. It may be proper to note that when the writer’s
observation has resulted in agreement with published authorities or
contributors, the statements that could have been made on his own
personal knowledge have been cited, when possible, from the printed or
manuscript works of others. Quotation is still more requisite when there
is disagreement with the authorities.

Thanks for valuable assistance are due and rendered to correspondents
and to officers of the Bureau of Ethnology and of the United States
Geological Survey, whose names are generally mentioned in connection
with their several contributions. Acknowledgment is also made now and
throughout the work to Dr. W. J. Hoffman, who has officially assisted
in its preparation during several years, by researches in the field, in
which his familiarity with Indians and his artistic skill have been of
great value. Similar recognition is due to Mr. De Lancey W. Gill, in
charge of the art department of the Bureau of Ethnology and the U. S.
Geological Survey, and to Mr. Wells M. Sawyer, his assistant, specially
detailed on the duty, for their work on the illustrations presented.
While mentioning the illustrations, it may be noted that the omission
to furnish the scale on which some of them are produced is not from
neglect, but because it was impossible to ascertain the dimensions of
the originals in the few cases where no scale or measurement is stated.
This omission is most frequently noticeable in the illustrations of
petroglyphs which have not been procured directly by the officers of
the Bureau of Ethnology. The rule in that Bureau is to copy petroglyphs
on the scale of one-sixteenth actual size. Most of the other classes of
pictographs are presented without substantial reduction, and in those
cases the scale is of little importance.

It remains to give special notice to the reader regarding the mode
adopted to designate the authors and works cited. A decision was
formed that no footnotes should appear in the work. A difficulty in
observing that rule arose from the fact that in the repeated citation of
published works the text would be cumbered with many words and numbers
to specify titles, pages and editions. The experiment was tried of
printing in the text only the most abbreviated mention, generally by the
author’s name alone, of the several works cited, and to present a list
of them arranged in alphabetic order with cross references and catch
titles. This list appears at the end of the work with further details
and examples of its use. It is not a bibliography of the subject of
picture-writing, nor even a list of authorities read and studied in the
preparation of the work, but it is simply a special list, prepared for
the convenience of readers, of the works and authors cited in the text,
and gives the page and volume, when there is more than one volume in the
edition, from which the quotation is taken.

CHAPTER I.

PETROGLYPHS.

In the plan of this work a distinction has been made between a
petroglyph, as Andree names the class, or rock-writing, as Ewbank called
it, and all other descriptions of picture-writing. The criterion for
the former is that the picture, whether carved or pecked, or otherwise
incised, and whether figured only by coloration or by coloration and
incision together, is upon a rock either in situ or sufficiently large
for inference that the picture was imposed upon it where it was found.
This criterion allows geographic classification. In presenting the
geographic distribution, prominence is necessarily (because of the
laws authorizing this work) given to the territory occupied by the
United States of America, but examples are added from various parts
of the globe, not only for comparison of the several designs, but to
exhibit the prevalence of the pictographic practice in an ancient form,
though probably not the earliest form. The rocks have preserved archaic
figures, while designs which probably were made still earlier on less
enduring substances are lost.

Throughout the world in places where rocks of a suitable character
appear, and notably in South America, markings on them have been found
similar to those in North America, though until lately they have seldom
been reported with distinct description or with illustration. They are
not understood by the inhabitants of their vicinity, who generally
hold them in superstitious regard, and many of them appear to have
been executed from religious motives. They are now most commonly found
remaining where the population has continued to be sparse, or where
civilization has not been of recent introduction, with exceptions such
as appear in high development on the Nile.

The superstitions concerning petroglyphs are in accord with all
other instances where peoples in all ages and climes, when observing
some phenomenon which they did not understand, accounted for it by
supernatural action. The following examples are selected as of interest
in the present connection.

It must be premised with reference to the whole character of the
mythology and folk-lore of the Indians that, even when professed
converts to Christianity, they seem to have taken little interest in the
stories of the Christian church, whether the biblical narratives or the
lives and adventures of the saints, which are so constantly dwelt upon
throughout the Christian world that they have become folk-lore. The
general character of the Christian legends does not seem to have suited
the taste of Indians and has not at all impaired their affection for or
their belief in the aboriginal traditions.

Among the gods or demigods of the Abnaki are those who particularly
preside over the making of petroglyphs. Their name in the plural, for
there are several personages, is Oonagamessok. They lived in caves
by the shore and were never seen, but manifested their existence by
inscriptions on the rocks. The fact that these inscribed rocks are
now very seldom found is accounted for by the statement that the
Oonagamessok have become angry at the want of attention paid to them
since the arrival of the white people and have caused the pictures to
disappear. There is no evidence to determine whether this tradition
should be explained by the fact that the ingenious shamans of the last
century would sometimes produce a miracle, carving the rocks themselves
and interpreting the marks in their own way, or by the fact that the
rock inscriptions were so old that their origin was not remembered and
an explanation was, as usual, made by ascription to a special divinity,
perhaps a chieftain famous in the old stage of mythology, or perhaps one
invented for the occasion by the class of priests who from immemorial
antiquity have explained whatever was inexplicable.

At a rock near the mouth of the Magiguadavic river, at the time
immediately before the Passamaquoddy Indians chose their first governor
after the manner of the whites, the old Indians say there suddenly
appeared a white man’s flag carved on the rocks. The old Indians
interpreted this as a prophecy that the people would soon be abandoned
to the white man’s methods, and this came to pass shortly after.
Formerly they had a “Mayouett” or chief. Many other rock carvings are
said to have foretold what has since come to pass. Strange noises have
also been heard near them.

The Omaha superstition is mentioned on pages 91-92 infra.

The Mandans had an oracle stone on which figures appeared on the morning
after a night of public fasting. They were deciphered by the shaman, who
doubtless had made them.

Mr. T. H. Lewis (_a_) gives the following tradition relating to the
incised bowlders in the upper Minnesota valley:

In olden times there used to be an object that marked the
bowlders at night. It could be seen, but its exact shape was
indistinct. It would work making sounds like hammering, and
occasionally emit a light similar to that of a firefly. After
finishing its work it would give one hearty laugh like a woman
laughing and then disappear. The next morning the Indians would find
another pictured bowlder in the vicinity where the object had been
seen the night previous.

Mr. J. W. Lynd (_a_) says of the Dakotas:

The deities upon which the most worship is bestowed, if, indeed,
any particular one is nameable, are Tunkan (Inyan) the Stone God and
Wakinyan, the Thunder Bird. The latter, as being the main god of
war, receives constant worship and sacrifices; whilst the adoration
of the former is an every-day affair. The Tunkan, the Dakotas say,
is the god that dwells in stones or rocks, and is the oldest god. If
asked why it is considered the oldest, they will tell you because it
is the hardest.

Mr. Charles Hallock, on the authority of Capt. Ed. Hunter, First
Cavalry, U. S. A., furnishes the following information respecting the
Assiniboin, Montana, rock pictures, which shows the reverence of these
Indians for the petroglyphs even when in ruins:

Some of the rocks of the sculptured cliff cleaved off and
tumbled to the ground, whereupon the Indians assembled in force,
stuck up a pole, hung up some buffalo heads and dried meat, had a
song and dance, and carefully covered the detached fragments (which
were sculptured or painted) with cotton cloth and blankets. Jim
Brown, a scout, told Capt. Hunter that the Indians assembled at this
station at stated times to hold religious ceremonies. The pictures
are drawn on the smooth face of an outcrop or rocky projection.

Marcano (_a_) gives an account in which superstition is mixed with
historic tradition. It is translated as follows:

The legend of the Tamanaques, transmitted by Father Gili, has
also been invoked in favor of an ancient civilization. According
to the beliefs of this nation, there took place in days of old a
general inundation, which recalls the age of the great waters of
the Mexicans, during which the scattered waves beat against the
Encaramada. All the Tamanaques were drowned except one man and one
woman, who fled to the mountain of Tamacu or Tamanácu, situated
on the banks of Asiveru (Cuchivero). They threw above their heads
the fruits of the palm tree, Mauritia, and saw arising from their
kernels the men and women who repeopled the earth. It was during
this inundation that Amalavica, the creator of mankind, arrived on
a bark and carved the inscription of Tepumereme. Amalavica remained
long among the Tamanaques, and dwelt in Amalavica-Jeutitpe (house).
After putting everything in order he set sail and returned “to
the other shore,” whence he had come. “Did you perchance meet him
there?” said an Indian to Father Gili, after relating to him this
story. In this connection Humboldt recalls that in Mexico, too, the
monk Sahagun was asked whether he came from the other shore, whither
Quetzalcoatl had retired.

The same traveler adds: “When you ask the natives how the
hieroglyphic characters carved on the mountains of Urbana and
Encaramada could have been traced, they reply that this was done in
the age of the great waters, at the time when their fathers were
able to reach the heights in their canoes.”

If these legends and these petroglyphs are proof of an extinct
civilization, it is astonishing that their authors should have
left no other traces of their culture. To come to the point, is it
admissible that they were replaced by savage tribes without leaving
a trace of what they had been, and can we understand this retrograde
march of civilization when progress everywhere follows an ascending
course? These destructions of American tribes in place are very
convenient to prop up theories, but they are contrary to ethnologic
laws.

The remarkable height of some petroglyphs has misled authors of good
repute as well as savages. Petroglyphs frequently appear on the face
of rocks at heights and under conditions which seemed to render their
production impossible without the appliances of advanced civilization,
a large outlay, and the exercise of unusual skill. An instance among
many of the same general character is in the petroglyphs at Lake Chelan,
Washington, where they are about 30 feet above the present water level,
on a perpendicular cliff, the base of which is in the lake. On simple
examination the execution of the pictographic work would seem to
involve details of wharfing, staging, and ladders if operated from the
base, and no less elaborate machinery if approached from the summit.
Strahlenberg suggests that such elevated drawings were made by the
ingenious use of stone wedges driven into the rock, thus affording
support for ascent or descent, and reports that he actually saw such
stone wedges in position on the Yenesei river. A very rough geological
theory has been presented by others to account for the phenomena by the
rise of the rocks to a height far above the adjacent surface at a time
later than their carving.

But in the many cases observed in America it is not necessary to propose
either the hypothesis involving such elaborate work as is suggested or
one postulating enormous geological changes. The escarpment of cliffs
is from time to time broken down by the action of the elements and the
fragments fall to the base, frequently forming a talus of considerable
height, on which it is easy to mount and incise or paint on the
remaining perpendicular face of the cliff. When the latter adjoins a
lake or large stream, the disintegrated débris is almost immediately
carried off, leaving the drawings or paintings at an apparently
inaccessible altitude. When the cliff is on dry land, the rain, which
is driven against the face of the cliff and thereby increased in volume
and force at the point in question, also sweeps away the talus, though
more slowly. The talus is ephemeral in all cases, and the face of the
cliff may change in a week or a century, as it may happen, so its aspect
gives but a slight evidence of age. The presence, therefore, of the
pictures on the heights described proves neither extraordinary skill
in their maker nor the great antiquity which would be indicated by
the emergence of the pictured rocks through volcanic or other dynamic
agency. The age of the paintings and sculptures must be inferred from
other considerations.

Pictures are sometimes found on the parts of rocks which at present
are always, or nearly always, covered with water. On the sea shore at
Machias bay, Maine, the peckings have been continued below the line of
the lowest tides as known during the present generation. In such cases
subsidence of the rocky formation may be indicated. At Kejimkoojik
lake, Nova Scotia, incisions of the same character as those on the
bare surface of the slate rocks can now be seen only by the aid of a
water glass, and then only when the lake is at its lowest. This may be
caused by subsidence of the rocks or by rise of the water through the
substantial damming of the outlet. Some rocks on the shores of rivers,
e. g., those on the Kanahwa, in West Virginia, show the same general
result of the covering and concealment of petroglyphs by water, except
in an unusual drought, which may more reasonably be attributed to the
gradual elevation of the river through the rise of the surface near its
mouth than to the subsidence of the earth’s crust at the locality of the
pictured rocks.

It must be admitted that no hermeneutic key has been discovered
applicable to American pictographs, whether ancient on stone or modern
on bark, skins, linen, or paper. Nor has any such key been found
which unlocks the petroglyphs of any other people. Symbolism was of
individual origin and was soon variously obscured by conventionalizing;
therefore it requires separate study in every region. No interpreting
laws of general application to petroglyphs so far appear, although
types and tendencies can be classified. It was hoped that in some lands
petroglyphs might tell of the characters and histories of extinct
or emigrated peoples, but it now seems that knowledge of the people
who were the makers of the petroglyphs is necessary to any clear
understanding of their work. The fanciful hypotheses which have been
formed without corroboration, wholly from such works as remain, are now
generally discarded.

There is a material reason why the interpretation of petroglyphs is
attended with special difficulty. They have often become so blurred by
the elements and so much defaced where civilized man has penetrated that
they cease to have any distinct or at least incontrovertible features.
The remarks relating to Dighton rock, infra, Chap. XXII, are in point.

Rock-carving or picture-writing on rocks is so old among the American
tribes as to have acquired a nomenclature. The following general remarks
of Schoolcraft (_a_) 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 and _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 _muzzinabiks_, 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.

In the Oglala Roster mentioned in Chapter XIII, Section 4, infra, one of
the heads of families is called Inyanowapi, translated as Painted (or
inscribed) rock. A blue object in the shape of a bowlder is connected
with the man’s head by the usual line, and characters too minute for
useful reproduction appear on the bowlder. The name is interesting as
giving the current Dakota term for rock-inscriptions. The designation
may have been given to this Indian because he was an authority on
the subject and skilled either in the making or interpretation of
petroglyphs.

The name “Wikhegan” was and still is used by the Abnaki to signify
portable communications made in daily life, as distinct from the rock
carvings mentioned above, which are regarded by them as mystic.

One of the curious facts in connection with petroglyphs is the meager
notice taken of them by explorers and even by residents other than the
Indians, who are generally reticent concerning them. The present writer
has sometimes been annoyed and sometimes amused by this indifference.
The resident nearest to the many inscribed rocks at Kejimkoojik Lake,
Nova Scotia, described in Chapter II, Section 1, was a middle-aged
farmer of respectable intelligence who had lived all his life about 3
miles from those rocks, but had only a vague notion of their character,
and with difficulty found them. A learned and industrious priest, who
had been working for many years on the shores of Lake Superior preparing
not only a dictionary and grammar of the Ojibwa language, but an account
of Ojibwa religion and customs, denied the present existence of any
objects in the nature of petroglyphs in that region. Yet he had lived
for a year within a mile of a very important and conspicuous pictured
rock, and, on being convinced of his error by sketches shown him, called
in his Ojibwa assistant and for the first time learned the common use of
a large group of words which bore upon the system of picture-writing,
and which he thereupon inserted in his dictionary, thus gaining from the
visitor, who had come from afar to study at the feet of this supposed
Gamaliel, much more than the visitor gained from him.

CHAPTER II.

PETROGLYPHS IN NORTH AMERICA.

SECTION 1.

CANADA.

The information thus far obtained about petroglyphs in Canada is meager.
This may be partly due to the fact that through the region of the
Dominion now most thoroughly known the tribes have generally resorted
for their pictographic work to the bark of birch trees, which material
is plentiful and well adapted for the purpose. Indeed the same fact
affords an explanation of the paucity of rock-carvings or paintings
in the lands immediately south of the boundary line separating the
United States from the British possessions. It must also be considered
that the country on both sides of that boundary was in general heavily
timbered, and that even if petroglyphs are there they may not even yet
have been noticed. But that the mere plenty of birch bark does not
evince the actual absence of rock-pictures in regions where there was
also an abundance of suitable rocks, and where the native inhabitants
were known to be pictographers, is shown by the account given below of
the multitudes of such pictures lately discovered in a single district
of Nova Scotia. It is confidently believed that many petroglyphs will
yet be found in the Dominion. Others may be locally known and possibly
already described in publications which have escaped the researches of
the present writer. In fact, from correspondence and oral narrations,
there are indications of petroglyphs in several parts of the Dominion
besides those mentioned below, but their descriptions are too vague for
presentation here. For instance, Dr. Boas says that he has seen a large
number of petroglyphs in British Columbia, of which neither he nor any
other traveler has made distinct report.

NOVA SCOTIA.

The only petroglyphs yet found in the peninsula of Nova Scotia are
in large numbers within a small district in Queens county, and they
comprise objects unique in execution and in interest. They were
examined by the present writer in the field seasons of 1887 and 1888,
and some were copied by him, but many more copies were taken in the
last-mentioned year by Mr. George Creed, of South Rawdon, Nova Scotia,
who had guided the writer to the locality. Attention was at first
confined to Fairy lake and its rocks. This lake is really a bay of
a larger lake which is almost exactly on the boundary line between
Annapolis and Queens counties, one of those forming the chain through
which the Liverpool river runs, and called Cegemacaga in More’s History
of Queens County (_a_), but according to Dr. Silas Rand in his Reading
Book in the Micmac Language (_a_), Kejimkoojik, translated by him as
“swelled parts,” doubtless referring to the expansion of the Maitland
river at its confluence with the Liverpool river.

The Fairy rocks, as distinct from others in the lake, are three in
number, and are situated on the east side of Kejimkoojik lake and south
of the entrance to Fairy lake. The northernmost of the three rocks is
immediately at the entrance, the westernmost and central rock showing
but a small surface at high water and at the highest stage of the water
being entirely submerged. Three other inscribed rocks are about 2 miles
south of these, at Piels (a corruption of Pierre’s) point, opposite an
island called Glodes or Gload island, so named from a well-known Micmac
family. These rocks are virtually a continuation of the same formation
with depressions between them. Two other localities in the vicinity
where the rocks are engraved, as hereafter described, are at Fort Medway
river and Georges lake. As they are all of the same character, on the
same material, and were obviously made by the same people, they are all
classed together, when referred to in this paper, as at Kejimkoojik
lake. All of these rocks are of schistose slate of the Silurian
formation, and they lie with so gentle a dip that their magnitudes vary
greatly with a slight change in the height of the water. On August 27,
1887, when, according to the reports of the nearest residents, the water
was one foot above the average summer level, the unsubmerged portion of
the central rock then surrounded by water was an irregular oval, the
dimensions of which were 47 by 60 feet. The highest points of the Fairy
rocks at that date were no more than three and few were more than two
feet above the surface of the water. The inclination near the surface is
so small that a falling of the water of one foot would double the extent
of that part of the surface which, by its smoothness and softness,
is adapted to engraving. The inclination at Piels point is steeper,
but still allows a great variation of exposed surface in the manner
mentioned.

Mr. Creed first visited the Fairy rocks in July, 1881. His attention
was directed exclusively to the northernmost rock, which was then more
exposed than it was in September, 1887, and much of the inscribed
portion seen by him in 1881 was under water in 1887. The submerged
parts of the rocks adjoining those exposed are covered with incisions.
Many inscriptions were seen in 1881 by Mr. Creed through the water, and
others became visible through a water glass in 1887. His recollection of
the inscribed dates seen in 1881 is that some with French names attached
were of years near 1700, and that the worn appearance of the figures and
names corresponded with the lapse of time indicated by those dates. A
number of markings were noticed by him which are not found in the parts
now exposed, and were evidently more ancient than most of the engravings
on the latter. From other sources of information it is evident that
either from a permanent rise in the water of the lake or from the
sinking of the rocks, they formerly showed, within the period of the
recollection of people now living, a much larger exposed surface than
of late years, and that the parts long since permanently submerged were
covered with engravings. The inference is that those engravings were
made before Europeans had visited the locality.

It is to be specially remarked that the exposed surfaces where the rocks
were especially smooth were completely marked over, no space of 3 inches
square being unmarked, and over nearly all of those choice parts there
were two, and in many cases three, sets of markings, above one another,
recognizable by their differing distinctness. It also seemed that the
second or third marking was upon plane surfaces where the earlier
markings had been nearly obliterated by time. With pains and skill the
earlier markings can be traced, and these are the outlines which from
intrinsic evidence are Indian, whereas the later and more sharply marked
outlines are obviously made by civilized men or boys, the latest being
mere initials or full names of persons, with dates attached. Warning
must be given that the ancient markings, which doubtless were made by
the Micmacs, will probably not only escape the attention of the casual
visitor, but even that an intelligent expert observer who travels to the
scene with some information on the subject, and for the express purpose
of finding the incisions, may fail to see anything but names, ships,
houses, and similar figures of obviously modern design. This actually
occurred within the week when the present writer was taking copies of
the drawings by a mode of printing which left no room for fancy or
deception. Indeed, frequently the marks were not distinctly apparent
until after they had been examined in the printed copies.

The mode in which the copies were taken was by running over and through
their outlines a blue aniline pencil, and then pressing a wetted sheet
of ordinary printing paper upon them, so that the impression was
actually taken by the process of printing. During the two field seasons
mentioned, with the aid of Mr. Creed, three hundred and fifty different
engravings and groups of engravings were thus printed. Some of these
prints were of large dimensions, and included from ten to fifty separate
characters and designs.

On the parts exposed in 1887 there were dates from 1800 to the current
year, the number for the last year being much the greatest, which was
explained by the fact that the wonderfully beautiful lake had been
selected for a Sunday-school excursion. Over the greater part of the
surface visible in 1887 there were few levels specially favorable for
marking, and when these were found the double or treble use was in some
instances noticed.

After the writer had inspected the rocks and discovered their
characteristics, and learned how to distinguish and copy their markings,
it seemed that, with the exception of a few designs recently dug or
chipped out by lumbermen or visitors, almost always initials, the only
interesting or ancient portions were scratchings which could be made
on the soft slate by any sharp instrument. The faces of the rocks were
immense soft and polished drawing-slates, presenting to any person who
had ever drawn or written before an irresistible temptation to draw or
write. The writer, happening to have with him an Indian stone arrow
which had been picked up in the neighborhood, used its point upon the
surface, and it would make as good scratches as any found upon the rocks
except the very latest, which were obviously cut by the whites with
metal knives.

As is above suggested, the peculiar multiplication of the characters
upon the most attractive of the slates affords evidence as to their
relative antiquity superior to that generally found in petroglyphs.
The existence of two or three different sets of markings, all visible
and of different degrees of obliteration or distinctness, is in itself
important; but, in addition to that, it is frequently the case that the
second and third in the order of time have associated with them dates,
from which the relative antiquity of the faintest, the dateless, can be
to some extent estimated. Dates of the third and most recent class are
attached to English names and are associated with the forms of English
letters; those of the second class accompany French names, and in some
cases have French designs. Figs. 1 and 2, about one-fourth original
size, are presented to give an idea of these peculiar palimpsests.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Palimpsest on Fairy rocks, Nova Scotia.]

For examples of other copies printed from the rocks at Kejimkoojik
lake, see Figs. 549, 550, 654, 655, 656, 657, 658, 717, 718, 739, 740,
741, 1254, 1255, and 1262. These offer intrinsic evidence of the Micmac
origin of the early class of engravings.

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Palimpsest on Fairy rocks, Nova Scotia.]

The presence of French names and styles of art in the drawings is
explained by a story which was communicated by Louis Labrador, whose
great-grandfather, old Ledore, according to his account, guided a body
of French Acadians who, at the time of the expulsion, were not shipped
off with the majority. They escaped the English in 1756 and traveled
from the valley of Annapolis to Shelbourne, at the extreme southeast
of the peninsula. During that passage they halted for a considerable
time to recruit in the beautiful valley along the Kejimkoojik lake,
on the very ground where these markings appear, which also was on the
ancient Indian trail. Another local tradition, told by a resident of the
neighborhood, gives a still earlier date for the French work. He says
that after the capture of Port Royal, now Annapolis, in 1710, a party of
the defeated Frenchmen, with a number of Indians as guides, went with
their cattle to the wide meadows upon Kejimkoojik lake and remained
there for a long time. It is exceedingly probable that the French would
have been attracted to scratch on this fascinating smooth slate surface
whether they had observed previous markings or not, but it seems evident
that they did scratch over such previous markings. The latter, at least,
antedated the beginning of the eighteenth century.

A general remark may be made regarding the Kejimkoojik drawings, that
the aboriginal art displayed in them did not differ in any important
degree from that shown in other drawings of the Micmacs and the Abnaki
in the possession of the Bureau of Ethnology. Also that the rocks there
reveal pictographic tendencies and practices which suggest explanations
of similar work in other regions where less evidence remains of intent
and significance. The attractive material of the slates and their
convenient situation tempted past generations of Indians to record
upon them the images of their current thoughts and daily actions.
Hence the pictographic practice went into operation at this locality
with unusual vigor and continuity. Although at Kejimkoojik lake there
is an exceptional facility for determining the relative dates of the
several horizons of scratchings, the suggestion there evoked may help to
ascertain similar data elsewhere.

ONTARIO.

Mr. Charles Hallock kindly communicates information concerning
pictographs on Nipigon bay, which is a large lake in the province of
Ontario, 30 miles northwest of Lake Superior, with which it is connected
by Nipigon river. He says:

The pictographs, which are principally of men and animals,
occupy a zone some 60 feet long and 5 feet broad, about midway of
the face of the rock; they are painted in blood-red characters, much
darker than the color of the cliff itself.

He also, later, incloses a letter received by himself from Mr. Newton
Flanagan, of the Hudson Bay Company, an extract from which is as follows:

About the dimensions of the red rock in Nipigon bay, upon which
appear the Indian painted pictures, as near as I can give you at
present, the face of the rock fronting the water is about 60 feet,
rising to a greater height as it runs inland. The width along the
water is something like 900 yards, depth quite a distance inland.
The pictures are from 10 to 15 or perhaps 20 feet above the water;
the pictures are representations of human figures, Indians in
canoes, and of wild animals. They are supposed to have been painted
ages ago, by what process or for what reason I am unable to tell
you, nor do I know how the paint is made indelible.

As far as I can gather, the Indians here have no traditions
in regard to those paintings, which I understand occur in several
places throughout the country, and none of the Indians hereabouts
nowadays practice any such painting.

MANITOBA.

Mr. Hallock also furnishes information regarding a petroglyph, the
locality of which he gives as follows: Roche Percée, on the Souris
river, in Manitoba, near the international boundary, 270 miles west of
Dufferin, and nearly due north from Bismarck. This is an isolated rock
in the middle of a plain, covered with pictographs of memorable events.
It stands back from the river a half mile.

Mr. A. C. Lawson (_a_) gives an illustrated account of petroglyphs
on the large peninsula extending into the Lake of the Woods and on
an island adjacent to it. Strictly speaking this peninsula is in the
district of Keewatin, but it is very near the boundary line of Manitoba,
to which it is attached for administrative purposes. The account is
condensed as follows:

On the north side of this peninsula, i. e., on the south shore
of the northern half of the lake, about midway between the east and
west shores, occurs one of the two sets of hieroglyphic markings.
Lying off shore at a distance of a quarter to a half a mile, and
making with it a long sheltered channel, is a chain of islands,
trending east and west. On the south side of one of these islands,
less than a mile to the west of the first locality, is to be seen
the other set of inscriptions. The first set occurs on the top of
a low, glaciated, projecting point of rock, which presents the
characters of an ordinary roche moutonnée. The rock is a very soft,
foliated, green, chloritic schist, into which the characters are
more or less deeply carved. The top of the rounded point is only a
few feet above the high-water mark of the lake, whose waters rise
and fall in different seasons through a range of ten feet. The
antiquity of the inscriptions is at once forced upon the observer
upon a careful comparison of their weathering with that of the
glacial grooves and striæ, which are very distinctly seen upon the
same rock surface. Both the ice grooves and carved inscriptions are,
so far as the eye can judge, identical in extent of weathering,
though there was doubtless a considerable lapse of time between the
disappearance of the glaciers and the date of the carving.

The island on which were found the other inscriptions is
one of the many steep rocky islands known among the Indians as
Ka-ka-ki-wa-bic min-nis, or Crow-rock island. The rock is a hard
greenstone, not easily cut, and the inscriptions are not cut into
the rock, but are painted with ochre, which is much faded in places.
The surface upon which the characters are inscribed forms an
overhanging wall protected from the rain, part of which has fallen
down.

The Indians of the present day have no traditions about these
inscriptions beyond the supposition that they must have been made by
the “old people” long ago.

The sketches published as copies of these glyphs show spirals,
concentric circles, crosses, horseshoe forms, arrow shapes, and other
characters similar to those found on rocks in the southwestern part of
the United States, and also to petroglyphs in Brazil, examples from both
of which regions are presented in this work, under their appropriate
headings.

BRITISH COLUMBIA.

Dr. Franz Boas (_a_) published an account of a petroglyph on Vancouver
island (now presented as Fig. 3) which, slightly condensed, is
translated as follows:

[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Petroglyph on Vancouver island.]

The accompanying rock picture is found on the eastern shore of Sproat
lake, near its southern outlet. Sproat lake lies about 10 kilometers
north of the upper end of the Alberni fiord, which cuts deep into the
interior of Vancouver island. In former times this region was the
territory of the Hōpetschisāth, a tribe of the Nootka or Aht, who even
now have a village some miles below the lake, at the entrance of Stamp
river into the main river. That tribe, according to the statement of
some of its older members, was a branch of the Kowitchin, who occupy
the east side of Vancouver island, some kilometers northeast of the
upper end of Alberni fiord. At that time the Ts’ēschāáth, another
tribe of the Nootka, are said to have ascended the fiord and mixed
with the Hōpetschisāth. The present inhabitants of the region know
nothing concerning the origin of the rock picture. According to their
legend, the rock on which it is carved was once the house of Kwótiath.
Kwótiath is the wandering divinity in Nootka mythology, and corresponds
approximately to the raven of the Tlinkit and Haida, the Qäls of the
Kowitchin. The picture is found on a perpendicular rock wall about
7 meters high, which drops directly into the lake, so that it was
necessary to make the copy while standing in the water. The rock is
traversed in the middle by a broad cleft, narrowing below, from which
blocks have fallen out which bore part of the drawing. To the north and
south of the rock wall the shore rises gently, but rocky portions are
found everywhere. The lines of the drawing are flat grooves, about two
or three fingers’ breadth, and in many places are so weathered as to be
hardly recognizable. They have been scraped into the rock probably by
the points of sticks rubbing moist sand against it. No marks of blows
of any kind are found. The figures are here given in the same relative
position in which they are found on the rock, except that the upper one
on the right hand is at a distance from all the others, at the southern
end of the rock. The objects represented are evidently fishes or marine
monsters. The middle figure to the left of the cleft may be a manned
boat, the fore part of which is probably destroyed.

Dr. Boas says that the copy as found in the Verhandlungen is incorrect.
The design on the right hand is reversed and is now corrected.

Mr. G. M. Sproat (_a_) mentions this petroglyph:

It is rudely done and apparently not of an old date. There are
half a dozen figures intended to represent fishes or birds--no
one can say which. The natives affirm that Quawteaht made them.
In their general character these figures correspond to the rude
paintings sometimes seen on wooden boards among the Ahts, or on the
seal-skin buoys that are attached to the whale and halibut harpoons
and lances. The meaning of these figures is not understood by the
people; and I dare say if the truth were known, they are nothing but
feeble attempts on the part of individual artists to imitate some
visible objects which they had strongly in their minds.

SECTION 2.

UNITED STATES.

Drawings or paintings on rocks are distributed generally over the
greater part of the territory of the United States.

They are found on bowlders formed by the sea waves or polished by ice
of glacial epochs; on the faces of rock ledges adjoining lakes and
streams; on the high walls of canyons and cliffs; on the sides and roofs
of caves; in short, wherever smooth surfaces of rock appear. Yet, while
they are so frequent, there are localities to be distinguished in which
they are especially abundant and noticeable. They differ markedly in
character of execution and apparent subject-matter.

An obvious division can be made between the glyphs bearing characters
carved or pecked and those painted without incision. There is also a
third, though small, class in which the characters are both incised
and painted. This division seems to coincide to a certain extent
with geographic areas and is not fully explained by the influence of
materials; it may, therefore, have some relation to the idiosyncrasy or
development of the several authors, and consequently to tribal habitat
and migrations.

In examining a chart of the United States in use by the Bureau of
Ethnology, upon which the distribution of the several varieties of
petroglyphs is marked, two facts are noticeable: First, the pecked and
incised characters are more numerous in the northern and those expressed
in colors more numerous in the southern areas. Second, there are two
general groupings, distinguished by typical styles, one in the north
Atlantic states and the other in the south Pacific states.

The north Atlantic group is in the priscan habitat of the tribes of the
Algonquian linguistic family, and extends from Nova Scotia southward to
Pennsylvania, where the sculpturings are frequent, especially on the
Susquehanna, Monongahela, and Alleghany rivers, and across Ohio from
Lake Erie to the Kanawha river, in West Virginia. Isolated localities
bearing the same type are found westward on the Mississippi river and
a few of its western tributaries, to and including the Wind river
mountains, in Wyoming, the former habitat of the Blackfeet Indians. All
of these petroglyphs present typical characters, sometimes undefined
and complicated. From their presumed authors, they have been termed the
Algonquian type. Upon close study and comparison they show many features
in common which are absent in extra-limital areas.

Immediately south of the Kanawha river, in West Virginia, and extending
southward into Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina, the pecked
or sculptured petroglyphs are replaced by painted figures of a style
differing from the Algonquian. These are in the area usually designated
as Cherokee territory, but there is no evidence that they are the work
of that tribe; indeed, there is no indication of their authorship. The
absence of pecked characters in this area is certainly not due to an
absence of convenient material upon which to record them as the country
is as well adapted to the mode of incision as is the northern Atlantic
area.

Upon the Pacific slope a few pecked as well as colored petroglyphs occur
scattered irregularly throughout the extreme northern area west of
the Sierra Nevada, but on the eastern side of that range of mountains
petroglyphs appear in Idaho, which have analogues extending south to
New Mexico and Arizona, with remarkable groups at intervals between
these extremes. All of these show sufficient similarity of form to be
considered as belonging to a type which is here designated “Shoshonean.”
Tribes of that linguistic family still occupy, and for a long time have
occupied, that territory. Most of this Shoshonean group consists of
pecked or incised characters, though in the southern area unsculptured
paintings predominate.

On the western side of the Sierra Nevada, from Visalia southward,
at Tulare agency, and thence westward and southward along the Santa
Barbara coast, are other groups of colored petroglyphs showing typical
features resembling the Shoshonean. This resemblance may be merely
accidental, but it is well known that there was intercourse between the
tribes on the two sides of the Sierra Nevada, and the Shoshonean family
is also represented on the Pacific slope south of the mountain range
extending from San Bernardino west to Point Conception. In this manner
the artistic delineation of the Santa Barbara tribes may have been
influenced by contact with others.

Petroglyphs have seldom been found in the central area of the United
States. In the wooded region of the Great lakes characters have been
depicted upon birch bark for at least a century, while in the area
between the Mississippi river and the Rocky mountains the skins of
buffalo and deer have been used. Large rocks and cliffs favorably
situated are not common in that country, which to a great extent is
prairie.

In the general area of these typical groups characters are frequently
found which appear intrusive, i. e., they have a strong resemblance not
only to those found in other American groups, but are nearly identical
with characters in other parts of the world. This fact, clearly
established, prevents the adoption of any theory as to the authorship
of many of the petroglyphs and thwarts attempts to ascertain their
signification.

ALASKA.

Ensign Albert P. Niblack, U. S. Navy, (_a_) gives a brief account, with
sketches, reproduced here as Fig. 4, of petroglyphs in Alaska, which
were taken from rocks from the ancient village of Stikine, near Fort
Wrangell. Others were found on rocks just above high-water mark around
the sites of ruined and abandoned villages.

[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Petroglyphs in Alaska.]

In the upper character the Alaskan typical style of human faces is
noticeable. The lower gives a representation of the orca or whale
killer, which the Haida believe to be a demon called Skana, about which
there are many mythic tales. Mr. Niblack remarks:

In their paintings the favorite colors used are black, light
green, and dark red. Whether produced in painting, tattooing, or
relief carving, the designs are somewhat conventional. However rude
the outline, there are for some animals certain conventional signs
that clearly indicate to the initiated what figure is meant. With
the brown bear it is the protruding tongue; with the beaver and wolf
it is the character of the teeth; with the orca, the fin; with the
raven, the sharp beak; with the eagle, the curved beak, etc.

ARIZONA.

Mr. G. K. Gilbert, of the U. S. Geological Survey, gives the following
information concerning petroglyphs observed by him in the vicinity of
San Francisco mountain, Arizona:

The localities of the sketches Figs. 5, 6, and 7 are about 35
miles east and southeast of San Francisco mountain, the material
being a red sandstone, which stands in low buttes upon the plain.
About these are mealing stones, fragments of pottery and chipped
flints, giving evidence of the residence of sedentary Indians.
So many localities of petroglyphs were seen that I regard it as
probable that a large number could be found by search. The drawings
in every case but one were produced by blows upon the surface of the
rocks, breaking through the film of rock discolored by weathering
so as to reveal (originally) the color of the interior of the rock.
The single exception is the first pattern in Fig. 6, similar to the
patterns on pottery and blankets, produced by painting with a white
pigment on red rock. The original arrangement of the drawings upon
the rock was not as a rule preserved, but they have approximately
the original arrangement. I neglected to record the scale of the
drawings, but the several pictures are drawn on approximately the
same scale.

[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Petroglyph in Arizona.]

[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Petroglyph in Arizona.]

All of these figures partake of the general type designated as the
Shoshonean, and it is notable that close repetitions of some of the
characters appear in petroglyphs in Tulare valley and Owens valley,
California, which are described and illustrated in this section.

The object resembling a centipede, in Fig. 6, is a common form in
various localities in Santa Barbara county, California, as will be
observed by comparing the illustrations given in connection with that
locality. In other of the Arizona and New Mexican petroglyphs similar
outlines are sometimes engraved to signify the maize stalk.

[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Petroglyph in Arizona.]

Mr. Paul Holman, of the U. S. Geological Survey, reports that eight
miles below Powers butte, on a mesa bordering on the Gila river and
rising abruptly to the height of 150 feet, are pictographs covering
the entire vertical face. Also on the summit of a spur of Oatman
mountain, 200 yards from the Gila and 300 feet above it, are numbers
of pictographs. Many of them are almost obliterated where they are on
exposed surfaces.

Lieut. Col. Emory (_a_) reports that 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 that some of the
pictographs, at least, were the work of modern Indians. Others were
of undoubted antiquity. He also reports in the same volume (_b_) that
characters upon rocks of questionable antiquity occur on the Gila river
at 32° 38′ 13″ N. lat. and 190° 7′ 30″ long. According to the plate,
the figures are found upon bowlders and on the face of the cliff to the
height of 30 feet.

Lieut. Whipple (_a_) remarks upon petroglyphs at Yampais spring,
Williams river, as follows:

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 petroglyphs of considerable
artistic workmanship. Some figures, observed by Dr. W. J. Hoffman in
1872, were rather elaborate and represented the sun, human beings in
various styles approaching the grotesque, and other characters not
understood. All of those observed were made by pecking the surface of
basalt with a harder variety of stone.

Mr. Gilbert also 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. He says: “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 drawings 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 drawings on the rocks in Canyon Segy, and in
Keam’s canyon, northeastern Arizona. Some forms occurring at the latter
locality are found also upon Moki pottery.

Petroglyphs are reported by Lieut. Theodore Mosher, Twenty-second
Infantry, U. S. Army, to have been discovered by Lieut. Casey’s party
in December, 1887, on the Chiulee (or Chilalí) creek, 30 or 40 miles
from its confluence with San Juan river, Arizona. A photograph made by
the officer in charge of the party shows the characters to have been
outlined by pecking, the designs resembling the Shoshonean type of
pictographs, and those in Owens valley, California, a description of
which is given below.

A figure, consisting of two concentric circles with a straight line
running out from the larger circle, occurs, among other carvings, on one
of the many sculptured bowlders seen by Mr. J. R. Bartlett (_a_) in the
valley of the Gila river in Arizona. His representation of this bowlder
is here copied as Fig. 8. His language is as follows:

[Illustration: FIG. 8.--Petroglyph in Arizona.]

I found hundreds of these bowlders covered with rude figures of
men, animals, and other objects of grotesque forms, all pecked in
with a sharp instrument. Many of them, however, were so much defaced
by long exposure to the weather and by subsequent markings, that it
was impossible to make them out. Among these rocks I found several
which contained sculptures on the lower side, in such a position
that it would be impossible to cut them where they then lay. Some
weighed many tons each and would have required immense labor to
place them there, and that, too, without an apparent object. The
natural inference was that they had fallen down from the summit of
the mountain after the sculptures were made on them. A few only
seemed recent; the others bore the marks of great antiquity.

In the collections of the Bureau of Ethnology is an album or sketch
book, which contains many drawings made by Mr. F. S. Dellenbaugh, from
which the following sketches of petroglyphs in Arizona are selected,
together with the brief references attached to each sheet.

Fig. 9 is a copy of characters appearing in Shinumo canyon, Arizona.
They are painted, the middle and right hand figures being red, the human
form having a white mark upon the abdomen; the left-hand figure of a man
is painted yellow, the two plumes being red.

[Illustration: FIG. 9.--Petroglyph in Shinumo canyon, Arizona.]

The petroglyphs in Fig. 10 are rather indistinct and were copied from
the vertical wall of Mound canyon. The most conspicuous forms appear to
be serpents.

[Illustration: FIG. 10.--Petroglyph in Mound canyon, Arizona.]

CALIFORNIA.

In the foothills of California, wherever overhanging and rain-protected
rocks occur, they are covered with paintings of various kinds made
by Indians. Those on Rocky hill, some 15 miles east of Visalia, are
especially interesting. The sheltered rocks are here covered with images
of men, animals, and various inanimate objects, as well as curious
figures. The paint used is red, black, and white, and wherever protected
it has stood the ravages of time remarkably well. In many places the
paintings are as vivid as the day they were laid on. Deer, antelope,
coyotes, birds, and turtles are figured quite frequently, and may
indicate either names of chiefs or tribes, or animals slain in the hunt.
Here are also circles, spirals, crowns or bars, etc., signs the meaning
of which is yet doubtful.

Mr. H. W. Turner, in a letter dated June 3, 1891, furnishes sketches
(Fig. 11) from this locality, and a description of them as follows:

[Illustration: FIG. 11.--Petroglyphs near Visalia, California.]

I send herewith a rough sheet of drawings of figures on the
sheltered face of a huge granite cropping in Tulare county,
California. One-half of the cropping had split off, leaving a nearly
plane surface, on which the figures were drawn in red, white, and
black pigments. The locality is known as Rocky point. They are now
quarrying granite at the place. It lies about 12 miles nearly due
east of Visalia, in the first foothills and south of Yokall creek.
The figures appear to have been drawn many years ago, and numbers of
them are now indistinct.

During the summer of 1882 Dr. Hoffman visited the Tule river agency,
California, where he found a large rock painting, of which Fig. 983,
infra, is a copy made by him. His description of it is as follows:

“The agency is upon the western side of the Sierra Nevada, in the
headwater canyons of the branches of the south fork of Tule river.
The country is at present occupied by several tribes of the Mariposan
linguistic stock, and the only answer made to inquiries respecting the
age or origin of the painting was that it was found there when the
ancestors of the present tribes arrived. The local migrations of the
various Indian tribes of this part of California are not yet known with
sufficient certainty to determine to whom the records may be credited,
but all appearances with respect to the weathering and disintegration
of the rock upon which the record is engraved, the appearance of the
coloring matter subsequently applied, and the condition of the small
depressions made at the time for mixing the pigments with a viscous
substance, indicate that the work was performed about a century ago.

“The Indians now at Tule river have occupied that part of the state for
at least one hundred years, and the oldest now living state that the
records were found by their ancestors, though whether more than two
generations ago could not be ascertained.

“The drawings were outlined by pecking with a piece of quartz or other
siliceous rock, the depth varying from a mere visible depression to
a third of an inch. Having thus satisfactorily depicted the several
ideas, colors were applied which appear to have penetrated the slight
interstices between the crystalline particles of the rock, which had
been bruised and slightly fractured by hammering with a piece of stone.
It appears probable, too, that to insure better results the hammering
was repeated after application of the colors.

“Upon a small bowlder, under the natural archway formed by the breaking
of the large rock, small depressions were found which had been used as
mortars for grinding and mixing the colors. These depressions average
2 inches in diameter and about 1 inch in depth. Traces of color still
remain, mixed with a thin layer of a shining substance resembling a
coating of varnish and of flinty hardness. This coating is so thin that
it can not be removed with a steel instrument, and appears to have
become a part of the rock itself.

“From the animals depicted upon the ceiling it seems that both beaver
and deer were found in the country, and as the beaver tail and the hoofs
of deer and antelope are boiled to procure glue, it is probable that the
tribe which made these pictographs was as far advanced in respect to the
making of glue and preparing of paints as most other tribes throughout
the United States.

“Examination shows that the dull red color is red ocher, found in
various places in the valley, while the yellow was an ocherous clay,
also found there. The white color was probably obtained there, and
is evidently earthy, though of what nature can only be surmised, not
sufficient being obtainable from the rock picture to make satisfactory
analysis with the blow-pipe. The composition of the black is not known,
unless it was made by mixing clay and powdered charcoal. The latter is a
preparation common at this day among other tribes.

“An immense granite bowlder, about 20 feet in thickness and 30 in
length, is so broken that a lower quarter is removed, leaving a large
square passageway through its entire diameter almost northwest and
southeast. Upon the western wall of this passageway is a collection of
the colored sketches of which Fig. 983 is a reduced copy. The entire
face of the rock upon which the pictograph occurs measures about 12 or
15 feet in width and 8 in height. The largest human figure measures 6
feet in height, from the end of the toes to the top of the head, the
others being in proportion as represented.

[Illustration: FIG. 12.--Petroglyph at Tule river, California.]

“Upon the ceiling are a number of well executed drawings of the beaver,
bear, centipede (Fig. 12), and bald eagle (Fig. 13). Many of the other
forms indicated appear to represent some variety of insects, several of
which are drawn with exaggerated antennæ, as in Fig. 14. It is curious
to note the gradual blending of forms, as, for instance, that of the
bear with those resembling the human figure, often found among the
Shoshonean types in Arizona and New Mexico, some of which are described
and figured infra.

[Illustration: FIG. 13.--Petroglyph at Tule river, California.]

[Illustration: FIG. 14.--Petroglyph at Tule river, California.]

“Fig. 15 embraces a number of characters on the ceiling. The left hand
upper figure is in black, with a narrow line of red surrounding it. The
drawing is executed neatly and measures about 18 inches in length. The
remaining characters are in dull red, probably ocher, though the two on
the left hand, beneath the one just mentioned, are more yellowish.

[Illustration: FIG. 15.--Petroglyph at Tule river, California.]

“The first three forms in Fig. 16 are copies of human-like figures
painted on the ceiling. They are each about 12 inches in length. The
other form in Fig. 16 is white and is on the southern vertical wall of
the passageway facing the north. It resembles some of the human forms
occurring elsewhere in the same series of petroglyphs.”

[Illustration: FIG. 16.--Petroglyph at Tule river, California.]

OWENS VALLEY.

In the range of mountains forming the northwestern boundary of Owens
valley are extensive groups of petroglyphs, apparently dissimilar to
those found west of the Sierra Nevada. Dr. Hoffman, of the Bureau of
Ethnology, hastily examined them in 1871 and more thoroughly in the
autumn of 1884. They are now represented in Pls. I to XI. So large
a space is given to these illustrations because of their intrinsic
interest, and also because it is desirable to show for one locality what
is true of some others, viz, the very large number of petroglyphs still
to be found in groups and series. Even with the present illustrations,
the petroglyphs in Owens valley are by no means exhaustively shown.

Dr. Hoffman’s report is as follows:

One of the most important series of groups is that in the
northern portion of Owens valley, between the White mountains on the
east and the Benton range on the west. On the western slope of the
latter, at Watterson’s ranch, is a detached low butte or mesa, upon
the blackened basaltic bowlders and cliffs of which are numerous
deeply cut characters, the most interesting of which are reproduced
in Pls. I and II. The illustrations are, approximately, one-twelfth
real size. The designs of footprints, in the lower left-hand corner
of Pl. I, vary in depth from half an inch to 1-1/2 inches. They
appear to have been pecked and finally worked down to a uniform and
smooth surface by rubbing, as if with a piece of stone or with wood
and sand.

In almost all, if not all, instances throughout the entire
series referred to in this description the sculptured surfaces
have assumed the same shining blackened luster as the original and
undisturbed surface of the bowlder, caused by gradual oxidation of
the iron present. This would seem to indicate considerable antiquity
of the petroglyphs.

On the northeast angle of the mesa referred to were found the
remains of an old camp, over which were scattered large quantities
of arrowheads, knives, and flakes of obsidian. This in itself would
be insignificant, but the fact that many of the specimens of this
material have been lying exposed to the elements until the upper
surface has undergone change in color, so as to become bleached
and friable, in some instances to the depth of from one-tenth to
one-fourth of an inch, warrants the inference that the relics may
have been made by the same people who made the petroglyphs, as the
worked relics generally differ from those of the present Indians by
being larger and less elaborately finished.

At the lower end of the southeastern slope of the mesa are a
number of flat rocks bearing mortar holes, which have no doubt been
used in grinding grass seed and other grains.

In general type these petroglyphs correspond very closely to
those of other areas, in which the so-called Shoshonian types
occur, the most common, apart from those presented in Pls. I and
II, consisting of concentric circles, rings, footprints of the bear
and of man, and various outlines of the human form, beside numerous
unintelligible forms.

[Illustration: BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY TENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. I