Chapter X: Section 2: United States (2)

Upon the Enchanted mountain, in Union county, cut in plutonic
rock, are the tracks of men, women, children, deer, bears, bisons,
turkeys, and terrapins, and the outlines of a snake, of two deer,
and of a human hand. These sculptures--so far as they have been
ascertained and counted--number one hundred and thirty-six. The
most extravagant among them is that known as the footprint of the
“Great Warrior.” It measures 18 inches in length and has six toes.
The other human tracks and those of the animals are delineated with
commendable fidelity.

IDAHO.

Mr. G. K. Gilbert, of the U. S. Geological Survey, has furnished a small collection of drawings of Shoshonean petroglyphs from Oneida, Idaho, shown in Fig. 39. Some of them appear to be totemic characters, and possibly were made to record the names of visitors to the locality.

Mr. Willard D. Johnson, of the U. S. Geological Survey, reports pictographic remains observed by him near Oneida, Idaho, in 1879. The figures represent human beings and were on a rock of basalt.

A copy of another petroglyph found in Idaho appears in Fig. 1092, infra.

ILLINOIS.

Petroglyphs are reported by Mr. John Criley as occurring near Ava, Jackson county, Illinois. The outlines of the characters observed by him were drawn from memory and submitted to Mr. Charles S. Mason, of Toledo, Ohio, through whom they were furnished to the Bureau of Ethnology. Little reliance can be placed upon the accuracy of such drawing, but from the general appearance of the sketches the originals of which they are copies were probably made by one of the middle Algonquian tribes of Indians.

The “Piasa” rock, as it is generally designated, was referred to by the missionary explorer Marquette in 1675. Its situation was immediately above the city of Alton, Illinois.

Marquette’s remarks are translated by Dr. Francis Parkman (_a_) as follows:

On the flat face of a high rock were painted, in red, black, and
green, a pair of monsters, each “as large as a calf, with horns like
a deer, red eyes, a beard like a tiger, and a frightful expression
of countenance. The face is something like that of a man, the body
covered with scales; and the tail so long that it passes entirely
round the body, over the head, and between the legs, ending like
that of a fish.”

Another version, by Davidson and Struvé (_a_), of the discovery of the petroglyph is as follows:

Again they (Joliet and Marquette) were floating on the broad
bosom of the unknown stream. Passing the mouth of the Illinois,
they soon fell into the shadow of a tall promontory, and with great
astonishment beheld the representation of two monsters painted on
its lofty limestone front. According to Marquette, each of these
frightful figures had the face of a man, the horns of a deer, the
beard of a tiger, and the tail of a fish so long that it passed
around the body, over the head, and between the legs. It was an
object of Indian worship and greatly impressed the mind of the pious
missionary with the necessity of substituting for this monstrous
idolatry the worship of the true God.

A footnote connected with the foregoing quotation gives the following description of the same rock:

Near the mouth of the Piasa creek, on the bluff, there is a
smooth rock in a cavernous cleft, under an overhanging cliff, on
whose face, 50 feet from the base, are painted some ancient pictures
or hieroglyphics, of great interest to the curious. They are placed
in a horizontal line from east to west, representing men, plants,
and animals. The paintings, though protected from dampness and
storms, are in great part destroyed, marred by portions of the rock
becoming detached and falling down.

Mr. McAdams (_a_), of Alton, Illinois, says “The name Piasa is Indian and signifies, in the Illini, ‘The bird which devours men.’” He furnishes a spirited pen-and-ink sketch, 12 by 15 inches in size and purporting to represent the ancient painting described by Marquette. On the picture is inscribed the following in ink: “Made by Wm. Dennis, April 3d, 1825.” The date is in both letters and figures. On the top of the picture in large letters are the two words, “FLYING DRAGON.” This picture, which has been kept in the old Gilham family of Madison county and bears the evidence of its age, is reproduced as Fig. 40.

He also publishes another representation (Fig. 41) with the following remarks:

One of the most satisfactory pictures of the Piasa we have
ever seen is in an old German publication entitled “The Valley of
the Mississippi Illustrated. Eighty illustrations from nature, by
H. Lewis, from the Falls of St. Anthony to the Gulf of Mexico,”
published about the year 1839 by Arenz & Co., Düsseldorf, Germany.
One of the large full-page plates in this work gives a fine view of
the bluff at Alton, with the figure of the Piasa on the face of the
rock. It is represented to have been taken on the spot by artists
from Germany. We reproduce that part of the bluff (the whole picture
being too large for this work) which shows the pictographs. In the
German picture there is shown just behind the rather dim outlines of
the second face a ragged crevice, as though of a fracture. Part of
the bluff’s face might have fallen and thus nearly destroyed one of
the monsters, for in later years writers speak of but one figure.
The whole face of the bluff was quarried away in 1846-’47.

Under Myths and Mythic Animals, Chapter XIV, Section 2, are illustrations and descriptions which should be compared with these accounts, and Chapter XXII gives other examples of errors and discrepancies in the description and copying of petroglyphs.

Mr. A. D. Jones (_a_) says of the same petroglyph:

After the distribution of firearms among the Indians, bullets
were substituted for arrows, and even to this day no savage presumes
to pass the spot without discharging his rifle and raising his shout
of triumph. I visited the spot in June (1838) and examined the image
and the ten thousand bullet marks on the cliff seemed to corroborate
the tradition related to me in the neighborhood.

Mr. McAdams, loc. cit., also reports regarding Fig. 42:

Some twenty-five or thirty miles above the mouth of the Illinois
river, on the west bank of that stream, high up on the smooth
face of an overhanging cliff, is another interesting pictograph
sculptured deeply in the hard rock. It remains to-day probably in
nearly the same condition it was when the French voyagers first
descended the river and got their first view of the Mississippi.
The animal-like body, with the human head, is carved in the rock in
outline. The huge eyes are depressions like saucers, an inch or more
in depth, and the outline of the body has been scooped out in the
same way; also the mouth.

The figure of the archer with the drawn bow, however, is
painted, or rather stained with a reddish brown pigment, over the
sculptured outline of the monster’s face.

Mr. McAdams suggests that the painted figure of the human form with the bow and arrows was made later than the sculpture.

The same author (_b_) says, describing Fig. 43:

Some 3 or 4 miles above Alton, high up beneath the overhanging
cliff, which forms a sort of cave shelter on the smooth face of a
thick ledge of rock, is a series of paintings, twelve in number.
They are painted or rather stained in the rock with a reddish brown
pigment that seems to defy the tooth of time. It may be said,
however, that their position is so sheltered that they remain almost
perfectly dry. We made sketches of them some thirty years ago and on
a recent visit could see that they had changed but little, although
their appearance denotes great age.

These pictographs are situated on the cliff more than a hundred
feet above the river. A protruding ledge, which is easily reached
from a hollow in the bluff, leads to the cavernous place in the rock.

Mr. James D. Middleton, formerly of the Bureau of Ethnology, mentions the occurrence of petroglyphs on the bluffs of the Mississippi river, in Jackson county, about 12 miles below Rockwood. Also of others about 4 or 5 miles from Prairie du Rocher, near the Mississippi river.

IOWA.

Mr. P. W. Norris, of the Bureau of Ethnology, found numerous caves on the banks of the Mississippi river, in northeastern Iowa, 4 miles south of New Albion, containing incised petroglyphs. Fifteen miles south of this locality paintings occur on the cliffs. He also discovered painted characters upon the cliffs on the Mississippi river, 19 miles below New Albion.

KANSAS.

Mr. Edward Miller reports in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. X, 1869, p. 383, the discovery of a petroglyph near the line of the Union Pacific railroad, 15 miles southeast of Fort Harker, formerly known as Fort Ellsworth, Kansas. The petroglyph is upon a formation belonging to No. 1, Lower Cretaceous group, according to the classification of Meek and Hayden.

The parts of the two plates VII and VIII of the work cited, which bear the inscriptions, are now presented as Fig. 44, being from two views of the same rock.

KENTUCKY.

Mr. James D. Middleton, formerly of the Bureau of Ethnology, in a letter dated August 14, 1886, reports that at a point in Union county, Kentucky, nearly opposite Shawneetown, Illinois, petroglyphs are found, and from the description given by him they appear to resemble those in Jackson county, Illinois, mentioned above.

Mr. W. E. Barton, of Wellington, Ohio, in a communication dated October 4, 1890, writes as follows:

At Clover Bottom, Kentucky, on a spur of the Big Hill, in
Jackson county, about 13 miles from Berea, is a large rock which
old settlers say was covered with soil and vegetation within their
memory. Upon it are representations of human tracks, with what
appear to be those of a bear, a horse, and a dog. These are all in
the same direction, as though a man leading a horse, followed the
dog upon the bear’s track. Crossing these is a series of tracks of
another and larger sort which I can not attempt to identify. The
stone is a sandstone in the subcarboniferous. As I remember, the
strata are nearly horizontal, but erosion has made the surface a
slope of about 20°. The tracks ascending the slope cross the strata.
I have not seen them for some years.

The crossing of the strata shows that the tracks are the work of
human hands, if indeed it were not preposterous to think of anything
else in rocks of that period. Still the tracks are so well made that
one is tempted to ask if they can be real. They alternate right and
left, though the erosion and travel have worn out some of the left
tracks. A wagon road passes over the rock and was the cause of the
present exposure of the stone. It can be readily found a fourth of a
mile or less from the Pine Grove schoolhouse.

MAINE.

A number of inscribed rocks have been found in Maine and information of others has been obtained. The most interesting of them and the largest group series yet discovered in New England is shown in Pl. XII.

PETROGLYPHS IN MAINE.]

The rock upon which the glyphs appear is in the town of Machiasport, Maine, at Clarks point, on the northwestern side of Machias bay, 2 miles below the mouth of Machias river. The rock or ledge is about 50 feet long from east to west and about fifteen feet in width, nearly horizontal for two-thirds its length, from the bank or western end at high water, thence inclining at an angle of 15° to low-water mark. Its southern face is inclined about 40°. The formation is schistose slate, having a transverse vein of trap dike extending nearly across its section. Nearly the entire ledge is of blue-black color, very dense and hard except at the upper or western end, where the periodical formation of ice has scaled off thin layers of surface and destroyed many figures which are remembered by persons now living. The ebb and flow of tides, the abrasion of moving beach stones or pebble wash and of ice-worn bowlders, have also effaced many figures along the southern side, until now but one or two indentations are discernible. Visitors, in seeking to remove some portion of the rock as a curiosity or in striving to perpetuate their initials, have obscured several of the most interesting, and until recently the best defined figures. It was also evident to the present writer, who carefully examined the rock in 1888, that it lay much deeper in the water than once had been the case. At the lowest tides there were markings seen still lower, which could not readily have been made if that part of the surface had not been continuously exposed. The depression of a rock of such great size, which was so gradual that it had not been observed by the inhabitants of the neighboring settlement, is an evidence of the antiquity of the peckings.

The intaglio carving of all the figures was apparently made by repeated blows of a pointed instrument--doubtless of hard stone; not held as a chisel, but working by a repetition of hammerings or peckings. The deepest now seen is about three-eighths of an inch. The amount of patient labor bestowed upon these figures must have been great, considering the hardness of the rock and the rude implement with which they were wrought.

There is no extrinsic evidence of their age. The place was known to traders early in the seventeenth century, and much earlier was visited by Basque fishermen, and perhaps by the unfortunate Cortereals in 1500 and 1503. The descendants of the Mechises Indians, a tribal branch of the Abnaki, who once occupied the territory between the St. Croix and Narraguagus rivers, when questioned many years ago, would reply in substance that “all their old men knew of them,” either by having seen them or by traditions handed down through many generations.

Several years ago Mr. H. R. Taylor, of Machias, who made the original sketch in 1868 and kindly furnished it to the Bureau of Ethnology, applied to a resident Indian there (Peter Benoit, then nearly 80 years old) for assistance in deciphering the characters. He gave little information, but pointed out that the figures must not all be read “from one side only,” thus, the one near the center of the sketch, which seen from the south was without significance, became from the opposite point a squaw with sea fowl on her head, denoting, as he said, “that squaw had smashed canoe, saved beaver-skin, walked one-half moon all alone toward east, just same as heron wading alongshore.” Also that the three lines below the figure mentioned, which together resemble a bird track or a trident, represent the three rivers, the East, West, and Middle rivers of Machias, which join not far above the locality. The mark having a rough resemblance to a feather, next on the right of this river-sign, is a fissure in the rock. Most of the figures of human beings and other animals are easily recognizable.

Peckings of a character similar to those on the Picture rock at Clarks point, above described, were found and copied 600 feet south of it at high-water mark on a rock near Birch point. Others were discovered and traced on a rock on Hog island, in Holmes bay, a part of Machias bay. All these petroglyphs were without doubt of Abnaki origin, either of the Penobscot or the Passamaquoddy divisions of that body of Indians. The rocks lay on the common line of water communication between those divisions and were convenient as halting places.

MARYLAND.

In the Susquehanna river, about half a mile south of the state line, is a group of rocks, several of the most conspicuous being designated as the “Bald Friars.” Near by are several mound-shaped bowlders of the so-called “nigger-head” rock, which is reported as a dark-greenish chlorite schist. Upon the several bowlders are deep sculpturings, apparently finished by rubbing the depression with stone, or wood and sand, thus leaving sharp and distinct edges to the outlines. Some of these figures are an inch in depth, though the greater number are becoming more and more eroded by the frequent freshets, and by the running ice during the breaking up in early spring of the frozen river.

The following account is given by Prof. P. Frazer (_a_):

Passing the Pennsylvania state line one reaches the southern
barren serpentine rocks, which are in general tolerably level for a
considerable distance.

About 700 yards, or 640 meters, south of the line, on the river
shore, are rocks which have been named the Bald Friars. French’s
tavern is here, at the mouth of a small stream which empties into
the Susquehanna. About 874 yards (800 meters) south of this tavern
are a number of islands which have local names, but which are
curious as containing inscriptions of the aborigines.

The material of which most of these islands are composed is
chlorite schist, but as this rock is almost always distinguished by
the quartz veins which intersect it, so in this case some of the
islands are composed of this material almost exclusively, which
gives them a very striking white appearance.

One of these, containing the principal inscriptions, is called
Miles island.

The figures, which covered every part of the rocks that were
exposed, were apparently of historical or at least narrative
purport, since they seemed to be connected. Doubtless the larger
portion of the inscription has been carried away by the successive
vicissitudes which have broken up and defaced, and in some instances
obliterated, parts of which we find evidence of the previous
existence on the islands.

Every large bowlder seems to contain some traces of previous
inscription, and in many instances the pictured side of the bowlder
is on its under side, showing that it has been detached from its
original place. The natural agencies are quite sufficient to account
for any amount of this kind of displacement, for the rocks in their
present condition are not refractory and offer no great resistance
to the wear of weather and ice; but in addition to this must be
added human agencies.

Amongst other things, they represent the conventional Indian
serpent’s head, with varying numbers of lines.

Some of the signs next frequently recurring were concentric
circles, in some cases four and in other cases a lesser number.

Fig. 45 is a reproduction of Prof. Frazer’s illustration.

This region was also referred to by Dr. Charles Rau (_a_), his cut from the specimen in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution (Mus. No. 39010) being here reproduced as Fig. 46.

During the autumn of the years 1888 and 1889 Dr. Hoffman visited these rocks, securing sketches and measurements, the former of which are reproduced in Figs. 47 and 48. The figures are deeply cut, as if rubbed down with sand and a round stick of green wood. The deepest channels, varying from three-fourths to 1-1/4 inches across and almost as deep as they are wide, appear as if cut out with a gouge, and for this reason bear a strong resemblance to the petroglyphs in Owens valley, California. In whatever manner these sculpturings were made, it is evident that much time and great labor were expended upon them, as this variety of rock, locally termed “Nigger-head,” is extremely hard.

Fig. 45 represents a bird’s-eye view of the top of the rock, bearing the greater amount of workmanship. The petroglyphs cover a surface measuring about 5 feet by 4 feet 6 inches. The extreme ends of the figures extend beyond the irregular horizontal surface and project over the rounded edge of the rock, so that the line, at the left-hand lower part of the illustration, dips at an angle of about 45°. The two short lines at the extreme right are upon the side of the upper edge of the rock, where the surface inclines at an angle of 30°.

Some of the figures are indefinite, which is readily accounted for by the fact that the rock is in the river, a considerable distance from shore, and annually subjected to freshets and to erosion by floating logs and drift material. The characters at the right end of the upper row resemble those near Washington, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. (See Fig. 73.)

Fig. 48 presents three characters, selected from other portions of the rock, to illustrate the variety of designs found. They are like some found at Owens valley, California, as will be observed by comparing them with the descriptions and plates under that heading in this section. The left-hand figure is 4 inches in diameter, the middle one 6 inches wide and about 15 inches in height, and the third, or right-hand, is composed of concentric rings, measuring about 10 inches across.

MASSACHUSETTS.

The following description of the much-discussed Dighton rock is taken from Schoolcraft (_b_), where it is accompanied with a plate, now reproduced as Fig. 49:

The ancient inscription on a bowlder of greenstone rock lying in
the margin of the Assonet or Taunton river, in the area of ancient
Vinland, was noticed by the New England colonists so early as 1680,
when Dr. Danforth made a drawing of it. This outline, together with
several subsequent copies of it, at different eras, reaching to
1830, all differing considerably in their details, but preserving
a certain general resemblance, is presented in the Antiquatés
Americanes [_sic_] (Tables XI, XII), and referred to the same
era of Scandinavian discovery. The imperfections of the drawings
(including that executed under the auspices of the Rhode Island
Historical Society in 1839, Table XII), and the recognition of some
characters bearing more or less resemblance to antique Roman letters
and figures, may be considered to have misled Mr. Magnusen in his
interpretation of it. From whatever cause, nothing could, it would
seem, have been wider from the purport and true interpretation of
it. It is of purely Indian origin, and is executed in the peculiar
symbolic character of the Kekeewin.

A number of copies of the inscriptions on this rock, taken at different times by different persons, are given below in Chapter XXII, sec. 2, with remarks upon them.

Dr. Hoffman visited the locality in 1886, and found that the surface was becoming rapidly destroyed from the frequent use of scrubbing with broom and water to remove the film of sand and dirt which is daily deposited by every tide, the rock being situated at a short distance inshore. Visitors are frequent, and the guide or ferryman does not interfere with them so long as he can show his passengers the famous inscription.

The resemblance between the characters on this rock and those found in western Pennsylvania, near Millsboro, Fig. 75, and south of Franklin, on the “Indian God rock,” Fig. 74, will be noted.

In Rafn’s Antiq. Amer. (_b_) is the following account:

A large stone, on which is a line of considerable length in
unknown characters, has been recently found in Rutland, Worcester
county, Massachusetts; they are regularly placed, and the strokes
are filled with a black composition nearly as hard as the rock
itself. The Committee also adds that a similar rock is to be found
in Swanzy, county of Bristol and Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
perhaps ten miles from the Dighton Rock.

MINNESOTA.

The late Mr. P. W. Norris, who was connected with the Bureau of Ethnology, reported large numbers of pecked totemic characters on the horizontal faces of the ledges of rock at Pipestone quarry in Minnesota, and presented some imitations of the peckings. There is a tradition that it was formerly the custom for each Indian who gathered stone (catlinite) for pipes, to inscribe his totem (whether clan or tribal or personal totem is not specified) upon the rock before venturing to quarry upon this ground. Some of the cliffs in the immediate vicinity were of too hard a nature to admit of pecking or scratching, and upon these the characters were placed in colors. Mr. Norris distinguished bird tracks, the outline of a bird resembling a pelican, deer, turtle, a circle with an interior cross, and a human figure.

Examples of so-called totemic designs from this locality are given in Fig. 50, which are reproduced from the work of R. Cronau (_a_):

The same petroglyphs and also others at the Pipestone quarry are described and illustrated by Prof. N. H. Winchell (_a_). A part of his remarks is as follows:

On the glaciated surface of the quartzite about the “Three
Maidens,” which is kept clean by the rebound of the winds, are a
great many rude inscriptions, which were made by pecking out the
rock with some sharp-pointed instrument or by the use of other
pieces of quartzite. They are of different sizes and dates, the
latter being evinced by their manner of crossing and interfering
and by the evident difference in the weight of the instruments
used. They generally represent some animal, such as the turtle,
bear, wolf, buffalo, elk, and the human form. The “crane’s foot”
is the most common; next is the image of men; next the turtle. It
would seem as if any warrior or hunter who had been successful and
happened to pass here left his tribute of thanks to the great spirit
in a rude representation of his game and perhaps a figure of himself
on the rocks about these bowlders, or perhaps had in a similar way
invoked the good offices of the spirits of his clan when about to
enter on some expedition. In some cases there is a connection of
several figures by a continuous line, chipped in the surface of the
rock in such a manner as if some legend or adventure were narrated,
but for the most part the figures are isolated. This is the “sacred
ground” of the locality. Such markings can be seen at no other
place, though there is abundance of bare, smooth rock. (Similar
inscriptions are found on the red quartzite in Cottonwood county).
The excavation of the surface of the rock is very slight, generally
not exceeding a sixteenth of an inch, and sometimes only enough to
leave a tracing of the designed form. The hardness of the rock was
a barrier to deep sculpturing with the imperfect instruments of the
aborigines; but it has effectually preserved the rude forms that
were made. The fine glacial scratches that are abundantly scattered
over this quartzite indicate the tenacity with which it retains all
such impressions, and will warrant the assignment of any date to
these inscriptions that may be called for within the human period.
Yet it is probable that they date back to no very great antiquity.
They pertain, at least, to the dynasty of the present Indian tribes.
The totems of the turtle and the bear, which are known to have been
powerful among the clans of the native races in America at the time
of the earliest European knowledge of them, and which exist to this
day, are the most frequent objects represented. The “crane’s foot,”
or “turkey foot,” or “bird track,” terms which refer perhaps to the
same totem sign--the snipe--is not only common on these rocks, but
is seen among the rock inscriptions of Ohio, and was one of the
totems of the Iroquois, of New York.

In June, 1892, Mr. W. H. Holmes, of the Bureau of Ethnology, visited the Pipestone quarry and took a number of tracings of the petroglyphs, which unfortunately were received too late for insertion in the present work. Some of his remarks are as follows:

The trouble with the figures copied and published by Prof.
Winchell is that they are not arranged in the original order. It
will now be impossible to correct this entirely, as most of the
stones have been taken up and removed. * * * The Winchell drawings
were evidently drawn by eye and have a very large personal equation;
besides, they are mixed up while appearing to be in some order.
The few groups that I was able to get are, it seems to me, of more
interest than all the single figures you could put in a book. There
can be little doubt that in the main this great group of pictures
was arranged in definite order, agreeing with the arrangements
of mythical personages and positions usual in the aboriginal
ceremonials of the region. It is a great pity that the original
order has been destroyed, but the inroads of relic hunters and
inscription cranks made it necessary to take up the stones. One
large stone was taken to Minneapolis by Prof. Winchell. There are
a few pieces still in place. All were near the base of one of the
great granite bowlders, and it is said here that formerly, within
the memory of the living, the place was visited by Indians who
wished to consult the gods.

The following description is extracted from the account of Mr. James W. Lynd (_b_):

Numerous high bluffs and cliffs surround it; the Pipestone
quarry and the alluvial flat below these, in which the quarry is
situated, contains a huge bowlder that rests upon a flat rock of
glistening, smooth appearance, the level of which is but a few
inches above the surface of the ground. Upon the portions of this
rock not covered by the bowlder above and upon bowlder itself are
carved sundry wonderful figures--lizards, snakes, otters, Indian
gods, rabbits with cloven feet, muskrats with human feet, and other
strange and incomprehensible things--all cut into the solid granite,
and not without a great deal of time and labor expended in the
performance. * * *

A large party of Ehanktonwanna and Teetonwan Dakotas, says
the legend, had gathered together at the quarry to dig the stone.
Upon a sultry evening, just before sunset, the heavens suddenly
became overclouded by a heavy rumbling thunder and every sign of an
approaching storm, such as frequently arises on the prairie without
much warning. Each one hurried to his lodge, expecting a storm, when
a vivid flash of lightning, followed immediately by a crashing peal
of thunder, broke over them, and, looking towards the huge bowlder
beyond their camp, they saw a pillar or column of smoke standing
upon it, which moved to and fro, and gradually settled down into the
outline of a huge giant, seated upon the bowlder, with one long arm
extended to heaven and the other pointing down to his feet. Peal
after peal of thunder, and flashes of lightning in quick succession
followed, and this figure then suddenly disappeared. The next
morning the Sioux went to this bowlder and found these figures and
images upon it, where before there had been nothing, and ever since
that the place has been regarded as wakan or sacred.

Mr. T. H. Lewis (_b_) gives a description of Fig. 51.

This bowlder is in the edge of the public park, on the north
end of the plateau at Brown’s valley, Minnesota. The bowlder has a
flat surface with a western exposure, is irregular in outline, and
is about 5 feet 8 inches in diameter, and firmly imbedded in the
terrace.

The central figure, _a_, undoubtedly represents a man, although
the form is somewhat conventional; _b_ represents a bird; _c_
represents a tortoise; _d_ is a cross and circle combined, but the
circle has a groove extending from it; _e_, _f_, and _g_, although
somewhat in the shape of crosses, probably represent bird tracks;
_h_ and _i_ are nondescript in character, although there must be
some meaning attached to them; _k_ and _l_ are small dots or cups
cut into the bowlder.

The figures as illustrated are one-eighth of their natural size,
and are also correct in their relative positions one to the other.
The work is neatly done although the depth of the incisions is very
slight.

MONTANA.

Mr. Charles Hallock, of Washington, D. C., reports the occurrence of pictured rocks near Fort Assiniboin, Montana, but does not mention whether they are colored or incised, and also fails to describe the general type of the characters found.

NEBRASKA.

The following (condensed) description of petroglyphs found in Dakota county, Nebraska, is furnished by Mr. J. H. Quick, of Sioux City, Iowa:

The petroglyphs are found upon the face of a sandstone cliff in
a deep ravine at a point where two watercourses (dry for the most
part), meet about 20 miles south of Sioux City, Iowa, but in Dakota
county, in the State of Nebraska. At this point the range of bluffs
which bounds the Missouri river bottom is deeply cut through by the
above-mentioned ravine, which runs in a northerly direction towards
the Missouri. Another ravine coming from the southwest leaves this
narrow point of land between the two ravines, rising to a height of
50 to 75 feet above the bottom of the ravines. For some distance
from the point this cape, if I may so term it, shows ledges of
sandstone cropping out on both sides. And exactly at the point and
for some rods back on the east side are found the pictographs under
consideration.

The rocks are of two kinds, a few feet of hard jasperous
sandstone superimposed on about the same thickness of sandstone so
soft that it can be crumbled to pieces in the fingers. The lower
soft strata have been worn away, leaving the upper harder layers
jutting out to a distance of several feet over and completely
sheltering them. And on the smooth surface of these lower soft
strata, protected by the overhanging ledge above, shut in by bluffs
200 feet high on the east and sheltered from the winds by dense
underwood and scrubby forest trees, are carved these pictographs.
These safeguards, combined with the advantage of a very secluded
situation, have combined to preserve them, very little marred by
careless and mischievous hands.

The eagle or “thunder-bird” figures are quite numerous. There
are also many of the “buffalo track” and of the “turkey track”
figures. I call them “turkey tracks” because they all show a spur
and seem to represent some of the large _gallinaciæ_.

In one of the groups, which I will call the “bear-fight group,”
we are at a loss to determine whether the figure of the small animal
was a part of the original design or a subsequent interpolation. It
seemed genuine, but was not so deeply carved as the other figures.
The same may be said of the diagonal bars across the figure of the
bear.

In the other group, which I will term the “turkey-track group,”
there are some figures of which we could not even imagine the
meaning. But they are undoubtedly genuine, and seem to belong to the
same design as the other figure.

The “bear-track” figures are very numerous and of several
different sizes. A cat-like figure, which we call a panther, shows
faintly. It is about effaced by time. Other figures reminded us of a
crab or crawfish, but we were unable to determine whether the line
running back just below belongs to it or not.

I am informed by the same gentleman who saw these petroglyphs in
1857 that there were at one time many more some 3 or 4 miles from
this place, near Homer, Nebraska, in the vicinity of a large spring,
but he also said that as it is a favorite picnic ground for the
country people the carvings are probably destroyed. I presume others
may be found in these bluffs.

I surmise that the almost cave-like nature of the place where
the carvings I have above attempted to describe are situated
rendered it a favorite camping ground and resting place; and also
that the ravines above mentioned made easy trails from the Missouri
bottom up to the higher grounds farther from the river, because it
obviated the ascent of the very steep bluffs.

The Winnebago Indian reservation is a few miles south of this
locality, but they were placed here by the Government as late as
from 1860 to 1865. Previous to that time I think this ground was
occupied by the Omahas. I have been unable to gain any information
as to the Indians who carved these figures or as to their meaning.

PETROGLYPHS IN NEBRASKA.]

The most instructive of the petroglyphs, copies of which are kindly furnished by Mr. Quick, is presented as Pl. XIII, and selected sketches from that and the other petroglyphs copied are shown as Figs. 52 and 53.

Frank La Flèche, of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, in February, 1886, communicated the following:

Ingna^nχe gikáχa-ina is the Omaha name of a rock ledge on the
banks of the Missouri river, near the Santee agency, Nebraska.
This ledge contains pictographs of men who passed to the happy
hunting grounds, of life size, the sandstone being so soft that the
engravings would be made with a piece of wood. They are represented
with the special cause (arrow, gun, etc.), which sped them to hades.
The souls themselves are said to make these pictographs before
repairing “to the spirits.”

Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, of the Bureau of Ethnology, says that the probable rendering of the term when corrected is, “Spirit(s) they-made-themselves the (place where).”

NEVADA.

Petroglyphs have been found by members of the U. S. Geological Survey at the lower extremity of Pyramid lake, Nevada, though no accurate reproductions are available. These characters are mentioned as incised upon the surface of basalt rocks.

Petroglyphs also occur in considerable numbers on the western slope of Lone Butte, in the Carson desert. All of these appear to have been produced on the faces of bowlders and rocks by pecking and scratching with some hard mineral material like quartz.

A communication from Mr. R. L. Fulton, of Reno, Nevada, tells that the drawing now reproduced as Fig. 54 is a pencil sketch of curious petroglyphs on a rock on the Carson river, about 8 miles below old Fort Churchill. It is the largest and most important one of a group of similar characters. It is basaltic, about 4 feet high and equally broad.

Mr. Fulton gives the following description:

The rock spoken of has an oblong hole about 2 inches by 4 and 16
inches deep at the left end, which has been chipped out before the
lines were drawn, if it was not some form of the ancient mill which
is so common, as it seems to be the starting point for the whole
scheme of the artist. The rock lies with a broad, smooth top face
at an angle towards the south, and its top and southeast side are
covered with lines and marks that convey to the present generation
no intelligence whatever, so far as I can learn.

A line half an inch wide starts at the hole on the left and
sweeping downward forms a sort of border for the work until it
reaches midway of the rock, when it suddenly turns up and mingles
with the hieroglyphics above. Two or three similar lines cross at
the top of the stone, and one runs across and turns along the north
side, losing itself in a coating of moss that seems as hard and
dry and old as the stone itself. From the line at the bottom a few
scallopy looking marks hang that may be a part of the picture, or
it may be a fringe or ornament. The figures are not pictures of any
animal, bird, or reptile, but seem to be made up of all known forms
and are connected by wavy, snake-like lines. Something which might
be taken for a dog with a round and characterless head at each end
of the body, looking towards you, occupies a place near the lower
line. The features are all plain enough. A deer’s head is joined
to a patchwork that has something that might be taken for 4 legs
beneath it. Bird’s claws show up in two or three places, but no bird
is near them. Snaky figures run promiscuously through the whole
thing. A circle at the right end has spokes joining at the center
which run out and lose themselves in the maze outside.

The best known and largest collection of marks that I know of
covers a large smooth ledge at Hopkins Soda Springs, 12 miles south
of the summit on the Central Pacific railroad. The rock is much the
same in character as those I have described, but the groundwork in
this case is a solid ledge 10 feet one way and perhaps 40 the other,
all closely covered with rude characters, many of which seem to
point to human figures, animals, reptiles, etc. The ledge lies at an
angle of 45°, and must have been a tempting place for a lazy artist
who chanced that way.

Many other places on the Truckee river have such rocks all very
much alike, and yet each bearing its own distinct features in the
marking. Near a rock half a mile east of Verdi, a station on the
Central Pacific railroad, 10 miles east of Reno, lie two others,
the larger of which has lines originating in a hole at the upper
right-hand corner, all running in tangents and angles, making a
double-ended kind of an arrangement of many-headed arrows, pointing
three ways. A snail-like scroll lies between the two arms, but does
not touch them. Below are blotches, as if the artist had tried his
tools.

This region has been roamed over by the Washoe Indians from a
remote period, but none of them know anything of these works. One
who has gray hair and more wrinkles than hairs, who is bent with
age and who is said to be a hundred years old, was led to the spot.
He said he saw them a heap long time ago, when he was only a few
summers old, and they looked then just as they do now.

Mr. Lovejoy, a well-known newspaper man, took up, in 1854, the
ranche where the rocks lie, and said just before his death that they
were in exactly the same condition when he first saw them as they
are to-day. Others say the same, and they are certainly of a date
prior to the settlement of this coast by Americans and probably by
the Spanish.

They are very peculiar in many respects, and the rock is
wonderfully adapted to the uses to which it has been put. Wherever
the surface has been broken the color has changed to gray, and no
amount of wear or weather seems to turn it back. The indentation is
so shallow as to be imperceptible to sight or touch, and yet the
marks are as plain as they could be made, and can be seen as far as
the rock can be distinguished from its fellows.

It is hardly likely that the work was done without some motive
besides the simple love of doing it, and it was well and carefully
done, too, showing much patience and doubtless consumed a good deal
of time, as the tools were poor.

A large ledge is marked near Meadow lake in Nevada county, and
in the state of Nevada the petroglyphs cover a route extending
from the southeast to the northwest corner of the state, crossing
the line into California in Modoc county, and leaving a string of
samples clear across the Madeline plains.

Eight miles below Belmont, in Nye county, Nevada, an immense
rock which at some time has fallen into the canyon from the porphyry
ledge above it has a patch of marks nearly 20 feet square. It is so
high that a man on horseback can not reach the top.

A number at Reveillé, in the same county, are also marked. On
the road to Tybo every large rock is marked, one of the figures
being a semicircle with a short vertical spoke within the curve.
At Reno a heavy black rock a couple of feet across is beautifully
engraved to represent a bull’s eye of 4 rings, an arrow with a very
large feather, and one which may mean a man. In a steep canyon 15
miles northeast of Reno, in Spanish Spring mountains, several cliffs
are well marked, and an exposed ledge, where the Carson river has
cut off the point of a hill below Big Bend, is covered with rings
and snakes by the hundred. Several triangles, a well-formed square
and compass, a woman with outstretched arms holding an olive branch,
etc., are there.

Humboldt county has its share, the best being on a bluff below
the old Sheba mine. Ten miles south of Pioche are about 50 figures
cut into the rock, many of them designed to represent mountain
sheep. Eighty miles farther south, near Kane’s Spring, the most
numerous and perfect specimens of this prehistoric art are found.
Men on horseback engaged in the pursuit of animals are among the
most numerous, best preserved, and carefully executed.

The region I have gone over is of immense size, and must impress
everyone with the importance of a set of symbols which extends in
broken lines from Arizona far into Oregon.

Fig. 55 exhibits engravings at Reveillé, Nevada. Great numbers of incised characters of various kinds are also reported from the walls of rocks flanking Walker river, near Walker lake, Nevada. Waving lines, rings, and what appear to be vegetable forms are of frequent occurrence. The human form and footprints are also depicted.

Fig. 56 is a copy of a drawing made by Lieut. A. G. Tassin, Twelfth U. S. Infantry, in 1877, of an ancient rock-carving at the base and in the recesses of Dead mountain and the abode of dead bad Indians according to the Mohave mythology. This drawing and its description is from a manuscript report on the Mohave Indians, in the library of the Bureau of Ethnology, prepared by Lieut. Tassin.

He explains some of the characters as follows:

(_a_) Evidently the two different species of mesquite bean.

(_b_) Would seem to refer to the bite of the cidatus, and to the
use of a certain herb for its cure.

(_c_) Presumably the olla or water cooler of the Mohaves.

The whole of this series of petroglyphs is regarded as being Shinumo or Moki. They show a general resemblance to drawings in Arizona, known to have been made by the Moki Indians. The locality is within the territory of the Shoshonean linguistic division, and the drawings are in all probability the work of one or more of the numerous tribes comprised within that division.

NEW MEXICO.

On the north wall of Canyon de Chelly, one-fourth of a mile east of its mouth, are several groups of petroglyphs, consisting chiefly of various grotesque forms of the human figure, and also numbers of animals, circles, etc. A few of them are painted black, the greater portion consisting of rather shallow lines, which are in some places considerably weathered. Further up the canyon, in the vicinity of the cliff dwellings, are numerous small groups of pictographic characters, consisting of men and animals, waving or zigzag lines, and other odd figures.

Lieut. James H. Simpson (_a_), in his Journal of a Military Reconnoissance, etc., presents a number of plates bearing copies of inscriptions on rocks in the northwestern part of New Mexico, among which are those on the so-called “Inscription rock” at El Moro, here reproduced as Fig. 57. The petroglyphs are selected from the south face of the rock. Lieut. Simpson states that most of the characters are no higher than a man’s head, and that some of them are undoubtedly of Indian origin.

Among the many colored etchings and paintings on rock discovered by the Pacific railroad expedition in 1853-’54, Lieut. Whipple (_c_) notes those at Rocky dell creek, New Mexico, which were found between the edge of the Llano Estacado and the Canadian river. The stream flows through a gorge, upon one side of which a shelving sandstone rock forms a sort of cave. The roof is covered with paintings, some evidently ancient, and beneath are innumerable carvings of footprints, animals, and symmetrical lines. He also remarks (_d_) that figures cut upon a rock at Arch spring, near Zuñi, present some faint similarity to those at Rocky dell creek.

Near Ojo Pescado, in the vicinity of the ruins, are petroglyphs, also reported by Lieut. Whipple (_d_), which are very much weather-worn and have “no trace of a modern hand about them.”

Mr. Edwin A. Hill, of Indianapolis, in a letter, notes petroglyphs on the Denver and Rio Grande railroad, between Antonite and Espanola. Below Tres Piedras and near Espanola are rude sculptures, lining the valley on both sides of the road for a long distance, at least several miles. The canyon has a slope of about 45° and contains many bowlders, and on every available face pictographs are cut. Figures of arrows, hatchets, circles, triangles, bows, spears, turtles, etc., are outlined as if with some cutting-tool. The country had two years before been occupied by Apaches, but far greater age is attributed to the petroglyphs.

Other petroglyphs actually within the geographical area of New Mexico are so near the border that they are treated of in connection with those of Colorado.

Prof. E. D. Cope (_a_) gives a copy of figures which he found on the side of a ravine near Abiquiu, on the river Chama. They are cut in Jurassic sandstone of medium hardness, and are quite worn and overgrown with the small lichen which is abundant on the face of the rock.

Mr. Gilbert Thompson, of the U. S. Geological Survey, reports his observation of petroglyphs at San Antonio springs, 30 miles east of Fort Wingate, New Mexico. The human figure, in various forms, occurs, as well as numerous other characters, strikingly similar to those frequent in the country farther west occupied by the Moki Indians. The peculiarity of these figures is that the outlines are incised and that the depressions thus formed are filled with red, blue or white pigments. The interior of the figures is simply painted with one or more of the same colors.

Figs. 58 and 59 are reproductions of drawings of petroglyphs from Ojo de Benado, south of Zuñi, New Mexico. The manuscripts which once accompanied them, and which were forwarded to the Bureau of Ethnology in the usual official manner, have become separated from the sketches, and on those there are no indications of the collectors’ names.

The characters are very like others from several localities in the territory and in the adjacent region. The type is that of the Pueblos generally.

Mr. Bandelier, in conversation, reported having seen and sketched a petroglyph at Nambe, in a canyon about 2 miles east of the pueblo, also another at Cueva Pintada, about 17 miles by the trail northwest of Cochiti.

NEW YORK.

The following is extracted from Schoolcraft (_c_):

There is a pictographic Indian inscription [now obliterated]
in the valley of the Hudson, above the Highlands, which from
its antiquity and character appears to denote the era of the
introduction of firearms and gunpowder among the aboriginal tribes
of that valley. This era, from the well-known historical events of
the contemporaneous settlement of New Netherlands and New France,
may be with general accuracy placed between the years 1609, the
date of Hudson’s ascent of that stream above the Highlands, and the
opening of the Indian trade with the Iroquois at the present site of
Albany, by the erection of Fort Orange, in 1614. * * *

In a map published at Amsterdam, in Holland, in 1659, the
country, for some distance both above and below Esopus creek, is
delineated as inhabited by the Waranawankongs, who were a totemic
division or enlarged family clan of the Mohikinder. They spoke a
well-characterized dialect of the Mohigan, and have left numerous
geographical names on the streams and physical peculiarities of that
part of the river coast quite to and above Coxsackie. The language
is Algonquin.

Esopus itself appears to be a word derived from Seepu, the
Minsi-Algonquin name for a river.

* * * The inscription may be supposed, if the era is properly
conjectured, to have been made with metallic tools. The lines are
deeply and plainly impressed. It is in double lines. The plumes from
the head denote a chief or man skilled in the Indian medico-magical
art. The gun is held at rest in the right hand; the left appears to
support a wand. [The position of the arm may be merely a gesture.]

The reproduction here as Fig. 60 is from a rock on the western bank of the Hudson, at Esopus landing. It is presented mainly on account of the frequent allusions to it in literature.

NORTH CAROLINA.

Mr. James Mooney, of the Bureau of Ethnology, reports petroglyphs upon a gray gneissoid rock, a short distance east of Caney river, on the north side of the road from Asheville to Burnsville, North Carolina. The face of the surface is at an angle of 30° toward the south, and the sculptured area covers about 10 feet square. The characters consist chiefly of cup-shaped depressions, some about 2 inches deep, some being also connected. There are a few markings which appear to have been intended to represent footprints. The characters resemble, to some extent, those at Trap Rock gap, Georgia, and at the Juttaculla rock, North Carolina, on a branch of the Tuckasegee river, above Webster.

The above-described sculptured rock is on the property of Ellis Gardner, and is known as Gardner’s, or the “Garden rock.”