Chapter LIII: Section 4: Warning and Guidance

The following description of an Ojibwa notice of a murderer’s being at large is extracted from Tanner’s Narrative: (_d_).

As I was one morning passing one of our usual encamping places
I saw on shore a little stick standing in the bank and attached
to the top of it a piece of birchbark. On examination I found the
mark of a rattlesnake with a knife, the handle touching the snake
and the point sticking into a bear, the head of the latter being
down. Near the rattlesnake was the mark of a beaver, one of its
dugs, it being a female, touching the snake. This was left for my
information, and I learned from it that Wa-me-gon-a-biew, whose
totem was She-she-gwah, the rattlesnake, had killed a man whose
totem was Muk-kwah, the bear. The murderer could be no other than
Wa-me-gon-a-biew, as it was specified that he was the son of a woman
whose totem was the beaver, and this I knew could be no other than
Net-no-kwa.

An amusing instance of the notice or warning, “No thoroughfare,” is presented in Fig. 466. It was taken in 1880 from a rock drawing in Canyon de Chelly, New Mexico, by Mr. J. K. Hillers, photographer of the U. S. Geological Survey.

The design on the left is undoubtedly a notice in the nature of warning, that, although a goat can climb up the rocky trail, a horse would tumble down.

During his connection with the geographic surveys west of the one hundredth meridian, Dr. Hoffman observed a practice among the Tivátikai Shoshoni, of Nevada, of erecting heaps of stones along or near trails to indicate the direction to be taken and followed to reach springs of water. Upon slight elevations of ground, or at points where a trail branched into two or more directions, or at the intersection of two trails, a heap of stones would be placed varying in height according to the elevation requisite to attract attention. Upon the top of this would be fixed an elongated piece of rock so placed that the most conspicuous point projected and pointed in the course to be followed. This was continued sometimes at intervals of several miles unless indistinct portions of a trail or intersections demanded a repetition at shorter distances. A knowledge of this custom proved very beneficial to the early prospectors and pioneers.

Fig. 467 is a copy, one-sixteenth actual size, of colored petroglyphs found by Dr. Hoffman in 1884 on the North fork of the San Gabriel river, also known as the Azuza canyon, Los Angeles county, California.

The bowlder upon which the paintings occur measures 8 feet long, about 4 feet high, and the same in width. The figures are on the eastern side of the rock, so that the left arm of the human figure on the right points toward the north.

Fig. 468 is a map drawn on a scale of 1,000 yards to the inch, showing the topography of the immediate vicinity and the relative positions of the rocks bearing the paintings.

The stream is hemmed in by precipitous mountains, with the exception of two points marked _c c_, over which the old Indian trail passed in going from the Mojave desert on the north to the San Gabriel valley below, this course being the nearest for reaching the mission settlements at San Gabriel and Los Angeles. In attempting to follow the water course the distance would be greatly increased and a rougher trail encountered. Fig. 467, painted on the rock marked _b_ on the map, shows characters in pale yellow upon a bowlder of almost white granite partly obliterated by weathering and annual floods, though still enough remains to indicate that the right-hand figure is directing the observer to the northeast, although upon taking that course it would be necessary to round the point a short distance to the west. It may have been placed as a notification of direction to those Indians who might have come up the canyon instead of on the regular trail. Farther west, at the spot marked _a_ on the map, is a granite bowlder bearing a large number of paintings, part of which have become almost obliterated. These were drawn with red ocher (ferric oxide). A selection of these is shown in Fig. 469.

This is on the almost vertical western face of the rock. These characters also appear to refer to the course of the trail, which might readily be lost on account of the numerous mountain ridges and spurs. The left-hand human figure appears to place its hand upon a series of ridges, as if showing pantomimically the rough and ridged country over the mountains.

The middle figure is making a gesture which in its present connection may indicate direction of the trail, i. e., toward the left, or northward in an uphill course, as indicated by the arm and leg, and southward, or downward, as suggested by the lower inclination of the leg and lower forearm and hand on the right of the painting.

These illustrations, as well as other pictographs on the same rock, not now represented, exhibit remarkable resemblance to the general type of Shoshonean drawing, and from such evidence as is now attainable it is probable that they are of Chemehuevi origin, as that tribe at one time ranged far to the west, though north of the mountains, and also visited the valley and settlements at Los Angeles to trade. It is also known that the Mojaves came at stated periods to Los Angeles as late as 1845, and the trail indicated at point _a_ of the map would appear to have been their most practicable and convenient route. There is strong evidence that the Moki sometimes visited the Pacific coast and might readily have taken this same course, marking the important portions of the route by drawings in the nature of guideboards.

The following curious account is taken from The Redman, Carlisle, October, 1888:

A ranchman visiting a deserted camp of Piegans found the following notice:

We called at this ranch at dinner time. They treated us badly,
giving us no dinner and sending us away. There is a head man who has
two dogs, one of which has no tail. There are two larger men who are
laborers. They have two pairs of large horses and two large colts,
also another smaller pair of horses and two ponies which have two
colts.

The notice was composed thus: A circle of round stones
represented the horses and ponies, the latter being smaller stones;
the stones outside of the circle meant there were so many colts.
Near the center was a long narrow stone, upon the end of which was a
small one. This denoted the head man or owner, whose two dogs were
shown by two pieces of bark, one with a square end while the other
had a twig stuck in for a tail. Two other long narrow stones, larger
than the first, stood for the laborers; these had no small stones on
them. Some sticks of wood, upon which was a small pile of buffalo
chips, meant that dinner was ready; and empty shells turned upside
down told they got nothing to eat, but were sent away.

Mr. Charles W. Cunningham, formerly of Phœnix, Arizona, reports the finding of petroglyphs in Rowe canyon, one-half mile from the base of Bradshaw mountain, Arizona. The characters are pecked upon its vertical wall of hard porphyry, covering a space between 12 or 15 feet in length and about 30 feet above the surface of the earth. They consist of human figures with outstretched arms, apparently driving animals resembling sheep or goats, while at the head of the procession appears the figure of a bear. The explanation given seems to be a notification to Indian herders that in going through the canyon they should be careful to guard against bears or possibly other dangerous animals, as the trail or canyon leads down to some water tanks where the herders may habitually have driven the stock.

D’Albertis (_b_) mentions of the Papuans that a warning not to enter a dwelling is made by erecting outside of it a stick, on the top of which is a piece of bark or a cocoanut, and in Yule island these warnings or taboo sticks are furnished with stone heads.

When a Tartar shaman wished to be undisturbed he placed a dried goat’s-head, with its prominent horns, over a wooden peg outside of his tent and then dropped the curtain. No one would dare to venture in.

The following is quoted from Franz Keller (_b_):

In the immense primeval forests, extending between the Ivahy
and the Paranapanama, the Paraná and the Tibagy, the rich hunting
grounds of numerous Coroado hordes, one frequently encounters,
chiefly near forsaken palm sheds, a strange collection of objects
hung up between the trees on thin cords or cipós, such as little
pieces of wood, feathers, bones, and the claws and jaws of different
animals.

In the opinion of those well versed in Indian lore these
hieroglyphs are designed as epistles to other members of the tribe
regarding the produce of the chase, the number and stay of the
huntsmen, domestic intelligence, and the like; but this strange
kind of composition, reminding one of the quippus (knotted cords),
of the old Peruvians, has not yet been quite unraveled, though it
is desirable that it should be, for the naïve son of the woods also
uses it sometimes in his intercourse with the white man.

Settlers in this country, on going in the morning to look after
their very primitive mills near their cottages, have frequently
discovered them going bravely, but bruising pebbles instead of the
maize grains, while on the floor of the open shed names and purposes
of the unwelcome nocturnal visitors have been legibly written in
the sand. Among the well-drawn zigzag lines were inserted the
magnificent long tail feathers of the red and blue macaw, which are
generally used by the Coroados for their arrows; and, as these are
the symbols of war and night attacks, the whole was probably meant
for a warning and admonition ad hominem: “Take up your bundle and go
or beware of our arrows.”