The first point in the examination of a pictograph is to determine by what body of people it was made. This is not only because the marks or devices made by the artists of one tribe, or perhaps of one linguistic stock if not disintegrated into separated divisions distant from each other, may have a different significance from figures virtually the same produced by another tribe or stock, but because the value of the record is greatly enhanced when the recorders are known. In arriving at the identification mentioned it is advisable to study: 1st. The general style or type. 2d. The presence of characteristic objects. 3d. The apparent subject-matter. 4th. The localities with reference to the known habitat of tribes.
Although the collection of pictographs, particularly of petroglyphs, is not complete, and their study, therefore, is only commenced, it is possible to present some of the varieties in general style and type.
Figure 147 is presented as a type of the Eastern Algonkian pictographs. It was copied by Messrs. J. Sutton Wall and William Arison, in 1882, from a rock opposite Millsborough, in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, and is mentioned on page 20, supra, in connection with the local distribution of petroglyphs. The locality is within the area once occupied by the tribes of the Algonkian linguistic family, and there is apparent a general similarity to the well-known Dighton Rock inscription.
Mr. J. Sutton Wall, of Monongahela City, Pennsylvania, who has kindly furnished the drawing of the etchings, states that the outlines of figures are formed by grooves carved or cut in the rock from an inch to a mere trace in depth. The footprints are carved depressions. The character marked Z (near the lower left-hand corner) is a circular cavity 7 inches deep. The rock is sandstone, of the Waynesburg series.
Mr. Wall has also contributed a copy of the “Hamilton Picture Rock,” of which Figure 148 is an illustration. The etchings are on a sandstone rock, on the Hamilton farm, 6 miles southeast from Morgantown, West Virginia. The turnpike passes over the south edge of the rock.
Fig. 148.—Algonkian petroglyph. Hamilton Farm, West Virginia.
Mr. Wall furnishes the following interpretation of the figures:
A. Outline of a turkey.
B. Outline of a panther.
C. Outline of a rattlesnake.
D. Outline of a human form.
E. A “spiral or volute.”
F. Impression of a horse foot.
G. Impression of a human foot.
H. Outline of the top portion of a tree or branch.
I. Impression of a human hand.
J. Impression of a bear’s forefoot, but lacks the proper number of toe marks.
K. Impression of two turkey tracks.
L. Has some appearance of a hare or rabbit, but lacks the corresponding length of ears.
M. Impression of a bear’s hindfoot, but lacks the proper number of toe marks.
N. Outline of infant human form, with two arrows in the right hand.
O, P. Two cup-shaped depressions.
Q. Outline of the hind part of an animal.
R. Might be taken to represent the impression of a horse’s foot were it not for the line bisecting the outer curved line.
S. Represent buffalo and deer tracks.
The turkey A, the rattlesnake C, the rabbit L, and the “footprints” J, M, and Q, are specially noticeable as typical characters in Algonkian pictography.
Mr. P. W. Sheafer furnishes in his Historical Map of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1875, a sketch of a pictograph on the Susquehanna River, Pennsylvania, below the dam at Safe Harbor, part of which is reproduced in Figure 149. This appears to be purely Algonkian, and has more resemblance to Ojibwa characters than any other petroglyph yet noted from the Eastern United States.
Fig. 149.—Algonkian petroglyph. Safe Harbor, Pennsylvania.
The best type of Western Algonkian petroglyphs known to the writer is reported as discovered by members of the party of Capt. William A. Jones, United States Army, in 1873, and published in his report on Northwestern Wyoming, including the Yellowstone National Park, Washington, 1875, p. 267, et seq., Fig. 50, reproduced in this paper by Figure 150, in which the greater number of the characters are shown about one-fifth of their size.
Fig. 150.—Algonkian petroglyph. Wyoming.
An abstract of his description is as follows:
* * Upon a nearly vertical wall of the yellow sandstones just back of Murphy’s ranch, a number of rude figures had been chiseled, apparently at a period not very recent, as they had become much worn. * * * No certain clue to the connected meaning of this record was obtained, although Pínatsi attempted to explain it when the sketch was shown to him some days later by Mr. F. W. Bond, who copied the inscriptions from the rocks. The figure on the left, in the upper row, somewhat resembles the design commonly used to represent a shield, with the greater part of the ornamental fringe omitted, perhaps worn away in the inscription. We shall possibly be justified in regarding the whole as an attempt to record the particulars of a fight or battle which once occurred in this neighborhood. Pínatsi’s remarks conveyed the idea to Mr. Bond that he understood the figure [the second in the upper line] to signify cavalry, and the six figures [three in the middle of the upper line, as also the three to the left of the lower line,] to mean infantry, but he did not appear to recognize the hieroglyphs as the copy of any record with which he was familiar.
Several years ago Dr. W. J. Hoffman showed these (as well as other pictographs from the same locality) to several prominent Shoshoni Indians from near that locality, who at once pronounced them the work of the Pawkees (Satsika, or Blackfeet), who formerly occupied that country. The general resemblance of many of the drawings from this area of country is similar to many of the Eastern Algonkin records. The Satsika are part of the great Algonkian stock.
Throughout the Wind River country of Wyoming many pictographic records have been found, and others reported by the Shoshoni Indians. These are said, by the latter, to be the work of the “Pawkees,” as they call the Blackfeet, or more properly Satsika, and the general style of many of the figures bears strong resemblance to similar carvings found in the eastern portion of the United States, in regions known to have been occupied by other tribes of the same linguistic stock, viz., the Algonkian.
The four specimens of Algonkian petroglyphs presented above in Figures 147-150 show gradations in type. In connection with them reference may be made to the Ojibwa bark record, Figure 139, page 218; the Ojibwa grave-posts, Plate LXXXIII; the Ottawa pipe-stem, Figure 120, page 204, in this paper; and to Schoolcraft’s numerous Ojibwa pictographs; and they may be contrasted with the many Dakota and Innuit drawings in this paper.
Mr. G. K. Gilbert has furnished a small collection of drawings of Shoshonian petroglyphs, from Oneida, Idaho, shown in Figure 151. Some of them appear to be totemic characters, and to record the names of visitors to the locality.
Fig. 151.—Shoshonian petroglyph. Idaho.
Five miles northwest from this locality, and one-half mile east from Marsh Creek, is another group of characters, on basalt bowlders, apparently totemic, and by Shoshoni. A copy of these, also contributed by Mr. Gilbert, is given in Figure 152.
Fig. 152.—Shoshonian petroglyph. Idaho.
All of these drawings resemble the petroglyphs found at Partridge Creek, northern Arizona, and in Temple Creek Cañon, southeastern Utah, mentioned ante, pages 30 and 26 respectively.
Mr. I. C. Russell, of the United States Geological Survey, has furnished drawings of rude pictographs at Black Rock Spring, Utah, represented in Figure 153. Some of the other characters not represented in the figure consist of several horizontal lines, placed one above another, above which are a number of spots, the whole appearing like a numerical record having reference to the figure alongside, which resembles, to a slight extent, a melon with tortuous vines and stems. The left-hand upper figure suggests the masks shown on Plate LXXXI.
Fig. 153.—Shoshonian petroglyph. Utah.
Mr. Gilbert Thompson, of the United States Geological Survey, has discovered pictographs at Fool Creek Cañon, Utah, shown in Figure 154, which strongly resemble those still made by the Moki of Arizona. Several characters are identical with those last mentioned, and represent human figures, one of which is drawn to represent a man, shown by a cross, the upper arm of which is attached to the perinæum. These are all drawn in red color and were executed at three different periods. Other neighboring pictographs are pecked and unpainted, while others are both pecked and painted.
Fig. 154.—Shoshonian rock-painting. Utah.
Both of these pictographs from Utah may be compared with the Moki pictographs from Oakley Springs, Arizona, copied in Figure 1, page 30.
Dr. G. W. Barnes, of San Diego, California, has kindly furnished sketches of pictographs prepared for him by Mrs. F. A. Kimball, of National City, California, which were copied from records 25 miles northeast of the former city. Many of them found upon the faces of large rocks are almost obliterated, though sufficient remains to permit tracing. The only color used appears to be red ocher. Many of the characters, as noticed upon the drawings, closely resemble those in New Mexico, at Ojo de Benado, south of Zuñi, and in the cañon leading from the cañon at Stewart’s ranch, to the Kanab Creek Cañon, Utah. This is an indication of the habitat of the Shoshonian stock apart from the linguistic evidence with which it agrees.
The power of determining the authorship of pictographs made on materials other than rocks, by means of their general style and type, can be estimated by a comparison of those of the Ojibwa, Dakota, Haida, and Innuit of Alaska presented in various parts of this paper.
With regard to the study of the individual characters themselves to identify the delineators of pictographs, the various considerations of fauna, religion, customs, tribal signs, indeed, most of the headings of this paper will be applicable. It is impracticable now to give further details in this immediate connection, except to add to similar particulars before presented the following notes with regard to the arrangement of hair and display of paint in identification.
A custom obtains among the Absaroka, which, when depicted in pictographs, as is frequently done, serves greatly to facilitate identification of the principal actors in events recorded. This consists in wearing false hair, attached to the back of the head and allowed to hang down over the back. Horse hair, taken from the tail, is arranged in 8 or 10 strands, each about as thick as a finger, and laid parallel with spaces between them of the width of a single strand. Pine gum is then mixed with red ocher, or vermilion, when the individual can afford the expense, and by means of other hair, or fibers of any kind laid cross-wise, the strands are secured, and around each intersection of hair a ball of gum is plastered to hold it in place. About 4 inches further down, a similar row of gum balls and cross strings are placed, and so on down to the end. The top of the tail ornament is then secured to the hair on the back of the head. The Indians frequently incorporate the false hair with their own so as to lengthen the latter without any marked evidence of the deception. Nevertheless the transverse fastenings with their gum attachments are present. The Arikara have adopted this custom of late, and they have obtained it from the Hidatsa, who, in turn, learned it of the Absaroka.
In picture-writing this is shown upon the figure of a man by the presence of parallel lines drawn downward from the back of the head, with cross lines, the whole appearing like small squares or a piece of net.
Dr. George Gibbs mentions a pictograph made by one of the Northwestern tribes (of Oregon and Washington) upon which “the figure of a man, with a long queue, or scalp-lock, reached to his heels, denoted a Shoshonee, that tribe being in the habit of braiding horse- or other hair into their own in that manner.” See Contrib. to N. A. Ethnol., Vol. I, p. 222.
This may have reference to the Shoshoni Indians among the extreme Northwestern tribes, but it can by no means be positively affirmed that the mark of identification could be based upon the custom of braiding with their own hair that of animals to increase the length and appearance of the queue, as this custom also prevails among the Absaroka and Arikara Indians of Montana and Dakota, respectively, as above described.
Pictures drawn by some of the northern tribes of the Dakota, the Titon, for instance, show the characteristic and distinctive features for a Crow Indian to be the distribution of the red war paint, which covers the forehead. A Dakota upon the same picture is designated by painting the face red from the eyes down to the end of the chin. Again, the Crow is designated by a top-knot of hair extending upward from the forehead, that lock of hair being actually worn by that tribe and brushed upward and slightly backward. See the seated figure in the record of Running-Antelope in Fig. 127, page 210.
The Pueblos generally, when accurate and particular in delineation, designate the women of that tribe by a huge coil of hair over either ear. This custom prevails also among the Coyotèro Apaches, the women wearing the hair in a coil to denote a virgin or an unmarried person, while the coil is absent in the case of a married woman.
The following remarks are extracted from the unpublished “Catalogue of the Relics of the Ancient Builders of the Southwest Tablelands,” by Mr. Thomas V. Keam:
“The Maltese cross is the emblem of a virgin; still so recognized by the Mokis. It is a conventional development of a more common emblem of maidenhood, the form in which the maidens wear their hair arranged as a disk of three or four inches in diameter upon each side of the head. This discoidal arrangement of their hair is typical of the emblem of fructification, worn by the maiden in the Muingwa festival. Sometimes the hair, instead of being worn in the complete discoid form, is dressed from two curved twigs, and presents the form of two semi-circles upon each side of the head. The partition of these is sometimes horizontal and sometimes vertical. A combination of both of these styles presents the form from which the Maltese cross was conventionalized. The brim decorations are of ornamental locks of hair which a maiden trains to grow upon the sides of the forehead.”
This strongly marked form of Maltese cross, the origin of which is above explained, appears frequently in the pottery, and also in the petroglyphs of the Moki.
Regarding the apparent subject matter of pictographs an obvious distinction may be made between hunting and land scenes such as would be familiar to interior tribes and those showing fishing and water transportation common to seaboard and lacustrine peoples. Similar and more perspicuous modes of discrimination are available. The general scope of known history, traditions, and myths may also serve in identification.
Knowledge of the priscan homes and of the migrations of tribes necessary to ascertain their former habitat in connection with the probable age of rock-etchings or paintings is manifestly desirable.