PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS.
By Garrick Mallery.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.