The presence of French names and styles of art in the drawings is explained by a story which was communicated by Louis Labrador, whose great-grandfather, old Ledore, according to his account, guided a body of French Acadians who, at the time of the expulsion, were not shipped off with the majority. They escaped the English in 1756 and traveled from the valley of Annapolis to Shelbourne, at the extreme southeast of the peninsula. During that passage they halted for a considerable time to recruit in the beautiful valley along the Kejimkoojik lake, on the very ground where these markings appear, which also was on the ancient Indian trail. Another local tradition, told by a resident of the neighborhood, gives a still earlier date for the French work. He says that after the capture of Port Royal, now Annapolis, in 1710, a party of the defeated Frenchmen, with a number of Indians as guides, went with their cattle to the wide meadows upon Kejimkoojik lake and remained there for a long time. It is exceedingly probable that the French would have been attracted to scratch on this fascinating smooth slate surface whether they had observed previous markings or not, but it seems evident that they did scratch over such previous markings. The latter, at least, antedated the beginning of the eighteenth century.
A general remark may be made regarding the Kejimkoojik drawings, that the aboriginal art displayed in them did not differ in any important degree from that shown in other drawings of the Micmacs and the Abnaki in the possession of the Bureau of Ethnology. Also that the rocks there reveal pictographic tendencies and practices which suggest explanations of similar work in other regions where less evidence remains of intent and significance. The attractive material of the slates and their convenient situation tempted past generations of Indians to record upon them the images of their current thoughts and daily actions. Hence the pictographic practice went into operation at this locality with unusual vigor and continuity. Although at Kejimkoojik lake there is an exceptional facility for determining the relative dates of the several horizons of scratchings, the suggestion there evoked may help to ascertain similar data elsewhere.
Mr. Charles Hallock kindly communicates information concerning pictographs on Nipigon bay, which is a large lake in the province of Ontario, 30 miles northwest of Lake Superior, with which it is connected by Nipigon river. He says:
The pictographs, which are principally of men and animals, occupy a zone some 60 feet long and 5 feet broad, about midway of the face of the rock; they are painted in blood-red characters, much darker than the color of the cliff itself.
He also, later, incloses a letter received by himself from Mr. Newton Flanagan, of the Hudson Bay Company, an extract from which is as follows:
About the dimensions of the red rock in Nipigon bay, upon which appear the Indian painted pictures, as near as I can give you at present, the face of the rock fronting the water is about 60 feet, rising to a greater height as it runs inland. The width along the water is something like 900 yards, depth quite a distance inland. The pictures are from 10 to 15 or perhaps 20 feet above the water; the pictures are representations of human figures, Indians in canoes, and of wild animals. They are supposed to have been painted ages ago, by what process or for what reason I am unable to tell you, nor do I know how the paint is made indelible.
As far as I can gather, the Indians here have no traditions in regard to those paintings, which I understand occur in several places throughout the country, and none of the Indians hereabouts nowadays practice any such painting.
Mr. Hallock also furnishes information regarding a petroglyph, the locality of which he gives as follows: Roche Percée, on the Souris river, in Manitoba, near the international boundary, 270 miles west of Dufferin, and nearly due north from Bismarck. This is an isolated rock in the middle of a plain, covered with pictographs of memorable events. It stands back from the river a half mile.
Mr. A. C. Lawson (a) gives an illustrated account of petroglyphs on the large peninsula extending into the Lake of the Woods and on an island adjacent to it. Strictly speaking this peninsula is in the district of Keewatin, but it is very near the boundary line of Manitoba, to which it is attached for administrative purposes. The account is condensed as follows:
On the north side of this peninsula, i. e., on the south shore of the northern half of the lake, about midway between the east and west shores, occurs one of the two sets of hieroglyphic markings. Lying off shore at a distance of a quarter to a half a mile, and making with it a long sheltered channel, is a chain of islands, trending east and west. On the south side of one of these islands, less than a mile to the west of the first locality, is to be seen the other set of inscriptions. The first set occurs on the top of a low, glaciated, projecting point of rock, which presents the characters of an ordinary roche moutonnée. The rock is a very soft, foliated, green, chloritic schist, into which the characters are more or less deeply carved. The top of the rounded point is only a few feet above the high-water mark of the lake, whose waters rise and fall in different seasons through a range of ten feet. The antiquity of the inscriptions is at once forced upon the observer upon a careful comparison of their weathering with that of the glacial grooves and striæ, which are very distinctly seen upon the same rock surface. Both the ice grooves and carved inscriptions are, so far as the eye can judge, identical in extent of weathering, though there was doubtless a considerable lapse of time between the disappearance of the glaciers and the date of the carving.
The island on which were found the other inscriptions is one of the many steep rocky islands known among the Indians as Ka-ka-ki-wa-bic min-nis, or Crow-rock island. The rock is a hard greenstone, not easily cut, and the inscriptions are not cut into the rock, but are painted with ochre, which is much faded in places. The surface upon which the characters are inscribed forms an overhanging wall protected from the rain, part of which has fallen down.
The Indians of the present day have no traditions about these inscriptions beyond the supposition that they must have been made by the “old people” long ago.
The sketches published as copies of these glyphs show spirals, concentric circles, crosses, horseshoe forms, arrow shapes, and other characters similar to those found on rocks in the southwestern part of the United States, and also to petroglyphs in Brazil, examples from both of which regions are presented in this work, under their appropriate headings.
Dr. Franz Boas (a) published an account of a petroglyph on Vancouver island (now presented as Fig. 3) which, slightly condensed, is translated as follows:
The accompanying rock picture is found on the eastern shore of Sproat lake, near its southern outlet. Sproat lake lies about 10 kilometers north of the upper end of the Alberni fiord, which cuts deep into the interior of Vancouver island. In former times this region was the territory of the Hōpetschisāth, a tribe of the Nootka or Aht, who even now have a village some miles below the lake, at the entrance of Stamp river into the main river. That tribe, according to the statement of some of its older members, was a branch of the Kowitchin, who occupy the east side of Vancouver island, some kilometers northeast of the upper end of Alberni fiord. At that time the Ts’ēschāáth, another tribe of the Nootka, are said to have ascended the fiord and mixed with the Hōpetschisāth. The present inhabitants of the region know nothing concerning the origin of the rock picture. According to their legend, the rock on which it is carved was once the house of Kwótiath. Kwótiath is the wandering divinity in Nootka mythology, and corresponds approximately to the raven of the Tlinkit and Haida, the Qäls of the Kowitchin. The picture is found on a perpendicular rock wall about 7 meters high, which drops directly into the lake, so that it was necessary to make the copy while standing in the water. The rock is traversed in the middle by a broad cleft, narrowing below, from which blocks have fallen out which bore part of the drawing. To the north and south of the rock wall the shore rises gently, but rocky portions are found everywhere. The lines of the drawing are flat grooves, about two or three fingers’ breadth, and in many places are so weathered as to be hardly recognizable. They have been scraped into the rock probably by the points of sticks rubbing moist sand against it. No marks of blows of any kind are found. The figures are here given in the same relative position in which they are found on the rock, except that the upper one on the right hand is at a distance from all the others, at the southern end of the rock. The objects represented are evidently fishes or marine monsters. The middle figure to the left of the cleft may be a manned boat, the fore part of which is probably destroyed.
Dr. Boas says that the copy as found in the Verhandlungen is incorrect. The design on the right hand is reversed and is now corrected.
Mr. G. M. Sproat (a) mentions this petroglyph:
It is rudely done and apparently not of an old date. There are half a dozen figures intended to represent fishes or birds—no one can say which. The natives affirm that Quawteaht made them. In their general character these figures correspond to the rude paintings sometimes seen on wooden boards among the Ahts, or on the seal-skin buoys that are attached to the whale and halibut harpoons and lances. The meaning of these figures is not understood by the people; and I dare say if the truth were known, they are nothing but feeble attempts on the part of individual artists to imitate some visible objects which they had strongly in their minds.
Drawings or paintings on rocks are distributed generally over the greater part of the territory of the United States.
They are found on bowlders formed by the sea waves or polished by ice of glacial epochs; on the faces of rock ledges adjoining lakes and streams; on the high walls of canyons and cliffs; on the sides and roofs of caves; in short, wherever smooth surfaces of rock appear. Yet, while they are so frequent, there are localities to be distinguished in which they are especially abundant and noticeable. They differ markedly in character of execution and apparent subject-matter.
An obvious division can be made between the glyphs bearing characters carved or pecked and those painted without incision. There is also a third, though small, class in which the characters are both incised and painted. This division seems to coincide to a certain extent with geographic areas and is not fully explained by the influence of materials; it may, therefore, have some relation to the idiosyncrasy or development of the several authors, and consequently to tribal habitat and migrations.
In examining a chart of the United States in use by the Bureau of Ethnology, upon which the distribution of the several varieties of petroglyphs is marked, two facts are noticeable: First, the pecked and incised characters are more numerous in the northern and those expressed in colors more numerous in the southern areas. Second, there are two general groupings, distinguished by typical styles, one in the north Atlantic states and the other in the south Pacific states.
The north Atlantic group is in the priscan habitat of the tribes of the Algonquian linguistic family, and extends from Nova Scotia southward to Pennsylvania, where the sculpturings are frequent, especially on the Susquehanna, Monongahela, and Alleghany rivers, and across Ohio from Lake Erie to the Kanawha river, in West Virginia. Isolated localities bearing the same type are found westward on the Mississippi river and a few of its western tributaries, to and including the Wind river mountains, in Wyoming, the former habitat of the Blackfeet Indians. All of these petroglyphs present typical characters, sometimes undefined and complicated. From their presumed authors, they have been termed the Algonquian type. Upon close study and comparison they show many features in common which are absent in extra-limital areas.
Immediately south of the Kanawha river, in West Virginia, and extending southward into Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina, the pecked or sculptured petroglyphs are replaced by painted figures of a style differing from the Algonquian. These are in the area usually designated as Cherokee territory, but there is no evidence that they are the work of that tribe; indeed, there is no indication of their authorship. The absence of pecked characters in this area is certainly not due to an absence of convenient material upon which to record them as the country is as well adapted to the mode of incision as is the northern Atlantic area.
Upon the Pacific slope a few pecked as well as colored petroglyphs occur scattered irregularly throughout the extreme northern area west of the Sierra Nevada, but on the eastern side of that range of mountains petroglyphs appear in Idaho, which have analogues extending south to New Mexico and Arizona, with remarkable groups at intervals between these extremes. All of these show sufficient similarity of form to be considered as belonging to a type which is here designated “Shoshonean.” Tribes of that linguistic family still occupy, and for a long time have occupied, that territory. Most of this Shoshonean group consists of pecked or incised characters, though in the southern area unsculptured paintings predominate.
On the western side of the Sierra Nevada, from Visalia southward, at Tulare agency, and thence westward and southward along the Santa Barbara coast, are other groups of colored petroglyphs showing typical features resembling the Shoshonean. This resemblance may be merely accidental, but it is well known that there was intercourse between the tribes on the two sides of the Sierra Nevada, and the Shoshonean family is also represented on the Pacific slope south of the mountain range extending from San Bernardino west to Point Conception. In this manner the artistic delineation of the Santa Barbara tribes may have been influenced by contact with others.
Petroglyphs have seldom been found in the central area of the United States. In the wooded region of the Great lakes characters have been depicted upon birch bark for at least a century, while in the area between the Mississippi river and the Rocky mountains the skins of buffalo and deer have been used. Large rocks and cliffs favorably situated are not common in that country, which to a great extent is prairie.
In the general area of these typical groups characters are frequently found which appear intrusive, i. e., they have a strong resemblance not only to those found in other American groups, but are nearly identical with characters in other parts of the world. This fact, clearly established, prevents the adoption of any theory as to the authorship of many of the petroglyphs and thwarts attempts to ascertain their signification.
Ensign Albert P. Niblack, U. S. Navy, (a) gives a brief account, with sketches, reproduced here as Fig. 4, of petroglyphs in Alaska, which were taken from rocks from the ancient village of Stikine, near Fort Wrangell. Others were found on rocks just above high-water mark around the sites of ruined and abandoned villages.
In the upper character the Alaskan typical style of human faces is noticeable. The lower gives a representation of the orca or whale killer, which the Haida believe to be a demon called Skana, about which there are many mythic tales. Mr. Niblack remarks:
In their paintings the favorite colors used are black, light green, and dark red. Whether produced in painting, tattooing, or relief carving, the designs are somewhat conventional. However rude the outline, there are for some animals certain conventional signs that clearly indicate to the initiated what figure is meant. With the brown bear it is the protruding tongue; with the beaver and wolf it is the character of the teeth; with the orca, the fin; with the raven, the sharp beak; with the eagle, the curved beak, etc.
Mr. G. K. Gilbert, of the U. S. Geological Survey, gives the following information concerning petroglyphs observed by him in the vicinity of San Francisco mountain, Arizona:
The localities of the sketches Figs. 5, 6, and 7 are about 35 miles east and southeast of San Francisco mountain, the material being a red sandstone, which stands in low buttes upon the plain. About these are mealing stones, fragments of pottery and chipped flints, giving evidence of the residence of sedentary Indians. So many localities of petroglyphs were seen that I regard it as probable that a large number could be found by search. The drawings in every case but one were produced by blows upon the surface of the rocks, breaking through the film of rock discolored by weathering so as to reveal (originally) the color of the interior of the rock. The single exception is the first pattern in Fig. 6, similar to the patterns on pottery and blankets, produced by painting with a white pigment on red rock. The original arrangement of the drawings upon the rock was not as a rule preserved, but they have approximately the original arrangement. I neglected to record the scale of the drawings, but the several pictures are drawn on approximately the same scale.
All of these figures partake of the general type designated as the Shoshonean, and it is notable that close repetitions of some of the characters appear in petroglyphs in Tulare valley and Owens valley, California, which are described and illustrated in this section.
The object resembling a centipede, in Fig. 6, is a common form in various localities in Santa Barbara county, California, as will be observed by comparing the illustrations given in connection with that locality. In other of the Arizona and New Mexican petroglyphs similar outlines are sometimes engraved to signify the maize stalk.
Mr. Paul Holman, of the U. S. Geological Survey, reports that eight miles below Powers butte, on a mesa bordering on the Gila river and rising abruptly to the height of 150 feet, are pictographs covering the entire vertical face. Also on the summit of a spur of Oatman mountain, 200 yards from the Gila and 300 feet above it, are numbers of pictographs. Many of them are almost obliterated where they are on exposed surfaces.
Lieut. Col. Emory (a) reports that on a table-land near the Gila bend is a mound of granite bowlders, blackened by augite and covered with unknown characters, the work of human hands. On the ground near by were also traces of some of the figures, showing that some of the pictographs, at least, were the work of modern Indians. Others were of undoubted antiquity. He also reports in the same volume (b) that characters upon rocks of questionable antiquity occur on the Gila river at 32° 38′ 13″ N. lat. and 190° 7′ 30″ long. According to the plate, the figures are found upon bowlders and on the face of the cliff to the height of 30 feet.
Lieut. Whipple (a) remarks upon petroglyphs at Yampais spring, Williams river, as follows:
The spot is a secluded glen among the mountains. A high shelving rock forms a cave, within which is a pool of water and a crystal stream flowing from it. The lower surface of the rock is covered with pictographs. None of the devices seem to be of recent date.
Many of the country rocks lying on the Colorado plateau of northern Arizona, east of Peach springs, bear petroglyphs of considerable artistic workmanship. Some figures, observed by Dr. W. J. Hoffman in 1872, were rather elaborate and represented the sun, human beings in various styles approaching the grotesque, and other characters not understood. All of those observed were made by pecking the surface of basalt with a harder variety of stone.
Mr. Gilbert also obtained sketches of etchings in November, 1878, on Partridge creek, northern Arizona, at the point where the Beale wagon road comes to it from the east. He says: “The rock is cross-laminated Aubrey sandstone and the surfaces used are faces of the laminæ. All the work is done by blows with a sharp point. (Obsidian is abundant in the vicinity.) Some inscriptions are so fresh as to indicate that the locality is still resorted to. No Indians live in the immediate vicinity, but the region is a hunting ground of the Wallapais and Avasupais (Cosninos).”
Notwithstanding the occasional visits of the above named tribes, the characters submitted more nearly resemble those of other localities known to have been made by the Moki Pueblos.
Rock drawings are of frequent occurrence along the entire extent of the valley of the Rio Verde, from a short distance below Camp Verde to the Gila river.
Mr. Thomas V. Keam reports drawings on the rocks in Canyon Segy, and in Keam’s canyon, northeastern Arizona. Some forms occurring at the latter locality are found also upon Moki pottery.
Petroglyphs are reported by Lieut. Theodore Mosher, Twenty-second Infantry, U. S. Army, to have been discovered by Lieut. Casey’s party in December, 1887, on the Chiulee (or Chilalí) creek, 30 or 40 miles from its confluence with San Juan river, Arizona. A photograph made by the officer in charge of the party shows the characters to have been outlined by pecking, the designs resembling the Shoshonean type of pictographs, and those in Owens valley, California, a description of which is given below.
A figure, consisting of two concentric circles with a straight line running out from the larger circle, occurs, among other carvings, on one of the many sculptured bowlders seen by Mr. J. R. Bartlett (a) in the valley of the Gila river in Arizona. His representation of this bowlder is here copied as Fig. 8. His language is as follows:
I found hundreds of these bowlders covered with rude figures of men, animals, and other objects of grotesque forms, all pecked in with a sharp instrument. Many of them, however, were so much defaced by long exposure to the weather and by subsequent markings, that it was impossible to make them out. Among these rocks I found several which contained sculptures on the lower side, in such a position that it would be impossible to cut them where they then lay. Some weighed many tons each and would have required immense labor to place them there, and that, too, without an apparent object. The natural inference was that they had fallen down from the summit of the mountain after the sculptures were made on them. A few only seemed recent; the others bore the marks of great antiquity.
In the collections of the Bureau of Ethnology is an album or sketch book, which contains many drawings made by Mr. F. S. Dellenbaugh, from which the following sketches of petroglyphs in Arizona are selected, together with the brief references attached to each sheet.
Fig. 9 is a copy of characters appearing in Shinumo canyon, Arizona. They are painted, the middle and right hand figures being red, the human form having a white mark upon the abdomen; the left-hand figure of a man is painted yellow, the two plumes being red.
The petroglyphs in Fig. 10 are rather indistinct and were copied from the vertical wall of Mound canyon. The most conspicuous forms appear to be serpents.
In the foothills of California, wherever overhanging and rain-protected rocks occur, they are covered with paintings of various kinds made by Indians. Those on Rocky hill, some 15 miles east of Visalia, are especially interesting. The sheltered rocks are here covered with images of men, animals, and various inanimate objects, as well as curious figures. The paint used is red, black, and white, and wherever protected it has stood the ravages of time remarkably well. In many places the paintings are as vivid as the day they were laid on. Deer, antelope, coyotes, birds, and turtles are figured quite frequently, and may indicate either names of chiefs or tribes, or animals slain in the hunt. Here are also circles, spirals, crowns or bars, etc., signs the meaning of which is yet doubtful.
Mr. H. W. Turner, in a letter dated June 3, 1891, furnishes sketches (Fig. 11) from this locality, and a description of them as follows:
I send herewith a rough sheet of drawings of figures on the sheltered face of a huge granite cropping in Tulare county, California. One-half of the cropping had split off, leaving a nearly plane surface, on which the figures were drawn in red, white, and black pigments. The locality is known as Rocky point. They are now quarrying granite at the place. It lies about 12 miles nearly due east of Visalia, in the first foothills and south of Yokall creek. The figures appear to have been drawn many years ago, and numbers of them are now indistinct.
During the summer of 1882 Dr. Hoffman visited the Tule river agency, California, where he found a large rock painting, of which Fig. 983, infra, is a copy made by him. His description of it is as follows:
“The agency is upon the western side of the Sierra Nevada, in the headwater canyons of the branches of the south fork of Tule river. The country is at present occupied by several tribes of the Mariposan linguistic stock, and the only answer made to inquiries respecting the age or origin of the painting was that it was found there when the ancestors of the present tribes arrived. The local migrations of the various Indian tribes of this part of California are not yet known with sufficient certainty to determine to whom the records may be credited, but all appearances with respect to the weathering and disintegration of the rock upon which the record is engraved, the appearance of the coloring matter subsequently applied, and the condition of the small depressions made at the time for mixing the pigments with a viscous substance, indicate that the work was performed about a century ago.
“The Indians now at Tule river have occupied that part of the state for at least one hundred years, and the oldest now living state that the records were found by their ancestors, though whether more than two generations ago could not be ascertained.
“The drawings were outlined by pecking with a piece of quartz or other siliceous rock, the depth varying from a mere visible depression to a third of an inch. Having thus satisfactorily depicted the several ideas, colors were applied which appear to have penetrated the slight interstices between the crystalline particles of the rock, which had been bruised and slightly fractured by hammering with a piece of stone. It appears probable, too, that to insure better results the hammering was repeated after application of the colors.
“Upon a small bowlder, under the natural archway formed by the breaking of the large rock, small depressions were found which had been used as mortars for grinding and mixing the colors. These depressions average 2 inches in diameter and about 1 inch in depth. Traces of color still remain, mixed with a thin layer of a shining substance resembling a coating of varnish and of flinty hardness. This coating is so thin that it can not be removed with a steel instrument, and appears to have become a part of the rock itself.
“From the animals depicted upon the ceiling it seems that both beaver and deer were found in the country, and as the beaver tail and the hoofs of deer and antelope are boiled to procure glue, it is probable that the tribe which made these pictographs was as far advanced in respect to the making of glue and preparing of paints as most other tribes throughout the United States.
“Examination shows that the dull red color is red ocher, found in various places in the valley, while the yellow was an ocherous clay, also found there. The white color was probably obtained there, and is evidently earthy, though of what nature can only be surmised, not sufficient being obtainable from the rock picture to make satisfactory analysis with the blow-pipe. The composition of the black is not known, unless it was made by mixing clay and powdered charcoal. The latter is a preparation common at this day among other tribes.
“An immense granite bowlder, about 20 feet in thickness and 30 in length, is so broken that a lower quarter is removed, leaving a large square passageway through its entire diameter almost northwest and southeast. Upon the western wall of this passageway is a collection of the colored sketches of which Fig. 983 is a reduced copy. The entire face of the rock upon which the pictograph occurs measures about 12 or 15 feet in width and 8 in height. The largest human figure measures 6 feet in height, from the end of the toes to the top of the head, the others being in proportion as represented.
“Upon the ceiling are a number of well executed drawings of the beaver, bear, centipede (Fig. 12), and bald eagle (Fig. 13). Many of the other forms indicated appear to represent some variety of insects, several of which are drawn with exaggerated antennæ, as in Fig. 14. It is curious to note the gradual blending of forms, as, for instance, that of the bear with those resembling the human figure, often found among the Shoshonean types in Arizona and New Mexico, some of which are described and figured infra.
“Fig. 15 embraces a number of characters on the ceiling. The left hand upper figure is in black, with a narrow line of red surrounding it. The drawing is executed neatly and measures about 18 inches in length. The remaining characters are in dull red, probably ocher, though the two on the left hand, beneath the one just mentioned, are more yellowish.
“The first three forms in Fig. 16 are copies of human-like figures painted on the ceiling. They are each about 12 inches in length. The other form in Fig. 16 is white and is on the southern vertical wall of the passageway facing the north. It resembles some of the human forms occurring elsewhere in the same series of petroglyphs.”
In the range of mountains forming the northwestern boundary of Owens valley are extensive groups of petroglyphs, apparently dissimilar to those found west of the Sierra Nevada. Dr. Hoffman, of the Bureau of Ethnology, hastily examined them in 1871 and more thoroughly in the autumn of 1884. They are now represented in Pls. I to XI. So large a space is given to these illustrations because of their intrinsic interest, and also because it is desirable to show for one locality what is true of some others, viz, the very large number of petroglyphs still to be found in groups and series. Even with the present illustrations, the petroglyphs in Owens valley are by no means exhaustively shown.
Dr. Hoffman’s report is as follows:
One of the most important series of groups is that in the northern portion of Owens valley, between the White mountains on the east and the Benton range on the west. On the western slope of the latter, at Watterson’s ranch, is a detached low butte or mesa, upon the blackened basaltic bowlders and cliffs of which are numerous deeply cut characters, the most interesting of which are reproduced in Pls. I and II. The illustrations are, approximately, one-twelfth real size. The designs of footprints, in the lower left-hand corner of Pl. I, vary in depth from half an inch to 1½ inches. They appear to have been pecked and finally worked down to a uniform and smooth surface by rubbing, as if with a piece of stone or with wood and sand.
In almost all, if not all, instances throughout the entire series referred to in this description the sculptured surfaces have assumed the same shining blackened luster as the original and undisturbed surface of the bowlder, caused by gradual oxidation of the iron present. This would seem to indicate considerable antiquity of the petroglyphs.
On the northeast angle of the mesa referred to were found the remains of an old camp, over which were scattered large quantities of arrowheads, knives, and flakes of obsidian. This in itself would be insignificant, but the fact that many of the specimens of this material have been lying exposed to the elements until the upper surface has undergone change in color, so as to become bleached and friable, in some instances to the depth of from one-tenth to one-fourth of an inch, warrants the inference that the relics may have been made by the same people who made the petroglyphs, as the worked relics generally differ from those of the present Indians by being larger and less elaborately finished.
At the lower end of the southeastern slope of the mesa are a number of flat rocks bearing mortar holes, which have no doubt been used in grinding grass seed and other grains.
In general type these petroglyphs correspond very closely to those of other areas, in which the so-called Shoshonian types occur, the most common, apart from those presented in Pls. I and II, consisting of concentric circles, rings, footprints of the bear and of man, and various outlines of the human form, beside numerous unintelligible forms.
Southeastward of this locality there is a low divide leading across the Benton range into the broad, arid, sloping sand desert of Owens valley proper, but it is not until a point 12 miles south of Benton, along the line of the old stage road, is reached that petroglyphs of any consequence are met with. From this point southward, for a distance of 6 miles, large exposures and bowlders of basalt are scattered, upon which are great numbers of petroglyphs, pecked into the rock to depths of from half an inch to 1½ inches, and representing circles, footprints, human forms, etc.
The first series of illustrations, selected from numerous closely-connected bowlders, are here presented on Pls. III to VII. The designs marked a on Pl. III resemble serpents, while that at d is obviously such. This device is on the horizontal surface, and is pecked to the depth of about 1 inch. The scale of the drawing is one-thirtieth of the original petroglyph. The characters indicating the human form in e, g, and h resemble the ordinary Shoshonian type, and are like those from various localities in Arizona and southern Utah and Colorado.
The upper characters in A on Pl. IV represent the trail of a grizzly bear—as indicated by the immense claws—followed by a human footprint. The original sculpturings are clearly cut, the toes of the man’s foot being cup-like, as if drilled with a blunt piece of wood and sand. The tracks average 15 inches in length and vary in depth from half an inch to more than an inch. The course of direction of the tracks, which are cut upon a horizontal surface, is from north-northeast to south-southwest.
In E is the semblance of an apparently two-headed snake, as also in a on Pl. VII. It is possible that this was pecked into the rock to record the finding of such an anomaly. The occurrence of double-headed serpents is not unique, five or six instances having been recorded, one of which is from California, and a specimen may be seen in the collection of the U. S. National Museum.
In Pl. V, c, e, g are characters resembling some from the Canary islands [see Figs. 144 and 145], as well as many of the cupstones and dumb-bell forms from Scotland [see Figs. 149 and 150].
An interesting specimen is presented in d, on Pl. VI, resembling the Ojibwa thunder bird, as well as etchings of Innuit workmanship to denote man [as shown in Fig. 1159]. The figures presented in Pl. III are the northernmost of the series, of which those on Pl. VII form the southernmost examples, the distance between these two points being about 2 miles.
For the space of 4 miles southward there are a few scattered petroglyphs, to which reference will be made below, and the greatest number of characters are not found until the southernmost extremity of the entire series is reached. These are over the surface of immense bowlders lying on the east side of the road where it passes through a little valley known locally as the Chalk grade, probably on account of the whitened appearance of the sand and of some of the embankments. A general view of the faces of the bowlders upon which the chief sculpturings occur is presented in Fig. 17. The petroglyphs are represented in Pls. VIII to XI.
The figures presented in Pl. VIII are, with one exception, each about one-thirtieth the size of the original. The animal character in e is upon the top of the largest bowlder shown on Fig. 17, and is pecked to the depth of from one-fourth to one-half an inch. Portions of it are much defaced through erosion by sand blown by the strong summer winds. The characters in g are only one-tenth of the original size, but of depth similar to the preceding.
On Pl. IX, a is one-twentieth the size of the original, while the remaining sculpturings are about one-tenth size. The cross in a is singularly interesting because of the elaborateness of its execution. The surface within the circle is pecked out so as to have the cross stand out bold and level with the original surface. This is true also of f on Pl. VIII. Pl. IX, b, contains some animal forms like those reported from New Mexico and Arizona, and Brazil [and presented in this work], especially that character to the right resembling a guanaco couchant, although, from its relationship to the figure of an antelope, in the same group, it no doubt is intended to represent one of the latter species.
On Pl. X, as well as on others of this collection, are found many forms of circles with interior decoration, such as lines arranged by pairs, threes, etc., zigzag and cross lines, and other seemingly endless arrangements. They are interesting from the fact of the occurrence of almost identical forms in remote localities, as in the Canary islands and in Brazil. [These are figured and described infra.]
It is probable that they are not meaningless, because the disposition of the Indian, as he is to-day, is such that no time would be spent upon such laborious work without an object, and only motives of a religious or ceremonial nature would induce him to expend the time and labor necessary to accomplish such results as are still presented. On Pl. XI, a, are more footprints and animal forms of the genus cervus or antelocapra. The figures in b and d, having an upright line with two crossing it at right angles, may signify either a lizard or man, the latter signification being probably the true one, as similar forms are drawn in petroglyphs of a Shoshonian type, as in Arizona. [See supra.]
The country over which these records are scattered is arid beyond description and destitute of vegetation. Watterson’s ranch group is more favorably located, there being an abundance of springs and a stream running northward toward Black lake.
The only Indians found in this vicinity are Pai Utes, but they are unacquainted with the significance of the characters, and declare that they have no knowledge of the authors.
As to the age of the sculpturings nothing can be learned. The external surface of all the bowlders, as well as the surface of the deepest figures, is a glistening brownish black, due, possibly, to the presence of iron. The color of a freshly broken surface becomes lighter in tint as depth is attained, until at about one-half or three-fourths of an inch from the surface the rock is chocolate brown. How long it would take the freshly broken surface of this variety of rock to become thoroughly oxidized and blackened it is impossible even to conjecture, taking into consideration the physical conditions of the region and the almost entire absence of rainfall.
Upon following the most convenient course across the Benton range to reach Owen valley proper drawings are also found, though in limited numbers, and seem to partake of the character of indicators as to course of travel. By this trail the northernmost of the several groups of drawings above mentioned is the nearest and most easily reached.
The pictures upon the bowlders at Watterson’s are somewhat different from those found elsewhere. The number of specific designs is limited, many of them being reproduced from two to six or seven times, thus seeming to partake of the character of personal names.
In a communication dated Saratoga Springs, at the lower part of Death valley, California, February 5, 1891, Mr. E. W. Nelson says that about 200 yards from the springs, and on the side of a hill, he found several petroglyphs. He also furnished a sketch as an example of their general type, now presented as Fig. 18. The locality is in the lower end of Death valley. Mr. Nelson says: