Picture writing of the American Indian, by Garrick Mallery

Fig. 1090 is reproduced from Schoolcraft (p), and is a copy taken in 1851 of an inscription sculptured on a rock on the south side of Cunningham’s island, Lake Erie. Mr. Schoolcraft’s explanation, given in great detail, is fanciful. It is perhaps only necessary to explain that the dotted lines are intended to divide the partially obliterated from the more distinct portions of the glyph. The central part is the most obscure.

It is to be remarked that this petroglyph is in some respects similar in general style to those before given as belonging to the eastern Algonquian type, but is still more like some of the representations of the Dighton rock inscription, one of them being Fig. 49, supra, and others, which it still more closely resembles in the mode of drawing human figures, are in the copies of Dighton rock on Pl. LIV, Chap. XXII. In some respects this Cunningham’s island glyph occupies a typical position intermediate between the eastern and western Algonquian.

A good type of western Algonquian petroglyphs was discovered by the party of Capt. William A. Jones (b), in 1873, with an illustration here reproduced as Fig. 1091, in which the greater number of the characters are shown, about one-fifth real size.

* * * 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.

Throughout the Wind river country of Wyoming many petroglyphs have been found and others reported by the Shoshoni Indians, who say that they are the work of the “Pawkees,” as they call the Blackfeet, or, more properly, Satsika, an Algonquian tribe which formerly occupied that region, and their general style 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 Algonquian linguistic stock.

The four specimens of Algonquian petroglyphs presented here in Figs. 1088-91 and those referred to, show gradations in type. In connection with them reference may be made to the numerous Ojibwa bark records in this work; the Ottawa pipestem, Fig. 738; and they may be contrasted with the many Dakota, Shoshoni, and Innuit drawings also presented.

The petroglyphs found scattered throughout the states and territories embraced within the area bounded by the Rocky mountains on the east and the Sierra Nevada on the west, and generally south of the forty-eighth degree of latitude, are markedly similar in the class of objects represented and the general style of their delineation, without reference to their division into pecked or painted characters; also in many instances the sites selected for petroglyphic display are of substantially the same character. This type has been generally designated as the Shoshonean, though many localities abounding in petroglyphs of the type are now inhabited by tribes of other linguistic stocks.

Mr. G. K. Gilbert, of the U. S. Geological Survey, has furnished a small collection of drawings of Shoshonean petroglyphs from Oneida, Idaho, shown in Fig. 39, supra.

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 drawn by Shoshoni. A copy of these, also contributed by Mr. Gilbert, is given in Fig. 1092.

All of these drawings resemble the petroglyphs found at Partridge creek, northern Arizona, and in Temple creek canyon, southeastern Utah, mentioned supra, pages 50 and 116, respectively.

Mr. I. C. Russell, of the U. S. Geological Survey, has furnished drawings of rude pictographs at Black Rock spring, Utah, represented in Fig. 1093. 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 in Fig. 713.

Mr. Gilbert Thompson, of the U. S. Geological Survey, has discovered pictographs at Fool creek canyon, Utah, shown in Fig. 1094, 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.

Both of these pictographs from Utah may be compared with the Moki pictographs from Oakley springs, Arizona, copied in Fig. 1261.

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 canyon leading from the canyon at Stewart’s ranch, to the Kanab creek canyon, Utah. This is an indication of the habitat of the Shoshonean stock apart from the linguistic evidence with which it agrees.

From the numerous illustrations furnished of petroglyphs found in Owens valley, California, reference is here made to Pl. II a, Pl. III h, and Pl. VII a as presenting suggestive similarity to the Shoshonean forms above noted, and apparently connecting them with others in New Mexico, Arizona, Sonora, and Central and South America.

Mr. F. H. Cushing (a) figured three petroglyphs, now reproduced in Figs. 1095 and 1096, from Arizona, and referred to them in connection with figurines found in the ruined city of Los Muertos, in the Salado valley, as follows:

Beneath the floor of the first one of these huts which we excavated, near the ranch of Mr. George Kay Miller, were discovered, disposed precisely as would be a modern sacrifice of the kind in Zuñi, the paraphernalia of a Herder’s sacrifice, namely, the paint line, encircled, perforated medicine cup, the Herder’s amulet stone of chalcedony, and a group of at least fifteen remarkable figurines. The figurines alone, of the articles constituting this sacrifice, differed materially from those which would occur in a modern Zuñi “New Year Sacrifice” of the kind designed to propitiate the increase and prosperity of its herds. While in Zuñi these figurines invariably represent sheep (the young of sheep mainly; mostly also females), the figurines in the hut at “Los Guanacos,” as I named the place, represented with rare fidelity * * * some variety, I should suppose, of the auchenia or llama of South America.

Summing up the evidence presented by the occurrence of numerous “bola stones” in these huts and within the cities; by the remarkably characteristic forms of these figurines; by the traditional statement of modern Zuñis regarding “small hairy animals” possessed by their ancestors, no less than by the statements of Marcus Nizza, Bernal Diaz, and other Spanish writers to the same effect, and adding to this sum the facts presented in sundry ritualistic pictographs, I concluded, very boldly, * * * that the ancient Pueblos-Shiwians, or Aridians, * * * must have had domesticated a North American variety of the auchenia more nearly resembling, it would seem, the guanaco of South America than the llama.

It is ascertained that the petroglyphs copied by Mr. Cushing as above are pecked upon basaltic rock in the northern face of Maricopa mountains, near Telegraph pass, south of Phœnix, Arizona.

In several localities in the sierra in the peninsula of California and Sonora are rocks painted red. These paintings are quite rude and are inferior to many of the pictographs of the North American Indians. Figs. 1097 and 1098 were found at Rincon de S. Antonio. The right-hand division of Fig. 1097 is a complete representation, and the figures copied appear on the stone in the order in which they are here given. The left-hand division of the same figure represents only the most distinct objects, selected from among a large number of others, very similar, which cover a block of marble several meters in height. The object in the upper left-hand corner of Fig. 1097 measures 20 to 21 centimeters; the others are represented in proportion.

These two figures resemble petroglyphs reported from the Santa Inez range, west of Santa Barbara, Lower California.

Fig. 1098 represents symbols which were the most easily distinguished among the great number of those which cover two immense granite blocks at Boca San Pedro. The rows of dots (or points) which are seen at the left of this figure measure 1.50 meters, the parallel lines traced at the right are about 1 meter.

This figure is like another found farther east (see Fig. 31) from Azuza canyon, California.

A number of Haida pictographs are reproduced in other parts of this work. In immediate connection with the present topic Fig. 1099 is presented. It shows the carved columns in front of the chief’s house at Massett, Queen Charlotte island.

The following illustrations from New Zealand are introduced here for comparison.

The dwellings of the chiefs at Ohinemutu are surrounded with inclosures of pole fences, and the Whares and Wharepunis, some of them exhibiting very fine specimens of the Maori order of architecture, are ornamented with grotesque wood carvings. Fig. 1100 is an illustration of some of them. The gable figure with the lizard having six feet and two heads is very remarkable. The human figures are not idols, but are intended to represent departed sires of the present generation.

Tiki. At Raroera Pah, New Zealand. From Wood’s Natural History, page 180. Of this he says: “This gigantic tiki stands, together with several others, near the tomb of the daughter of Te Whero-Whero, and, like the monument which it seems to guard, is one of the finest examples of native carving to be found in New Zealand. The precise object of the tiki is uncertain, but the protruding tongue of the upper figure seems to show that it is one of the numerous defiant statues which abound in the islands. The natives say that the lower figure represents Maui the Auti who, according to Maori tradition, fished up the islands from the bottom of the sea.”

Dr. Bransford (b) gives an illustration, copied here as the left-hand character of Fig. 1102, with the description of the site, viz: “On a hillside on the southern end of the island of Ometepec, Nicaragua, about a mile and a half east of Point San Ramon.” On a rough, irregular stone of basalt, projecting 3 feet above ground, was the following figure on the south side:

The same authority gives on page 66, from the same island and neighborhood, the illustration copied as the right-hand character of the same figure.

By comparing some of the New Mexican, Zuñi, and Pueblo drawings with the above figure the resemblance is obvious. This is most notable in the outline of the square abdomen and the widespread legs.

Fig. 1103, also mentioned and figured by Dr. Bransford as found with the preceding in Nicaragua, resembles some of the petroglyphs presented in the collection from Owens valley, California.

The carvings in Fig. 1104 are from British Guiana, and are reproduced from im Thurn (i):

Most of these figures so strongly resemble some from New Mexico, and perhaps Arizona, as to appear as if they were made by the same people. This is specially noticeable in the lowermost characters, and more particularly so in the last two, resembling the usual Shoshonean type for toad or frog.

The petroglyph of Boca del Infierno, a copy of which is furnished by Marcano (f), reproduced as Fig. 1105, is thus described:

In the strange combination that surmounts it, a, there are seen at the lower part two figures resembling the eyes of jaguars, but asymmetric. Still the difference is apparent rather than real. These eyes are always formed of three circumferences, the central one being at times replaced by a point, as in the eye at the left; the one at the right shows its three circumferences, but the outermost is continuous with the rest of the drawing. The two eyes are joined together by superposed arches, the smallest of which touches only the left eye, while the larger one, which is not in contact with the left eye, forms the circumference of the right eye. The whole is surrounded by 34 rays, pretty nearly of the same size, except one, which is larger. Is there question of a jaguar’s head seen from in front with its bristling mane, or is it a sunrise? All conjecture is superfluous, and it is useless to search for the interpretation of these figures, whose value, entirely conventional, is known only by those who invented them.

In b of the same pictograph, alongside of a tangle of various figures, always formed of geometric lines, we distinguished, at the left, three points; in the middle a collection of lines representing a fish. Let us note, finally, the dots which, as in the preceding case, run out from certain lines.

The design of c, while quite as complex, has quite another arrangement. At the left we see again the figure of the circumferences surrounding a dot, and these are surmounted by a series of triangles; at the bottom there are two little curves terminated by dots. At d two analogous objects are represented; they may be what Humboldt took to be arms or household implements.

In the above figure, the uppermost character, a, is similar to various representations of the “sky,” as depicted upon the birch-bark midē' records of the Ojibwa. The lower characters are similar to several examples presented under the Shoshonean types, particularly to those in Owens valley, California.

Dr. A. Ernst in Verhandl. der Berliner, Anthrop. Gesell. (c) gives a description of Fig. 1106, translated and condensed as follows:

The rock on which the petroglyph is carved is 41 kilometers WSW. of Caracas, and 27 kilometers almost due north of La Victoria, in the coast mountains of Venezuela. The petroglyph is found on two large stones lying side by side and leaning against other blocks of leptinite, though resembling sandstone. The length of the two stones is 3.5 m., their height 2 m. The stones lie beside the road from the colony of Tovar to La Maya, on the border of a clearing somewhat inclined southward not far from the woods. The surface is turned south. Concerning the meaning of the very fragmentary figures I can not even express a conjecture.

In the district of Inhamun, on the road from Carrapateira to Cracará, at a distance of half a league, following a footpath which branches off to the left, is a small lake called Arneiros, near which is a heap of round and long stones; on one of the round ones is an inscription, here given in the order in which the figures appear, on the face toward the north, engraved with a pointed instrument, the characters being covered with red paint.

The same authority, p. 231, gives the following description of the lower group in Fig. 1108. It is called Indian writing in Vorá, in Faxina, province of São Paulo.

From a rock which is more than 40 meters in height, a large mass has been detached leaving a greater inclination of 10 meters. This incline, together with the wall formed by the detached portion, constitutes a sheltered place which was used by the Indians as a resting place for their dead.

On the walls of this grotto are figures engraved in the stone and painted with “indelible” colors in red and black. It would seem that the Indians had engraved in these figures the history of the tribe. The designs are as follows:

A human figure with ornaments of feathers on the head and neck; a palm tree rudely engraved and painted; a number of circular holes, 24 or more or less, in a straight line; a circle with a diameter of 15 inches, having dentated lines on the edge; two concentric circles resembling a clock face, with 60 divisions; immediately following this the figure of an idol, and various marks all painted in a very firm black; a figure of the sun with a +; a T; six more circles; a human hand and foot well carved, etc. In the wall are fragments of bones.

The two upper groups are copies of petroglyphs in Fuencaliente, Andalusia, Spain, which are described in Chap. IV, sec. 3, and are introduced here for convenient comparison with characters in the lower group of this figure, and also with others in Figs. 1097 and 1107.

Dr. Ladisláu Netto (c) gives an account of characters copied from the inscriptions of Cachoeira Savarete, in the valley of the Rio Negro, here reproduced as Fig. 1109. They represent men and animals, concentric circles, double spirals, and other figures of indefinite form. The design in the left hand of the middle line evidently represents a group of men gathered and drawn up like soldiers in a platoon.

The same authority, p. 552, furnishes characters copied from rocks near the villa of Moura in the valley of the Rio Negro, here reproduced as Fig. 1110. They represent a series of figures on which Dr. Netto remarks as follows:

It is singular how frequent are these figures of circles two by two, one of which seems to simulate one of the meanders that in a measure represent the form of the Buddhic cross. This character, represented by the double cross, is very common in many American inscriptions. It probably signifies some idea which has nothing to do with that of nandyavarta.

The same authority, p. 522, gives carvings copied from the rocks of the banks of the Rio Negro, from Moura to the city of Mañaus, some of which are reproduced as Fig. 1111. The group on the left Dr. Netto believes to represent a crowned chief, having by his side a figure which may represent either the sun or the moon in motion, but which, were it carved by civilized men, would suggest nothing more remarkable than a large compass.

The same authority, p. 553, presents characters copied from stones on the banks of the Rio Negro, Brazil, here reproduced as Fig. 1112.

They are rather sketches or vague tracings and attempts at drawing than definite characters. The human heads found in most of the figures observed at this locality resemble the heads carved in the inscriptions of Central America and on the banks of the Colorado river. The left-hand character, which here appears to be simply a rude drawing of a nose and the eyes belonging to a human face, may be compared with the so-called Thunderbird from Washington, contributed by Rev. Dr. Eels (see Fig. 679).

Dr. E. R. Heath (b), in his Exploration of the River Beni, introducing Fig. 1113, says:

Periquitos rapids connects so closely with the tail of “Riberáo” that it is difficult to say where one begins and the other ends. Our stop at the Periquitos rapids was short yet productive of a few figures, one rock having apparently a sun and moon on it, the first seen of that character.

On some solid water-worn rocks, at the edge of the fall, are the following figures [Fig. 1114]. There were many fractional parts of figures which we did not consider of sufficient value to copy.

SECTION 2.
HOMOMORPHS AND SYMMORPHS.

It has already been mentioned that characters substantially the same, or homomorphs, made by one set of people, have a different signification among others. The class of homomorphs may also embrace the cases common in gesture signs, and in picture writing, similar to the homophones in oral language, where the same sound has several meanings among the same people.

It would be very remarkable if precisely the same character were not used by different or even the same persons or bodies of people with wholly distinct significations. The graphic forms for objects and ideas are much more likely to be coincident than sound is for similar expressions, yet in all oral languages the same precise sound, sometimes but not always distinguished by different literation, is used for utterly diverse meanings. The first conception of different objects could not have been the same. It has been found, indeed, that the homophony of words and the homomorphy of ideographic pictures is noticeable in opposite significations, the conceptions arising from the opposition itself. The same sign and the same sound may be made to convey different ideas by varying the expression, whether facial or vocal, and by the manner accompanying their delivery. Pictographs likewise may be differentiated by modes and mutations of drawing. The differentiation in picturing or in accent is a subsequent and remedial step not taken until after the confusion had been observed and had become inconvenient. Such confusion and contradiction would only be eliminated from pictography if it were far more perfect than is any spoken language.

This heading, for convenience, though not consistently with its definition, may also include those pictographs which convey different ideas and are really different in form of execution as well as in conception, yet in which the difference in form is so slight as practically to require attention and discrimination. Examples are given below in this section, and others may be taken from the closely related sign-language, one group of which may now be mentioned.

The sign used by the Dakota, Hidatsa, and several other tribes for “tree” is made by holding the right hand before the body, back forward, fingers and thumb separated; then pushing it slightly upward, Fig. 1115; that for “grass” is the same, made near the ground; that for “grow” is made like “grass,” though, instead of holding the back of the hand near the ground, the hand is pushed upward in an interrupted manner, Fig. 1116. For “smoke” the hand (with the back down, fingers pointing upward as in grow) is then thrown upward several times from the same place instead of continuing the whole motion upward. Frequently the fingers are thrown forward from under the thumb with each successive upward motion. For “fire” the hand is employed as in the gesture for smoke, but the motion is frequently more waving, and in other cases made higher from the ground.

Symmorphs, a term suggested by the familiar “synonym,” are designs not of the same form, but which are used with the same significance or so nearly the same as to have only a slight shade of distinction and which sometimes are practically interchangeable. The comprehensive and metaphorical character of pictographs renders more of them interchangeable than is the case with words; still, like words, some pictographs with essential resemblance of meaning have partial and subordinate differences made by etymology or usage. Doubtless the designs are purposely selected to delineate the most striking outlines of an object or the most characteristic features of an action; but different individuals and likewise different bodies of people would often disagree in the selection of those outlines and features. In an attempt to invent an ideographic, not an iconographic, design for “bird,” any one of a dozen devices might have been agreed upon with equal appropriateness, and, in fact, a number have been so selected by several individuals and tribes, each one, therefore, being a symmorph of the other. Gesture language gives another example in the signs for “deer,” designated by various modes of expressing fleetness, also by his gait when not in rapid motion, by the shape of his horns, by the color of his tail, and sometimes by combinations of those characteristics. Each of these signs and of the pictured characters corresponding with them may be indefinitely abbreviated and therefore create indefinite diversity. Some examples appropriate to this line of comparison are now presented.

SKY.

The Indian gesture sign for sky, heaven, is generally made by passing the index from east to west across the zenith. This curve is apparent in the Ojibwa pictograph, the left-hand character of Fig. 1117, reported in Schoolcraft (q), and is abbreviated in the Egyptian character with the same meaning, the middle character of the same figure, from Champollion (e). A simpler form of the Ojibwa picture sign for sky is the right-hand character of the same figure, from Copway (h).

SUN AND LIGHT.

Fig. 1118 shows various representations of the sun taken from a petroglyph at Oakley springs.

The common Indian gesture sign for sun is: Right hand closed, the index and thumb curved, with tips touching, thus approximating a circle, and held toward the sky, the position of the fingers of the hand forming a circle as is shown in Fig. 1119. Two of the Egyptian characters for sun, the left-hand upper characters of Fig. 1120 are the common conception of the disk. The rays emanating from the whole disk appear in the two adjoining characters on the same figure, taken from the rock etchings of the Moki pueblos in Arizona. From the same locality are the two remaining characters in the same figure, which may be distinguished from several similar etchings for “star,” Fig. 1129, infra, by their showing some indication of a face, the latter being absent in the characters denoting “star.”

With the above characters for sun compare the left-hand character of Fig. 1121, found at Cuxco, Peru, and taken from Wiener (h).

In the pictorial notation of the Laplanders the sun bears its usual figure of a man’s head, rayed. See drawings in Scheffer’s History of Lapland, London, 1704.

The Ojibwa pictograph for sun is seen in the second character of Fig. 1121, taken from Schoolcraft (r). The sun’s disk, together with indications of rays, as shown in the third character of the same figure, and in its linear form, the fourth character of that figure, from Champollion, Dict., constitutes the Egyptian character for light.

Fig. 1122.—Light. Red-Cloud’s Census. This is to be compared with the rays of the sun as above shown, but still more closely resembles the old Chinese character for light, or more specifically “light above man,” in the left-hand character of Fig. 1123, reported by Dr. Edkins.

The other characters of the same figure are given by Schoolcraft (s) as Ojibwa symbols of the sun.

The left-hand character of Fig. 1124, from Proc. U. S. Nat. Museum (a), shows the top of an heraldic column of the Sentlae (Sun) gens of the Kwakiutl Indians in Alert bay, British Columbia, which represents the sun surrounded by wooden rays. A simpler form is seen in the right character of the same figure where the face of the sun is also fastened to the top of a pole. The author, Dr. Boas, states that Fig. 1125 is the sun mask used by the same gens in their dance. This presents another mode in which the common symbolic connection of the eagle (the beak of which bird is apparently shown) with the sun is indicated.

Prof. Cyrus Thomas, in Aids to the Study of the Manuscript Troano, Sixth Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn., p. 348, gives the left-hand character in Fig. 1126 as representing the sun.

Fig. 1126.—Suns.

General Forlong (a) states that the middle device of the same figure represents the sun as Mihr, the fertilizer of the seed.

Dr. Edkins (e) gives the right-hand device of the same figure as a picture of the sun. Originally it was a circle with a stroke or dot in the middle.

MOON.

Fig. 1127.—Gesture for moon.

A common Indian gesture sign for moon, month, is the right hand closed, leaving the thumb and index extended, but curved to form a half circle and the hand held toward the sky, in a position which is illustrated in Fig. 1127, to which curve the Moki drawing, the upper left-hand device in Fig. 1128, and the identical form in the ancient Chinese have an obvious resemblance.

Fig. 1128.—Moon.

The crescent, as Europeans and Asiatics commonly figure the satellite, appears also in the Ojibwa pictograph, the lower left-hand character in Fig. 1128, taken from Schoolcraft (t), which is the same, with a slight addition, as the Egyptian figurative character.

The middle character in Fig. 1128 is the top of an upright post of a house of the moon gens of the Kuakiutl Indians taken from Boas (g). It represents the moon.

Schoolcraft (u) gives the right-hand character of the same figure for the moon, i. e., an obscured sun, as drawn by the Ojibwa.

STARS.

Fig. 1129 shows various forms of stars, taken from a petroglyph at Oakley Springs, Arizona. Most of them show the rays in a manner to suggest the points of stars common in many parts of the world.

DAYTIME AND KIND OF DAY.

Fig. 1130, copied from Copway (h), presents respectively the characters for sunrise, noon, and sunset.

An Indian gesture sign for “sunrise,” “morning,” is: Forefinger of right hand crooked to represent half of the sun’s disk and pointed or extended to the left, slightly elevated. In this connection it may be noted that when the gesture is carefully made in open country the pointing would generally be to the east, and the body turned so that its left would be in that direction. In a room in a city, or under circumstances where the points of the compass are not specially attended to, the left side supposes the east, and the gestures relating to sun, day, etc., are made with such reference. The half only of the disk represented in the above gesture appears in the Moki pueblo drawings for morning and sunrise.