Pictographs of the North American Indians. A preliminary paper: Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1882-83, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1886, pages 3-256Mallery, Garrick
History
Pictographs of the North American Indians. A preliminary paper: Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1882-83, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1886, pages 3-256
Mallery, Garrick
Haida Indians; Picture-writing, Indian; Tattooing
The ancient inscription on a bowlder of greenstone rock lying in
the margin of the Assonet, or Taunton River, in the area of ancient
Vinland, was noticed by the New England colonists so early as 1680,
when Dr. Danforth made a drawing of it. This outline, together with
several subsequent copies of it, at different eras, reaching to 1830,
all differing considerably in their details, but preserving a certain
general resemblance, is presented in the Antiquatés Americanes
[_sic_] (Tab. XI, XII) and referred to the same era of Scandinavian
discovery. The imperfections of the drawings (including that executed
under the auspices of the Rhode Island Historical Society, in 1830,
Tab. XII) and the recognition of some characters bearing more or less
resemblance to antique Roman letters and figures, may be considered
to have misled Mr. Magnusen in his interpretation of it. From
whatever cause, nothing could, it would seem, have been wider from
the purport and true interpretation of it. It is of purely Indian
origin, and is executed in the peculiar symbolic character of the
Kekeewin.
ROCK CARVINGS IN PENNSYLVANIA.
Many of the rocks along the river courses in Northern and Western
Pennsylvania bear traces of carvings, though, on account of the
character of the geological formations, some of these records are
almost, if not entirely, obliterated.
Mr. P. W. Shafer published in a historical map of Pennsylvania, in
1875, several groups of pictographs. (They had before appeared in
a rude and crowded form in the Transactions of the Anthropological
Institute of New York, N. Y., 1871-’72, p. 66, Figs. 25, 26, where
the localities are mentioned as “Big” and “Little” Indian Rocks,
respectively.) One of these is situated on the Susquehanna River,
below the dam at Safe Harbor, and clearly shows its Algonkin origin.
The characters are nearly all either animals or various forms of the
human body. Birds, bird-tracks, and serpents also occur. A part of this
pictograph is presented below, Figure 149, page 226.
On the same chart a group of pictures is also given, copied from the
originals on the Allegheny River, in Venango County, 5 miles south of
Franklin. There are but six characters furnished in this instance,
three of which are variations of the human form, while the others are
undetermined.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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