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
* * Upon a nearly vertical wall of the yellow sandstones just back
of Murphy’s ranch, a number of rude figures had been chiseled,
apparently at a period not very recent, as they had become much worn.
* * * No certain clue to the connected meaning of this record was
obtained, although Pínatsi attempted to explain it when the sketch
was shown to him some days later by Mr. F. W. Bond, who copied the
inscriptions from the rocks. The figure on the left, in the upper
row, somewhat resembles the design commonly used to represent a
shield, with the greater part of the ornamental fringe omitted,
perhaps worn away in the inscription. We shall possibly be justified
in regarding the whole as an attempt to record the particulars of a
fight or battle which once occurred in this neighborhood. Pínatsi’s
remarks conveyed the idea to Mr. Bond that he understood the figure
[the second in the upper line] to signify cavalry, and the six
figures [three in the middle of the upper line, as also the three to
the left of the lower line,] to mean infantry, but he did not appear
to recognize the hieroglyphs as the copy of any record with which he
was familiar.
Several years ago Dr. W. J. Hoffman showed these (as well as other
pictographs from the same locality) to several prominent Shoshoni
Indians from near that locality, who at once pronounced them the work
of the Pawkees (Satsika, or Blackfeet), who formerly occupied that
country. The general resemblance of many of the drawings from this area
of country is similar to many of the Eastern Algonkin records. The
Satsika are part of the great Algonkian stock.
Throughout the Wind River country of Wyoming many pictographic records
have been found, and others reported by the Shoshoni Indians. These
are said, by the latter, to be the work of the “Pawkees,” as they call
the Blackfeet, or more properly Satsika, and the general style of
many of the figures bears strong resemblance to similar carvings found
in the eastern portion of the United States, in regions known to have
been occupied by other tribes of the same linguistic stock, viz., the
Algonkian.
The four specimens of Algonkian petroglyphs presented above in Figures
147-150 show gradations in type. In connection with them reference may
be made to the Ojibwa bark record, Figure 139, page 218; the Ojibwa
grave-posts, Plate LXXXIII; the Ottawa pipe-stem, Figure 120, page 204,
in this paper; and to Schoolcraft’s numerous Ojibwa pictographs; and
they may be contrasted with the many Dakota and Innuit drawings in this
paper.
Mr. G. K. Gilbert has furnished a small collection of drawings of
Shoshonian petroglyphs, from Oneida, Idaho, shown in Figure 151. Some
of them appear to be totemic characters, and to record the names of
visitors to the locality.
[Illustration: FIG. 151.--Shoshonian petroglyph. Idaho.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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