Picture-Writing of the American Indians: Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1888-89, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1893, pages 3-822Mallery, Garrick
History
Picture-Writing of the American Indians: Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1888-89, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1893, pages 3-822
Mallery, Garrick
Picture-writing, Indian
A number at Reveillé, in the same county, are also marked. On
the road to Tybo every large rock is marked, one of the figures
being a semicircle with a short vertical spoke within the curve.
At Reno a heavy black rock a couple of feet across is beautifully
engraved to represent a bull’s eye of 4 rings, an arrow with a very
large feather, and one which may mean a man. In a steep canyon 15
miles northeast of Reno, in Spanish Spring mountains, several cliffs
are well marked, and an exposed ledge, where the Carson river has
cut off the point of a hill below Big Bend, is covered with rings
and snakes by the hundred. Several triangles, a well-formed square
and compass, a woman with outstretched arms holding an olive branch,
etc., are there.
Humboldt county has its share, the best being on a bluff below
the old Sheba mine. Ten miles south of Pioche are about 50 figures
cut into the rock, many of them designed to represent mountain
sheep. Eighty miles farther south, near Kane’s Spring, the most
numerous and perfect specimens of this prehistoric art are found.
Men on horseback engaged in the pursuit of animals are among the
most numerous, best preserved, and carefully executed.
The region I have gone over is of immense size, and must impress
everyone with the importance of a set of symbols which extends in
broken lines from Arizona far into Oregon.
Fig. 55 exhibits engravings at Reveillé, Nevada. Great numbers of
incised characters of various kinds are also reported from the walls of
rocks flanking Walker river, near Walker lake, Nevada. Waving lines,
rings, and what appear to be vegetable forms are of frequent occurrence.
The human form and footprints are also depicted.
[Illustration: FIG. 55.--Petroglyphs at Reveillé, Nevada.]
Fig. 56 is a copy of a drawing made by Lieut. A. G. Tassin, Twelfth U.
S. Infantry, in 1877, of an ancient rock-carving at the base and in the
recesses of Dead mountain and the abode of dead bad Indians according
to the Mohave mythology. This drawing and its description is from a
manuscript report on the Mohave Indians, in the library of the Bureau of
Ethnology, prepared by Lieut. Tassin.
[Illustration: FIG. 56.--Petroglyphs at Dead mountain, Nevada.]
He explains some of the characters as follows:
(_a_) Evidently the two different species of mesquite bean.
(_b_) Would seem to refer to the bite of the cidatus, and to the
use of a certain herb for its cure.
(_c_) Presumably the olla or water cooler of the Mohaves.
The whole of this series of petroglyphs is regarded as being Shinumo or
Moki. They show a general resemblance to drawings in Arizona, known to
have been made by the Moki Indians. The locality is within the territory
of the Shoshonean linguistic division, and the drawings are in all
probability the work of one or more of the numerous tribes comprised
within that division.
NEW MEXICO.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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