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
The rude cuts of the human faces, part of the human feet, the rings,
stars, serpents, and some others, are evidently works of art, as in the
best of them the marks of the engraving instrument are to be seen. In
all cases, whether single or in groups, the relative dimensions of the
figures are preserved. The surface of this block is 8 by 11 feet.
At the south end of the petroglyphs occurs a figure of several
concentric rings, a design by no means confined to Ohio. The third
figure right of this resembles others in the same group, and evidently
indicates the footprints of the buffalo. Human footprints are generally
indicated by the pronounced toe marks, either detached as slight
depressions or attached to the foot, and are thus recognized as
different from bear tracks, which frequently have but slight indications
of toes or perhaps claw marks, and in which also the foot is shorter
or rounder. The arrow-shaped figures are no doubt intended for turkey
tracks, characters common to many petroglyphs of the middle and eastern
Algonquian area.
Fig. 66 gives several of the above characters enlarged from the
preceding figure.
[Illustration: FIG. 66.--Characters from Barnesville Track rock.]
In Fig. 67, referring to another block mentioned in the same report,
lying 20 feet south of the one first mentioned, there is a duplication
of the characters before noted--human footprints, bear and turkey
tracks, and the indication of what may be intended to represent a
serpent.
[Illustration: FIG. 67.--Barnesville Track rock, No. 2.]
Fig. 68, from p. 105 of the same volume, gives copies of sketches from
the rocks near Wellsville, Ohio, with remarks as follows:
[Illustration: FIG. 68.--Petroglyphs, Wellsville, Ohio.]
On the Ohio side of the river, 1 mile above Wellsville, there is
a large group of sculptures on a flat sand rock of the coal series,
scarred by floating ice and flood wood. They are only visible in
low water, as they are only 2 or 3 feet above the extreme low stage
of the river. * * * They are made in double outline and not by a
single deep channel. The outlines are a series of dots made with a
round-pointed instrument, seldom more than half an inch deep.
The upper design is a rattlesnake with a fancy head and tail.
Its length is 4-1/2 feet, a very clumsy affair, but intended for
the common yellow rattlesnake of the West. The head of the snake,
which occupies a space 6 inches square, is represented in the second
character, which is reduced from a tracing size of nature. It brings
to mind the horned snake of the Egyptians, which was an object of
worship by them.
The character at the left hand of the lower line may be an
uncouth representation of a demon or evil spirit. The right-hand
character is probably an otter carrying a vine or string in his
month.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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