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
This rock was visited in 1886 by Dr. Hoffman, who made a number of
drawings of objects represented, of which only those in Fig. 74 are here
reproduced. The face of the bowlder bearing the original petroglyphs has
been much disfigured by visitors who, in endeavoring to display their
skill by pecking upon the surface names, dates, and other designs, have
so injured it that it is difficult to trace the original characters.
[Illustration: FIG. 74.--Petroglyphs on “Indian God rock.”]
Fig. 74, _a_, represents, apparently, a panther. Above and beneath it
are markings resembling wolf tracks, while farther down is a turkey
track, and in the left-hand lower corner is a human form, such as is
usually found upon rocks in the areas represented by Shoshonian tribes.
The design at _b_ is much mutilated and eroded, and may originally have
been a character like _a_, the first of this series.
The characters at _c_ and _d_ are evidently human faces, the former
representing that of the sun, the latter being very much like a mask.
That at _e_ is found upon other Algonquian rocks, notably those called
“Bald Friar,” Maryland, in the Susquehanna river, immediately below the
state line of Pennsylvania.
The bowlder upon which these petroglyphs are engraved lies at the
water’s edge, and during each freshet the lower half of the surface
and sometimes even more is under water. At these times floating logs,
impelled according to the curve in the river immediately above, are
directed toward this rock, which may explain the worn surface and the
eroded condition of the sculpture.
Mr. J. Sutton Wall, of Monongahela city, describes in correspondence
a rock bearing pictographs opposite the town of Millsboro, in Fayette
county, Pennsylvania. This rock is about 390 feet above the level of the
Monongahela river, and belongs to the Waynesburg stratum of sandstone.
It is detached and rests somewhat below its true horizon. It is about 6
feet in thickness, and has vertical sides; only two figures are carved
on the sides, the principal inscriptions being on the top, and all are
now considerably worn. Mr. Wall mentions the outlines of animals and
some other figures formed by grooves or channels cut from an inch to
a mere trace in depth. No indications of tool marks were discovered.
The footprints are carved depressions. The character marked z, near
the lower left-hand corner, is a circular cavity 7 inches deep. A copy
of the inscription made in 1882 by Mr. Wall and Mr. William Arison is
reproduced as Fig. 75.
[Illustration: FIG. 75.--Petroglyph at Millsboro, Pennsylvania.]
Again the resemblance between these drawings, those on Dighton rock,
and some of those in Ohio, introduced above, is to be noted, and the
fact that all these localities are within the area formerly occupied by
tribes of the Algonquian stock.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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