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 difference between high and low stage of water at any
period during the year does not exceed 4 feet, and this high-water
mark being well defined along the shore, it becomes self-evident
that these signs were placed there ages ago, when the water was
17 feet higher than it is now. The granite bluff or walls in this
instance are smooth, being weather and water worn, and afford no
hold for hand or foot either from above or below, and from careful
observation it would appear to be a physical impossibility for
either a white or red man to show his artistic skill on those rocks
unless at the ancient stage of water and with the aid of a canoe or
a “dugout.”
The paint or color used was black and red, the latter resembling
venetian. How wonderfully the color has stood the test in the face
of the storms to which the lake is subject is apparent; only in
one or two instances does it to-day show any signs of fading or
weather-wearing. The signs impressed me as intending to convey the
idea of the prowess of an Indian chief in the hunt, or as being a
page in the history of a tribe, the small perpendicular strokes seen
in the lower portion indicating probably the number of bear, deer,
or other animals slain.
When referring, in Pacific Railroad Report, vol. I, page 411, to a
locality on the Columbia river in Washington, between Yakima and
Pisquouse counties, Mr. George Gibbs mentioned pecked and colored
petroglyphs which he found there as follows:
It was a perpendicular rock, on the face of which were carved
sundry figures, most of them intended for men. They were slightly
sunk into the sandstone and colored, some black, others red, and
traces of paint remained more or less distinctly on all of them.
These also, according to their [the Indians’] report, were the work
of the ancient race; but from the soft nature of the rock, and the
freshness of some of the paint, they were probably not of extreme
antiquity.
For another example of petroglyphs from Washington see Fig. 679.
WEST VIRGINIA.
Mr. John Haywood (_d_) gives the following account:
In the county of Kenhaway [Kanawha] about 4 miles below the
Burning spring, and near the mouth of Campbell’s creek, in the state
of Virginia, is a rock of great size, on which, in ancient times,
the natives engraved many representations. There is the figure of
almost every indigenous animal--the buffalo, the bear, the deer,
the fox, the hare, and other quadrupeds of various kinds; fish of
the various productions of the western waters, fowls of different
descriptions, infants scalped, scalps alone, and men as large as
life. The rock is in the river Kenhaway, near its northern shore,
accessible only at low water unless by the aid of water craft.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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