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
On the Loma Muñoz, near the Rio Arriba above mentioned, and
on the summit of the hill, stands a dark rock with smooth face
protected by another mass of rock, forming a sort of shelter on
which is an inscription composed of a number of incised grinning
faces. At the confluence of the Rio Blanco and the Rio de la Ceiba,
in the district of Fajardo, is a series of violent rapids formed
by immense rocks of a granitic character, on which are cut a large
number of other grimacing faces and also some swaddled figures, and
other incisions which are not of interest.
BAHAMA ISLANDS.
Lady Edith Blake, wife of Sir Henry Arthur Blake, formerly governor
of the Bahama islands, has kindly furnished the following information
and sketches (Figs. 100, 101, and 102), relating to petroglyphs in the
Bahama islands. Lady Blake says:
The carvings are on the walls of an “Indian hole,” also called
Hartford cave, in the northern shore of a small island in Rum Cay,
one of the Bahama group. Rum Cay measures 5 miles from north to
south and about 8 or 9 from east to west. It lies 20 miles northwest
of Watlings island, the San Salvador of Columbus.
The cave is situated on the seashore about a mile and a half
from the western point of the island to the eastward of a bluff,
close to which is a “puffing hole,” through which the waves blow
when the seas roll in from the north. The cave is semicircular in
shape and about 20 yards in depth, and is partially filled with
debris of rocks, earth, and sand.
[Illustration: FIG. 100.--Petroglyphs in the Bahamas.]
Like all rocks of which the Bahamas are formed, those in
Hartford cave are a mixture of coral, detritus, and shell, very
rough and full of cracks and indentations, and in this cave, from
the constant damp of filtration and spray, the walls were coated
with a deposit of lime and salt, so that it would be impossible
to say if the carvings had been colored. If ever they had been,
any traces of coloring must long have disappeared. Besides the
markings copied there were others scattered over the walls of the
cave, most of which were circles apparently resembling human faces.
Unfortunately, we neglected to measure the carvings, but I should
judge the circles or faces to be 10 inches or more across, while
others of the figures must have been a foot and a half in length,
and the markings must have been nearly half an inch in depth, cut
into the face of the rock, and seemed to us such as might have been
made with a sharp stone implement. Although we visited numerous
caves in the various islands of the Bahamas, in no other did we find
any appearance of markings or carvings on the walls, nor could we
hear of any reported to have such markings.
[Illustration: FIG. 101.--Petroglyphs in the Bahamas.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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