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
Lieut. Whipple (_a_) remarks upon petroglyphs at Yampais spring,
Williams river, as follows:
The spot is a secluded glen among the mountains. A high shelving
rock forms a cave, within which is a pool of water and a crystal
stream flowing from it. The lower surface of the rock is covered
with pictographs. None of the devices seem to be of recent date.
Many of the country rocks lying on the Colorado plateau of northern
Arizona, east of Peach springs, bear petroglyphs of considerable
artistic workmanship. Some figures, observed by Dr. W. J. Hoffman in
1872, were rather elaborate and represented the sun, human beings in
various styles approaching the grotesque, and other characters not
understood. All of those observed were made by pecking the surface of
basalt with a harder variety of stone.
Mr. Gilbert also obtained sketches of etchings in November, 1878, on
Partridge creek, northern Arizona, at the point where the Beale wagon
road comes to it from the east. He says: “The rock is cross-laminated
Aubrey sandstone and the surfaces used are faces of the laminæ. All
the work is done by blows with a sharp point. (Obsidian is abundant
in the vicinity.) Some inscriptions are so fresh as to indicate that
the locality is still resorted to. No Indians live in the immediate
vicinity, but the region is a hunting ground of the Wallapais and
Avasupais (Cosninos).”
Notwithstanding the occasional visits of the above named tribes, the
characters submitted more nearly resemble those of other localities
known to have been made by the Moki Pueblos.
Rock drawings are of frequent occurrence along the entire extent of the
valley of the Rio Verde, from a short distance below Camp Verde to the
Gila river.
Mr. Thomas V. Keam reports drawings on the rocks in Canyon Segy, and in
Keam’s canyon, northeastern Arizona. Some forms occurring at the latter
locality are found also upon Moki pottery.
Petroglyphs are reported by Lieut. Theodore Mosher, Twenty-second
Infantry, U. S. Army, to have been discovered by Lieut. Casey’s party
in December, 1887, on the Chiulee (or Chilalí) creek, 30 or 40 miles
from its confluence with San Juan river, Arizona. A photograph made by
the officer in charge of the party shows the characters to have been
outlined by pecking, the designs resembling the Shoshonean type of
pictographs, and those in Owens valley, California, a description of
which is given below.
A figure, consisting of two concentric circles with a straight line
running out from the larger circle, occurs, among other carvings, on one
of the many sculptured bowlders seen by Mr. J. R. Bartlett (_a_) in the
valley of the Gila river in Arizona. His representation of this bowlder
is here copied as Fig. 8. His language is as follows:
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--Petroglyph in Arizona.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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