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
At the private ethnologic collection of Mr. A. F. Coronel, of Los
Angeles, California, Dr. Hoffman discovered a clue to the general import
of the above petroglyphs, as well as the signification of some of their
characters. In a collection of colored illustrations of old Mexican
costumes he found blankets bearing borders and colors nearly identical
with those shown in the circles in Fig. 32, _d_, and Fig. 33, _c_, _r_,
_w_. It is probable that the circles represent bales of blankets which
early became articles of trade at the Santa Barbara mission. If this
supposition is correct, the cross lines would seem to represent the
cords used in tying the blankets into bales, which same cross lines
appear as cords in _l_, Fig. 33. Mr. Coronel also possesses small
figures of Mexicans, of various conditions of life, costumes, trades,
and professions, one of which, a painted statuette, is a representation
of a Mexican lying down flat upon an outspread serape, similar in
color and form to the black and white bands shown in the upper figure
of _d_, Fig. 32, and _a_, _b_, of Fig. 33, and instantly suggesting
the explanation of those figures. Upon the latter the continuity of
the black and white bands is broken, as the human figures are probably
intended to be in front, or on top, of the drawings of the blankets.
[Illustration: FIG. 33.--Petroglyph in Santa Barbara county, California.]
The small statuette above mentioned is that of a Mexican trader, and
if the circles in the petroglyphs are considered to represent bales of
blankets, the character in Fig. 32, _d_, is still more interesting,
from the union of one of these circles with a character representing
the trader, i. e., the man possessing the bales. Bales, or what appear
to be bales, are represented to the top and right of the circle in
_d_, in that figure. In Fig. 33, _l_, a bale is upon the back of what
appears to be a horse, led in an upward direction by an Indian whose
headdress and ends of the breechcloth are visible. To the right of the
bale are three short lines, evidently showing the knot or ends of the
cords used in tying a bale of blankets without colors, therefore of less
importance, or of other goods. Other human forms appear in the attitude
of making gestures, one also in _j_, Fig. 33, probably carrying a bale
of goods. In the same figure _u_ represents a centipede, an insect found
occasionally south of the mountains, but reported as extremely rare in
the immediate northern regions. For remarks upon _x_ in the same figure
see Chapter XX, Section 2, under the heading The Cross.
Mr. Coronel stated that when he first settled in Los Angeles, in 1843,
the Indians living north of the San Fernando mountains manufactured
blankets of the fur and hair of animals, showing transverse bands of
black and white similar to those depicted, which were sold to the
inhabitants of the valley of Los Angeles and to Indians who transported
them to other tribes.
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