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 most striking group observed is given in Fig. 37 A, same
locality. It consists of a great procession of men, birds, beasts,
and fanciful figures. The whole picture as placed upon a rock is
highly spirited and the idea of a general movement toward the right,
skillfully portrayed. A pair of winged figures hover about the train
as if to watch, or direct its movements; behind these are a number
of odd figures, followed by an antlered animal resembling a deer,
which seems to be drawing a notched sledge containing two figures
of men. The figures forming the main body of the procession appear
to be tied together in a continuous line, and in form resemble one
living creature about as little as another. Many of the smaller
figures above and below are certainly intended to represent dogs,
while a number of men are stationed about here and there as if to
keep the procession in order.
[Illustration: FIG. 37.--Petroglyphs on the Rio San Juan, New
Mexico.]
As to the importance of the event recorded in this picture,
no conclusions can be drawn; it may represent the migration of a
tribe or family or the trophies of a victory. A number of figures
are wanting in the drawing at the left, while some of those at the
right may not belong properly to the main group. The reduction is,
approximately, to one-twelfth.
Designs B and C of the same figure represent only the more
distinct portions of two other groups. The complication of figures
is so great that a number of hours would have been necessary for
their delineation, and an attempt to analyze them here would be
fruitless.
It will be noticed that the last two petroglyphs are in New Mexico, but
they are so near the border of Colorado and so connected with the series
in that state that they are presented under the same heading.
CONNECTICUT.
The following account is extracted from Rafn’s Antiquitates Americanæ
(_a_):
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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