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
After the distribution of firearms among the Indians, bullets
were substituted for arrows, and even to this day no savage presumes
to pass the spot without discharging his rifle and raising his shout
of triumph. I visited the spot in June (1838) and examined the image
and the ten thousand bullet marks on the cliff seemed to corroborate
the tradition related to me in the neighborhood.
Mr. McAdams, loc. cit., also reports regarding Fig. 42:
[Illustration: FIG. 42.--Petroglyph on the Illinois river.]
Some twenty-five or thirty miles above the mouth of the Illinois
river, on the west bank of that stream, high up on the smooth
face of an overhanging cliff, is another interesting pictograph
sculptured deeply in the hard rock. It remains to-day probably in
nearly the same condition it was when the French voyagers first
descended the river and got their first view of the Mississippi.
The animal-like body, with the human head, is carved in the rock in
outline. The huge eyes are depressions like saucers, an inch or more
in depth, and the outline of the body has been scooped out in the
same way; also the mouth.
The figure of the archer with the drawn bow, however, is
painted, or rather stained with a reddish brown pigment, over the
sculptured outline of the monster’s face.
Mr. McAdams suggests that the painted figure of the human form with the
bow and arrows was made later than the sculpture.
The same author (_b_) says, describing Fig. 43:
[Illustration: FIG. 43.--Petroglyph near Alton, Illinois.]
Some 3 or 4 miles above Alton, high up beneath the overhanging
cliff, which forms a sort of cave shelter on the smooth face of a
thick ledge of rock, is a series of paintings, twelve in number.
They are painted or rather stained in the rock with a reddish brown
pigment that seems to defy the tooth of time. It may be said,
however, that their position is so sheltered that they remain almost
perfectly dry. We made sketches of them some thirty years ago and on
a recent visit could see that they had changed but little, although
their appearance denotes great age.
These pictographs are situated on the cliff more than a hundred
feet above the river. A protruding ledge, which is easily reached
from a hollow in the bluff, leads to the cavernous place in the rock.
Mr. James D. Middleton, formerly of the Bureau of Ethnology, mentions
the occurrence of petroglyphs on the bluffs of the Mississippi river, in
Jackson county, about 12 miles below Rockwood. Also of others about 4 or
5 miles from Prairie du Rocher, near the Mississippi river.
IOWA.
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