The Archaeology of the Yakima ValleySmith, Harlan Ingersoll
History
The Archaeology of the Yakima Valley
Smith, Harlan Ingersoll
Yakima River Valley (Wash.) -- Antiquities
The human figure with feather headdress indicated by ten lines shown in
Fig. 1, Plate XIV is all in red. It is the next to the westernmost
pictograph at this site. It is 457 mm. high, the ends of the legs are
279 mm. apart, the tip of the arms 254 mm., the width of the headdress
229 mm. and the height of the middle feather 101 mm. There are four
horizontal red lines on the overhanging column above the figure.[358]
Fig. 2, Plate XIV shows human heads with feather headdresses in
white.[359] Fig. 1, Plate XV shows similar human heads with feather
headdresses also in white.[360] Fig. 2, Plate xv shows human heads with
feather headdresses in white and a double star figure in white and
red.[361] Plate XVI[362] shows human heads with feather headdresses in
white and red. In addition, Fig. 2 shows the advertisement of a modern
business man over the pictographs. Some of the pictographs at the same
place have every alternate radiating line in red, while others are in
white.
[358] Museum negative no. 44479, 4-4 taken from the east. First
reproduced in Smith, (g), Fig. 2, Plate VIII.
[359] Museum negative no. 44483, 4-8 from the north. First
reproduced _Ibid._, Fig. 1, Plate VIII.
[360] Museum negative no. 44485, 4-10 from the north.
[361] Museum negative no. 44480, 4-5 from the north.
[362] Museum negatives nos. 44486, 4-11, 44487 4-12 from the north.
Mr. G. R. Shafer informed me that he knows of painted rocks in the Teton
River Valley, 20 miles above the Nelson Bridge, which crosses the Naches
a short distance above the mouth of Cowiche Creek. Mr. W. H. Wilcox of
North Yakima stated to me that there are pictures on rocks on the west
side of the Columbia River ten miles south of Wenatchee. Bancroft[363]
refers to painted and "carved" pictures on the perpendicular rocks
between Yakima and Pisquouse. According to Mallery, "Capt. Charles
Bendire, U. S. Army, states in a letter that Col. Henry C. Merriam, U.
S. Army, discovered pictographs on a perpendicular cliff of granite at
the lower end of Lake Chelan, lat. 48° N., near old Fort O'Kinakane, on
the upper Columbia River. The etchings appear to have been made at
widely different periods, and are evidently quite old. Those which
appeared the earliest were from twenty-five to thirty feet above the
present water level. Those appearing more recent are about ten feet
above water level. The figures are in black and red colors, representing
Indians with bows and arrows, elk, deer, bear, beaver, and fish. There
are four or five rows of these figures, and quite a number in each row.
The present native inhabitants know nothing whatever regarding the
history of these paintings."[364] Apparently only paintings are meant.
[363] Bancroft, IV., p. 735; Lord, II, pp. 102 and 260; Gibbs, I, p.
411.
[364] Mallery, p. 26.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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