For another example of pictographs from Washington see Figure 109, p. 190.
Rock Carvings in Utah
A locality in the southern interior of Utah has been called Pictograph Rocks, on account of the numerous records of that character found there.
Mr. G. K. Gilbert, of the United States Geological Survey, in 1875 collected a number of copies of inscriptions in Temple Creek Cañon, Southeastern Utah, accompanied by the following notes: “The drawings were found only on the northeast wall of the cañon, where it cuts the Vermillion cliff sandstone. The chief part are etched, apparently by pounding with a sharp point. The outline of a figure is usually more deeply cut than the body. Other marks are produced by rubbing or scraping, and still other by laying on colors. Some, not all, of the colors are accompanied by a rubbed appearance, as though the material had been a dry chalk.
“I could discover no tools at the foot of the wall, only fragments of pottery, flints, and a metate.
“Several fallen blocks of sandstone have rubbed depressions that may have been ground out in the sharpening of tools. There have been many dates of inscriptions, and each new generation has unscrupulously run its lines over the pictures already made. Upon the best protected surfaces, as well as the most exposed, there are drawings dimmed beyond restoration and others distinct. The period during which the work accumulated was longer by far than the time which has passed since the last. Some fallen blocks cover etchings on the wall, and are themselves etched.
“Colors are preserved only where there is almost complete shelter from rain. In two places the holes worn in the rock by swaying branches impinge on etchings, but the trees themselves have disappeared. Some etchings are left high and dry by a diminishing talus (15-20 feet), but I saw none partly buried by an increasing talus (except in the case of the fallen block already mentioned).
“The painted circles are exceedingly accurate, and it seems incredible that they were made without the use of a radius.”
In the collection contributed by Mr. Gilbert there are at least fifteen series or groups of figures, most of which consist of the human form (from the simplest to the most complex style of drawing), animals, either singly or in long files, as if driven, bird tracks, human feet and hands, etc. There are also circles, parallel lines, and waving or undulating lines, spots, and other unintelligible characters.
Mr. Gilbert also reports the discovery, in 1883, of a great number of pictographs, chiefly in color, though some are etched, in a cañon of the Book Cliff, containing Thompson’s spring, about 4 miles north of Thompson’s station, on the Denver and Colorado Railroad, Utah.
Collections of drawings of pictographs at Black Rock spring, on Beaver Creek, north of Milford, Utah, have been furnished by Mr. Gilbert. A number of fallen blocks of basalt, at a low escarpment, are filled with etchings upon the vertical faces. The characters are generally of an “unintelligible” nature, though the human figure is drawn in complex forms. Foot-prints, circles, etc., also abound.
Mr. I. C. Russell, of the United States Geological Survey, furnished rude drawings of pictographs at Black Rock spring, Utah (see Figure 153). Mr. Gilbert Thompson, of the United States Geological Survey, also discovered pictographs at Fool Creek Cañon, Utah (see Figure 154). Both of those figures are on page 230.
Rock Carvings in Colorado
Captain E. L. Berthoud furnished to the Kansas City Review of Science and Industry, VII, 1883, No. 8, pp. 489, 490, the following:
The place is 20 miles southeast of Rio Del Norte, at the entrance of the cañon of the Piedra Pintada (Painted Rock) Creek. The carvings are found on the right of the cañon, or valley, and upon volcanic rocks. They bear the marks of age and are cut in, not painted, as is still done by the Utes everywhere. They are found for a quarter of a mile along the north wall of the cañon, on the ranches of W. M. Maguire and F. T. Hudson, and consist of all manner of pictures, symbols, and hieroglyphics done by artists whose memory even tradition does not now preserve. The fact that these are carvings, done upon such hard rock merits them with additional interest, as they are quite distinct from the carvings I saw in New Mexico and Arizona on soft sand-stone. Though some of them are evidently of much greater antiquity than others, yet all are ancient, the Utes admitting them to have been old when their fathers conquered the country.
Rock Carvings in New Mexico
On the north wall of Cañon de Chelly, one fourth of a mile east of the mouth of the cañon, are several groups of pictographs, consisting chiefly of various grotesque forms of the human figure, and also numbers of animals, circles, etc. A few of them are painted black, the greater portion consisting of rather shallow lines which are in some places considerably weathered.
Further up the cañon, in the vicinity of cliff-dwellings, are numerous small groups of pictographic characters, consisting of men and animals, waving or zigzag lines, and other odd and “unintelligible” figures.
Lieut. J. H. Simpson gives several illustrations of pictographs copied from rocks in the northwest part of New Mexico in his Report of an Expedition into the Navajo Country. (Sen. Ex. Doc. No. 64, 31st Cong., 1st sess., 1856, Pl. 23, 24, 25.)
Inscriptions have been mentioned as occurring at El Moro, consisting of etchings of human figures and other unintelligible characters. This locality is better known as Inscription Rock. Lieutenant Simpson’s remarks upon it, with illustrations, are given in the work last cited, on page 120. He states that most of the characters are no higher than a man’s head, and that some of them are undoubtedly of Indian origin.
At Arch Spring, near Zuñi, figures are cut upon a rock which Lieutenant Whipple thinks present some faint similarity to those at Rocky Dell Creek. (Rep. Pac. R. R, Exped., Vol. III, 1856, Pt. III, p. 39, Pl. 32.)
Near Ojo Pescado, in the vicinity of the ruins, are pictographs, reported in the last mentioned volume and page, Plate 31, which are very much weather-worn, and have “no trace of a modern hand about them.”
Rock-Carvings in Arizona
On a table land near the Gila Bend is a mound of granite bowlders, blackened by augite, and covered with unknown characters, the work of human hands. On the ground near by were also traces of some of the figures, showing some of the pictographs, at least, to have been the work of modern Indians. Others were of undoubted antiquity, and the signs and symbols intended, doubtless, to commemorate some great event. (See Ex. Doc. No. 41, 30th Cong., 1st sess. (Emory’s Reconnaissance), 1848, p. 89; Ill. opposite p. 89, and on p. 90.)
Characters upon rocks, of questionable antiquity, are reported in the last-mentioned volume, Plate, p. 63, to occur on the Gila River, at 32° 38′ 13″ N. lat., and 109° 07′ 30″ long. [According to the plate, the figures are found upon bowlders and on the face of the cliff to the height of about 30 feet.]
The party under Lieutenant Whipple (see Rep. Pac. R. R. Exped., III, 1856, Pt. III, p. 42) also discovered pictographs at Yampais Spring, Williams River. “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