One of the most frequent is that resembling a horseshoe within which is a vertical stroke. Sometimes the upper extremity of such stroke is attached to the upper inside curve of the broken ring, and frequently there are two or more parallel vertical strokes within one such curve. Bear-tracks and the outline of human feet also occur, besides several unique forms. A few of these forms are figured, though not accurately, in the Ann. Report upon the Geog. Surveys west of the 100th meridian last mentioned (1876), Plate facing p. 326.
Lieutenant Whipple reports (Rep. Pac. R. R. Exped. III, 1856, Pt. III, p. 42, Pl. 36) the discovery of pictographs at Pai-Ute Creek, about 30 miles west of the Mojave villages. These are carved upon a rock, “are numerous, appear old, and are too confusedly obscure to be easily traceable.”
These bear great general resemblance to etchings scattered over Northeast Arizona, Southern Utah, and Western New Mexico.
Remarkable pictographs have also been found at Tule River Agency. See Figure 155, page 235.
Colored Pictographs on Rocks
Mr. Gilbert Thompson reports the occurrence of painted characters at Paint Lick Mountain, 3 miles north of Maiden Spring, Tazewell County, Virginia. These characters are painted in red, blue, and yellow. A brief description of this record is given in a work by Mr. Charles B. Coale, entitled “The Life and Adventures of Wilburn Waters,” etc., Richmond, 1878, p. 136.
Mr. John Haywood (The Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, Nashville, 1823, p. 149) mentions painted figures of the sun, moon, a man, birds, etc., on the bluffs on the south bank of the Holston, 5 miles above the mouth of the French Broad. These are painted in red colors on a limestone bluff. He states that they were attributed to the Cherokee Indians, who made this a resting place when journeying through the region. This author furthermore remarks: “Wherever on the rivers of Tennessee are perpendicular bluffs on the sides, and especially if caves be near, are often found mounds near them, enclosed in intrenchments, with the sun and moon painted on the rocks,” etc.
Among the many colored etchings and paintings on rock discovered by the Pacific Railroad Expedition in 1853-’54 (Rep. Pac. R. R. Exped., III, 1856, Pt. III, pp. 36, 37, Pll. 28, 29, 30) may be mentioned those at Rocky Dell Creek, New Mexico, which were found between the edge of the Llano Estacado and the Canadian River. The stream flows through a gorge, upon one side of which a shelving sandstone rock forms a sort of cave. The roof is covered with paintings, some evidently ancient, and beneath are innumerable carvings of footprints, animals, and symmetrical lines.
Mr. James H. Blodgett, of the U. S. Geological Survey, calls attention to the paintings on the rocks of the bluffs of the Mississippi River, a short distance below the mouth of the Illinois River, in Illinois, which were observed by early French explorers, and have been the subject of discussion by much more recent observers.
Mr. P. W. Norris found numerous painted totemic characters upon the cliffs in the immediate vicinity of the pipestone quarry, Minnesota. These consisted, probably, of the totems or names of Indians who had visited that locality for the purpose of obtaining catlinite for making pipes. These had been mentioned by early writers.
Mr. Norris also discovered painted characters upon the cliffs on the Mississippi River, 19 miles below New Albin, in northeastern Iowa.
Mr. Gilbert Thompson reports his observation of pictographs at San Antonio Springs, 30 miles east of Fort Wingate, New Mexico. The human form, in various styles, occurs, as well as numerous other characters strikingly similar to those frequent in the country, farther west, occupied by the Moki Indians. The peculiarity of these figures is that the outlines are incised or etched, the depressions thus formed being filled with pigments of either red, blue, or white. The interior portions of the figures are simply painted with one or more of the same colors.
Charles D. Wright, esq., of Durango, Colorado, writes that he has discovered “hieroglyphical writings” upon rocks and upon the wall of a cliff house near the Colorado and New Mexico boundary line. On the wall in one small building was found a series of characters in red and black paints, consisting of a “chief on his horse, armed with spear and lance, wearing a pointed hat and robe; behind this were about twenty characters representing people on horses, lassoing horses, etc.; in fact, the whole scene represented breaking camp and leaving in a hurry. The whole painting measured about 12 by 16 feet.” Other rock-paintings are also mentioned as occurring near the San Juan River, consisting of four characters representing men as if in the act of taking an obligation, hands extended, etc. At the right are some characters in black paint, covering a space 3 by 4 feet.
The rock-paintings presented in Plates I and II are reduced copies of a record found by Dr. W. J. Hoffman, of the Bureau of Ethnology, in September, 1884, 12 miles west-northwest of the city of Santa Barbara, California. They are one-sixteenth original size. The locality is almost at the summit of the Santa Ynez range of mountains; the gray sandstone rock on which they are painted is about 30 feet high and projects from a ridge so as to form a very marked promontory extending into a narrow mountain cañon. At the base of the western side of this bowlder is a rounded cavity, measuring, on the inside, about 15 feet in width and 8 feet in height. The floor ascends rapidly toward the back of the cave, and the entrance is rather smaller in dimensions than the above measurements of the interior. About 40 yards west of this rock is a fine spring of water. One of the four old Indian trails leading northward across the mountains passes by this locality, and it is probable that this was one of the camping-places of the tribe which came south to trade, and that some of its members were the authors of the paintings. The three trails beside the one just mentioned cross the mountains at various points east of this, the most distant being about 15 miles. Other trails were known, but these four were most direct to the immediate vicinity of the Spanish settlement which sprang up shortly after the establishment of the Santa Barbara Mission in 1786. Pictographs (not now described) appear upon rocks found at or near the origin of all of the above-mentioned trails at the base of the mountains, with the exception of the one under consideration. The appearance and position of these pictographs appear to be connected with the several trails.
The circles figured in b and d of Plate I, and c, r, and w of Plate II, together with other similar circular marks bearing cross-lines upon the interior, were at first unintelligible, as their forms among various tribes have very different signification. The character in Plate I, above and projecting from d, resembles the human form, with curious lateral bands of black and white, alternately. Two similar characters appear, also, in Plate II, a, b. In a, the lines from the head would seem to indicate a superior rank or condition of the person depicted.
PL. I
PICTOGRAPHS IN SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
PL. II
PICTOGRAPHS IN SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
Having occasion subsequently to visit the private ethnologic collection of Hon. A. F. Coronel, of Los Angeles, California, Dr. Hoffman discovered a clue to the general import of the above record, as well as the signification of some of the characters above mentioned. In a collection of colored illustrations of Mexican costumes some of them probably a century old, he found blankets bearing borders and colors, nearly identical with those shown in the circles in Plate I, d, and Plate II, c, r, w. It is more than 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, Plate II. Mr. Coronel