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In the plan of this work a distinction has been made between a petroglyph, as Andree names the class, or rock-writing, as Ewbank called it, and all other descriptions of picture-writing. The criterion for the former is that the picture, whether carved or pecked, or otherwise incised, and whether figured only by coloration or by coloration and incision together, is upon a rock either in situ or sufficiently large for inference that the picture was imposed upon it where it was found. This criterion allows geographic classification. In presenting the geographic distribution, prominence is necessarily (because of the laws authorizing this work) given to the territory occupied by the United States of America, but examples are added from various parts of the globe, not only for comparison of the several designs, but to exhibit the prevalence of the pictographic practice in an ancient form, though probably not the earliest form. The rocks have preserved archaic figures, while designs which probably were made still earlier on less enduring substances are lost.

Throughout the world in places where rocks of a suitable character appear, and notably in South America, markings on them have been found similar to those in North America, though until lately they have seldom been reported with distinct description or with illustration. They are not understood by the inhabitants of their vicinity, who generally hold them in superstitious regard, and many of them appear to have been executed from religious motives. They are now most commonly found remaining where the population has continued to be sparse, or where civilization has not been of recent introduction, with exceptions such as appear in high development on the Nile.

The superstitions concerning petroglyphs are in accord with all other instances where peoples in all ages and climes, when observing some phenomenon which they did not understand, accounted for it by supernatural action. The following examples are selected as of interest in the present connection.

It must be premised with reference to the whole character of the mythology and folk-lore of the Indians that, even when professed converts to Christianity, they seem to have taken little interest in the stories of the Christian church, whether the biblical narratives or the lives and adventures of the saints, which are so constantly dwelt upon throughout the Christian world that they have become folk-lore. The general character of the Christian legends does not seem to have suited the taste of Indians and has not at all impaired their affection for or their belief in the aboriginal traditions.

Among the gods or demigods of the Abnaki are those who particularly preside over the making of petroglyphs. Their name in the plural, for there are several personages, is Oonagamessok. They lived in caves by the shore and were never seen, but manifested their existence by inscriptions on the rocks. The fact that these inscribed rocks are now very seldom found is accounted for by the statement that the Oonagamessok have become angry at the want of attention paid to them since the arrival of the white people and have caused the pictures to disappear. There is no evidence to determine whether this tradition should be explained by the fact that the ingenious shamans of the last century would sometimes produce a miracle, carving the rocks themselves and interpreting the marks in their own way, or by the fact that the rock inscriptions were so old that their origin was not remembered and an explanation was, as usual, made by ascription to a special divinity, perhaps a chieftain famous in the old stage of mythology, or perhaps one invented for the occasion by the class of priests who from immemorial antiquity have explained whatever was inexplicable.

At a rock near the mouth of the Magiguadavic river, at the time immediately before the Passamaquoddy Indians chose their first governor after the manner of the whites, the old Indians say there suddenly appeared a white man’s flag carved on the rocks. The old Indians interpreted this as a prophecy that the people would soon be abandoned to the white man’s methods, and this came to pass shortly after. Formerly they had a “Mayouett” or chief. Many other rock carvings are said to have foretold what has since come to pass. Strange noises have also been heard near them.

The Omaha superstition is mentioned on pages 91-92 infra.

The Mandans had an oracle stone on which figures appeared on the morning after a night of public fasting. They were deciphered by the shaman, who doubtless had made them.

Mr. T. H. Lewis (a) gives the following tradition relating to the incised bowlders in the upper Minnesota valley:

In olden times there used to be an object that marked the bowlders at night. It could be seen, but its exact shape was indistinct. It would work making sounds like hammering, and occasionally emit a light similar to that of a firefly. After finishing its work it would give one hearty laugh like a woman laughing and then disappear. The next morning the Indians would find another pictured bowlder in the vicinity where the object had been seen the night previous.

Mr. J. W. Lynd (a) says of the Dakotas:

The deities upon which the most worship is bestowed, if, indeed, any particular one is nameable, are Tunkan (Inyan) the Stone God and Wakinyan, the Thunder Bird. The latter, as being the main god of war, receives constant worship and sacrifices; whilst the adoration of the former is an every-day affair. The Tunkan, the Dakotas say, is the god that dwells in stones or rocks, and is the oldest god. If asked why it is considered the oldest, they will tell you because it is the hardest.

Mr. Charles Hallock, on the authority of Capt. Ed. Hunter, First Cavalry, U. S. A., furnishes the following information respecting the Assiniboin, Montana, rock pictures, which shows the reverence of these Indians for the petroglyphs even when in ruins:

Some of the rocks of the sculptured cliff cleaved off and tumbled to the ground, whereupon the Indians assembled in force, stuck up a pole, hung up some buffalo heads and dried meat, had a song and dance, and carefully covered the detached fragments (which were sculptured or painted) with cotton cloth and blankets. Jim Brown, a scout, told Capt. Hunter that the Indians assembled at this station at stated times to hold religious ceremonies. The pictures are drawn on the smooth face of an outcrop or rocky projection.

Marcano (a) gives an account in which superstition is mixed with historic tradition. It is translated as follows:

The legend of the Tamanaques, transmitted by Father Gili, has also been invoked in favor of an ancient civilization. According to the beliefs of this nation, there took place in days of old a general inundation, which recalls the age of the great waters of the Mexicans, during which the scattered waves beat against the Encaramada. All the Tamanaques were drowned except one man and one woman, who fled to the mountain of Tamacu or Tamanácu, situated on the banks of Asiveru (Cuchivero). They threw above their heads the fruits of the palm tree, Mauritia, and saw arising from their kernels the men and women who repeopled the earth. It was during this inundation that Amalavica, the creator of mankind, arrived on a bark and carved the inscription of Tepumereme. Amalavica remained long among the Tamanaques, and dwelt in Amalavica-Jeutitpe (house). After putting everything in order he set sail and returned “to the other shore,” whence he had come. “Did you perchance meet him there?” said an Indian to Father Gili, after relating to him this story. In this connection Humboldt recalls that in Mexico, too, the monk Sahagun was asked whether he came from the other shore, whither Quetzalcoatl had retired.

The same traveler adds: “When you ask the natives how the hieroglyphic characters carved on the mountains of Urbana and Encaramada could have been traced, they reply that this was done in the age of the great waters, at the time when their fathers were able to reach the heights in their canoes.”

If these legends and these petroglyphs are proof of an extinct civilization, it is astonishing that their authors should have left no other traces of their culture. To come to the point, is it admissible that they were replaced by savage tribes without leaving a trace of what they had been, and can we understand this retrograde march of civilization when progress everywhere follows an ascending course? These destructions of American tribes in place are very convenient to prop up theories, but they are contrary to ethnologic laws.

The remarkable height of some petroglyphs has misled authors of good repute as well as savages. Petroglyphs frequently appear on the face of rocks at heights and under conditions which seemed to render their production impossible without the appliances of advanced civilization, a large outlay, and the exercise of unusual skill. An instance among many of the same general character is in the petroglyphs at Lake Chelan, Washington, where they are about 30 feet above the present water level, on a perpendicular cliff, the base of which is in the lake. On simple examination the execution of the pictographic work would seem to involve details of wharfing, staging, and ladders if operated from the base, and no less elaborate machinery if approached from the summit. Strahlenberg suggests that such elevated drawings were made by the ingenious use of stone wedges driven into the rock, thus affording support for ascent or descent, and reports that he actually saw such stone wedges in position on the Yenesei river. A very rough geological theory has been presented by others to account for the phenomena by the rise of the rocks to a height far above the adjacent surface at a time later than their carving.

But in the many cases observed in America it is not necessary to propose either the hypothesis involving such elaborate work as is suggested or one postulating enormous geological changes. The escarpment of cliffs is from time to time broken down by the action of the elements and the fragments fall to the base, frequently forming a talus of considerable height, on which it is easy to mount and incise or paint on the remaining perpendicular face of the cliff. When the latter adjoins a lake or large stream, the disintegrated débris is almost immediately carried off, leaving the drawings or paintings at an apparently inaccessible altitude. When the cliff is on dry land, the rain, which is driven against the face of the cliff and thereby increased in volume and force at the point in question, also sweeps away the talus, though more slowly. The talus is ephemeral in all cases, and the face of the cliff may change in a week or a century, as it may happen, so its aspect gives but a slight evidence of age. The presence, therefore, of the pictures on the heights described proves neither extraordinary skill in their maker nor the great antiquity which would be indicated by the emergence of the pictured rocks through volcanic or other dynamic agency. The age of the paintings and sculptures must be inferred from other considerations.

Pictures are sometimes found on the parts of rocks which at present are always, or nearly always, covered with water. On the sea shore at Machias bay, Maine, the peckings have been continued below the line of the lowest tides as known during the present generation. In such cases subsidence of the rocky formation may be indicated. At Kejimkoojik lake, Nova Scotia, incisions of the same character as those on the bare surface of the slate rocks can now be seen only by the aid of a water glass, and then only when the lake is at its lowest. This may be caused by subsidence of the rocks or by rise of the water through the substantial damming of the outlet. Some rocks on the shores of rivers, e. g., those on the Kanahwa, in West Virginia, show the same general result of the covering and concealment of petroglyphs by water, except in an unusual drought, which may more reasonably be attributed to the gradual elevation of the river through the rise of the surface near its mouth than to the subsidence of the earth’s crust at the locality of the pictured rocks.

It must be admitted that no hermeneutic key has been discovered applicable to American pictographs, whether ancient on stone or modern on bark, skins, linen, or paper. Nor has any such key been found which unlocks the petroglyphs of any other people. Symbolism was of individual origin and was soon variously obscured by conventionalizing; therefore it requires separate study in every region. No interpreting laws of general application to petroglyphs so far appear, although types and tendencies can be classified. It was hoped that in some lands petroglyphs might tell of the characters and histories of extinct or emigrated peoples, but it now seems that knowledge of the people who were the makers of the petroglyphs is necessary to any clear understanding of their work. The fanciful hypotheses which have been formed without corroboration, wholly from such works as remain, are now generally discarded.

There is a material reason why the interpretation of petroglyphs is attended with special difficulty. They have often become so blurred by the elements and so much defaced where civilized man has penetrated that they cease to have any distinct or at least incontrovertible features. The remarks relating to Dighton rock, infra, Chap. XXII, are in point.

Rock-carving or picture-writing on rocks is so old among the American tribes as to have acquired a nomenclature. The following general remarks of Schoolcraft (a) are of some value, though they apply with any accuracy only to the Ojibwa and are tinctured with a fondness for the mysterious:

For their pictographic devices the North American Indians have two terms, namely, Kekeewin, or such things as are generally understood by the tribe, and Kekeenowin, or teachings of the medas or priests and jossakeeds or prophets. The knowledge of the latter is chiefly confined to persons who are versed in their system of magic medicine, or their religion, and may be deemed hieratic. The former consists of the common figurative signs, such as are employed at places of sepulture or by hunting or traveling parties. It is also employed in the muzzinabiks, or rock-writings. Many of the figures are common to both and are seen in the drawings generally; but it is to be understood that this results from the figure alphabet being precisely the same in both, while the devices of the nugamoons or medicine, wabino, hunting, and war songs are known solely to the initiates who have learned them, and who always pay high to the native professors for this knowledge.

In the Oglala Roster mentioned in Chapter XIII, Section 4, infra, one of the heads of families is called Inyanowapi, translated as Painted (or inscribed) rock. A blue object in the shape of a bowlder is connected with the man’s head by the usual line, and characters too minute for useful reproduction appear on the bowlder. The name is interesting as giving the current Dakota term for rock-inscriptions. The designation may have been given to this Indian because he was an authority on the subject and skilled either in the making or interpretation of petroglyphs.

The name “Wikhegan” was and still is used by the Abnaki to signify portable communications made in daily life, as distinct from the rock carvings mentioned above, which are regarded by them as mystic.

One of the curious facts in connection with petroglyphs is the meager notice taken of them by explorers and even by residents other than the Indians, who are generally reticent concerning them. The present writer has sometimes been annoyed and sometimes amused by this indifference. The resident nearest to the many inscribed rocks at Kejimkoojik Lake, Nova Scotia, described in Chapter II, Section 1, was a middle-aged farmer of respectable intelligence who had lived all his life about 3 miles from those rocks, but had only a vague notion of their character, and with difficulty found them. A learned and industrious priest, who had been working for many years on the shores of Lake Superior preparing not only a dictionary and grammar of the Ojibwa language, but an account of Ojibwa religion and customs, denied the present existence of any objects in the nature of petroglyphs in that region. Yet he had lived for a year within a mile of a very important and conspicuous pictured rock, and, on being convinced of his error by sketches shown him, called in his Ojibwa assistant and for the first time learned the common use of a large group of words which bore upon the system of picture-writing, and which he thereupon inserted in his dictionary, thus gaining from the visitor, who had come from afar to study at the feet of this supposed Gamaliel, much more than the visitor gained from him.