Читать книгу Picture-Writing of the American Indians - Garrick Mallery - Страница 34

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The information thus far obtained about petroglyphs in Canada is meager. This may be partly due to the fact that through the region of the Dominion now most thoroughly known the tribes have generally resorted for their pictographic work to the bark of birch trees, which material is plentiful and well adapted for the purpose. Indeed the same fact affords an explanation of the paucity of rock-carvings or paintings in the lands immediately south of the boundary line separating the United States from the British possessions. It must also be considered that the country on both sides of that boundary was in general heavily timbered, and that even if petroglyphs are there they may not even yet have been noticed. But that the mere plenty of birch bark does not evince the actual absence of rock-pictures in regions where there was also an abundance of suitable rocks, and where the native inhabitants were known to be pictographers, is shown by the account given below of the multitudes of such pictures lately discovered in a single district of Nova Scotia. It is confidently believed that many petroglyphs will yet be found in the Dominion. Others may be locally known and possibly already described in publications which have escaped the researches of the present writer. In fact, from correspondence and oral narrations, there are indications of petroglyphs in several parts of the Dominion besides those mentioned below, but their descriptions are too vague for presentation here. For instance, Dr. Boas says that he has seen a large number of petroglyphs in British Columbia, of which neither he nor any other traveler has made distinct report.