Читать книгу Picture-Writing of the American Indians - Garrick Mallery - Страница 75

In 1886 Dr. Hoffman visited a local field 9 miles southwest of Tazewell, Tazewell county, Virginia, which can be designated as follows: The range of hills bounding the western side of the valley presents at various points low cliffs and exposures of Silurian sandstone. About 4 miles below the village, known as Knob post-office, there is a narrow ravine leading up toward a depression in the range, forming a pass to the valley beyond, near the summit of which is a large irregular exposure of rock facing west-southwest, upon the eastern extremity of which are a number of pictographs, many of which are still in good preservation. Fig. 90 is a representation. The westernmost object, i. e., the one on the extreme left, appears to be a circle about 16 inches in diameter, from the outer side of which are short radiating lines giving the whole the appearance of a sun. Beneath and to the right of this is the outline of an animal resembling a doe.

Fig. 90.—Petroglyphs in Tazewell county, Virginia.

Other figures, chiefly human, follow in close succession to the eastern edge of the vertical face of the rock, nearly all of which present the arms in various attitudes, i. e., extended or raised as in extreme surprise or adoration. Concentric rings appear at one point, while a thunder-bird is shown not far away. About 12 feet east of this place are several figures resembling the thunder-bird.

All of the characters, with one exception, are drawn in heavy or solid lines of dark red paint, presumably a ferruginous coloring material prepared in the neighborhood, which abounds in iron compounds. The exception is one object which appears to have been black, but is now so faded or eroded as to seem dark gray.

The following account of the Tazewell county, Virginia, pictographs is taken from Coale’s Life, etc., of Waters: (a)

In August, 1871, the writer went to visit Tazewell county by way of the saltworks. Upon this place are found those strangely painted rocks which have been a wonder and a mystery to all who have seen them. The grandfather of Gen. Bowen settled the cove in 1766, one hundred and ten years ago, and the paintings were there then, and as brilliant to-day as they were when first seen by a white man. They consist of horses, elk, deer, wolves, bows and arrows, eagles, Indians, and various other devices. The mountain upon which these rocks are based is about 1,000 feet high, and they lie in a horizontal line about halfway up and are perhaps 75 feet broad upon their perpendicular face.

When it is remembered that the rock is hard, with a smooth white surface, incapable of absorbing paint, it is a mystery how the coloring has remained undimmed under the peltings of the elements for how much longer than a hundred years no one can tell. This paint is found near the rocks, and Gen. Bowen informed the writers that his grandmother used it for dyeing linsey, and it was a fadeless color.

As there was a battle fought on a neighboring mountain, between 1740 and 1750, between the Cherokees and Shawnees for the possession of a buffalo lick, the remains of the rude fortifications being still visible, it is supposed the paintings were hieroglyphics conveying such intelligence to the red man as we now communicate to each other through newspapers.

It was a perilous adventure to stand upon a narrow, inclined ledge without a shrub or a root to hold to, with from 50 to 75 feet of sheer perpendicular descent below to a bed of jagged bowlders and the home of innumerable rattlesnakes, but I didn’t make it. I crawled far enough along that narrow slanting ledge with my fingers inserted in the crevices of the rocks to see most of the paintings, and then “coon’d” it back with equal care and caution.

Five miles east of the last-noted locality and 7 west of Tazewell, high up against a vertical cliff of rock, is visible a lozenge-shaped group of red and black squares, known in the locality as the “Handkerchief rock,” because the general appearance of the colored markings suggests the idea of an immense bandana handkerchief spread out. The pictograph is on the same range of hills as the preceding, but neither is visible from any place near the other. The objects can not be viewed upon Handkerchief rock excepting from a point opposite to it and across the valley, as the locality is so overgrown with large trees as to obscure it from any position immediately beneath. The lozenge or diamond-shaped figure appears to cover an area about 3 feet in diameter.