Читать книгу Picture-Writing of the American Indians - Garrick Mallery - Страница 76

Capt. Charles Bendire, U. S. Army, in a letter dated Fort Walla-walla, Washington, May 18, 1881, mentions a discovery made by Col. Henry C. Merriam, then lieutenant-colonel Second United States Infantry, as thus quoted:

While encamped at the lower end of Lake Chelan, lat. 48° N., he made a trip to the upper end of said lake, where he found a perpendicular cliff of granite with a perfectly smooth surface, from 600 to 1,000 feet high, rising out of the lake. On the cliff he found Indian picture-writings, painted evidently at widely different periods, but evidently quite old. The oldest was from 25 to 30 feet above the present water level, and could at the time they were executed only be reached by canoe. The paintings are figures, black and red in color, and represent Indians with bows and arrows, elk, deer, bear, beaver, and fish, and are from 1 foot to 18 inches in size. There are either four or five rows of these figures, quite a number in each row. The Indians inhabiting this region know nothing of the origin of these pictures, and say that none of their people for the past four generations knew anything about them.

Since the preceding letter was written a notice of the same rock has been published, together with an illustration, by Mr. Alfred Downing, of Seattle, Washington, in “The Northwest,” VII, No. 10, October, 1889, pp. 3, 4. The description, condensed, is as follows:

In that part of Washington territory until recent years known as the Moses Indian reservation lies the famous Lake Chelan, 70 miles in length with an average width of 2 miles.

About half a mile from its head, on the western shore and rising from the water, as an abrupt and precipitous wall of granite, stands “Pictured rock.”

The most remarkable feature of the Chelan picture is that the figures representing Indians, bear, deer, birds, etc., are painted upon the surface of the smooth granite, nearly horizontal, but about 17 feet above the lake; the upper portion of the picture being about 2 feet higher. The figures depicted are 5 to 10 inches long.

The difference between high and low stage of water at any period during the year does not exceed 4 feet, and this high-water mark being well defined along the shore, it becomes self-evident that these signs were placed there ages ago, when the water was 17 feet higher than it is now. The granite bluff or walls in this instance are smooth, being weather and water worn, and afford no hold for hand or foot either from above or below, and from careful observation it would appear to be a physical impossibility for either a white or red man to show his artistic skill on those rocks unless at the ancient stage of water and with the aid of a canoe or a “dugout.”

The paint or color used was black and red, the latter resembling venetian. How wonderfully the color has stood the test in the face of the storms to which the lake is subject is apparent; only in one or two instances does it to-day show any signs of fading or weather-wearing. The signs impressed me as intending to convey the idea of the prowess of an Indian chief in the hunt, or as being a page in the history of a tribe, the small perpendicular strokes seen in the lower portion indicating probably the number of bear, deer, or other animals slain.

When referring, in Pacific Railroad Report, vol. I, page 411, to a locality on the Columbia river in Washington, between Yakima and Pisquouse counties, Mr. George Gibbs mentioned pecked and colored petroglyphs which he found there as follows:

It was a perpendicular rock, on the face of which were carved sundry figures, most of them intended for men. They were slightly sunk into the sandstone and colored, some black, others red, and traces of paint remained more or less distinctly on all of them. These also, according to their [the Indians’] report, were the work of the ancient race; but from the soft nature of the rock, and the freshness of some of the paint, they were probably not of extreme antiquity.

For another example of petroglyphs from Washington see Fig. 679.