Читать книгу Picture-Writing of the American Indians - Garrick Mallery - Страница 78

A large number of glyphs are incised on the face of a rock near Odanah, now a village of the Ojibwa Indians, 12 miles northeast from Ashland, on the south shore of lake Superior, near its western extremity. The characters were easily cut on the soft stone, so were also easily worn by the weather, and in 1887 were nearly indistinguishable. Many of them appeared to be figures of birds. An old Ojibwa Indian in the vicinity told the present writer that the site of the rock was formerly a well-known halting place and rendezvous, and that on the arrival of a party, or even of a single individual, the appropriate totemic mark or marks were cut on the rock, much as white men register their names at a hotel.

Fig. 91.—Petroglyphs in Brown’s cave, Wisconsin.

The Pictured cave of La Crosse valley, called Brown’s cave, is described by Rev. Edward Brown (a) as follows:

This curious cavern is situated in the town of Barre, 4 miles from West Salem and 8 miles from La Crosse. * * *

Before the landslide it was an open shelter cavern, 15 feet wide at the opening and 7 feet at the back end; greatest width, 16 feet; average, 13; length, 30 feet; height, 13 feet, and depth of excavation after clearing out the sand of the landslide, 5 feet. The pictures are mostly of the rudest kind, but differing in degree of skill. Except several bisons, a lynx, rabbit, otter, badger, elk, and heron, it is perhaps impossible to determine with certainty what were intended or whether they represented large or small animals, no regard being had to their relative sizes.

[Examples of the figures are here presented as Fig. 91.]

Perhaps a indicates a bison or buffalo, and is the best executed picture of the collection. Its size is 19 inches long by 15½ inches from tip of the horns to the feet.

b represents a hunter, with a boy behind him, in the act of shooting an animal with his bow and arrow weapon. The whole representation is 25 inches long; the animal from tip of tail to end of horn or proboscis 12 inches, and from top of head to feet 7 inches; the hunter 11 inches high, the boy 4½.

c represents a wounded animal, with the arrow or weapon near the wound. This figure is 21¾ inches from the lower extremity of the nose to the tip of the tail, 8¾ inches from fore shoulders to front feet, and 8 inches from the rump to the hind feet. The weapon is 4½ inches long by 5 inches broad from the tip of one prong or barb to that of the other.

d represents a chief with eight plumes and a war club, 11 inches from top of head to the lower extremity, and 6¾ inches from the tip of the upper finger to the end of the opposite arm; the war club 6½ inches long.

Dr. Hoffman made a visit to this cave in August, 1888, to compare the pictographic characters with others of apparently similar outline and of known signification. He found but a limited number of the figures distinct, and these only in part, owing to the rapid disintegration of the sandstone upon which they were drawn. Many names and inscriptions had been incised in the soft surface by visitors, who also, by means of the smoke of candles, added grotesque and meaningless figures over and between the original paintings, so as to seriously injure the latter.

Mr. T. H. Lewis (d) describes the petroglyphs, a part of which is reproduced in Fig. 92, as follows:

Fig. 92.—Petroglyphs at Trempealeau, Wisconsin.

Last November my attention was called to some rock sculptures located about 2½ miles northwest from Trempealeau, Wisconsin. There is at the point in question an exposed ledge of the Potsdam sandstone extending nearly one-eighth of a mile along the east side of the lower mouth of the Trempealeau river, now known as the bay. Near its north end there is a projection extending out about 7 feet from the top of the ledge and overhanging the base about 10 feet. The base of the ledge is 40 feet back from the shore, and the top of the cliff at this point is 30 feet above the water. On the face of the projection, and near the top, are the sculpture figures referred to.

The characters designated a a are two so-called canoes, somewhat crescent-shaped, but with some variation in outline; b has the same form, but the additional upright portion overlaps it; c and d are also of the same form as a, but c is cut in the bottom of d; e probably represents a fort, and its length is 18½ inches; f is a nondescript, and it partly overlaps d; g is a nondescript four-legged animal, its length in a straight line from the end of the nose to the tip of the tail being 10½ inches; h may be intended to represent a foot, but possibly it may be a hand; it is 7½ inches in length; i is an outspread hand, a little over 13 inches long; j undoubtedly represents a foot and is 4½ inches long; k k are of the same class as a.

The figures are not mere outlines, but intaglio, varying in depth from a quarter of an inch to fully 1 inch. Although the surface of the rock is rough the intaglios were rubbed perfectly smooth after they had been engraved by pecking or cutting.