ROCK CARVINGS IN CALIFORNIA.
From information received from Mr. Alphonse Pinart, pictographic records exist in the hills east of San Bernardino, somewhat resembling those at Tule River in the southern spurs of the Sierra Nevada, Kern County.
These pictographic records are found at various localities along the hill tops, but to what distance is not positively known.
In the range of mountains forming the northeastern boundary of Owen Valley are extensive groups of petroglyphs, apparently dissimilar to those found west of the Sierra Nevada. Dr. Oscar Loew also mentions a singular inscription on basaltic rocks in Black Lake Valley, about 4 miles southwest of the town of Benton, Mono County. This is scratched in the basalt surface with some sharp instrument and is evidently of great age. (Ann. Report upon the Geog. Surveys west of the 100th meridian. Being Appendix J J, Ann. Report of Chief of Engineers for 1876. Plate facing p. 326.)
Dr. W. J. Hoffman, of the Bureau of Ethnology, reports the occurrence of a number of series of etchings scattered at intervals for over twenty miles in Owen’s Valley, California. Some of these records were hastily examined by him in 1871, but it was not until the autumn of 1884 that a thorough examination of them was made, when measurements, drawings, etc., were obtained for study and comparison. The country is generally of a sandy, desert, character, devoid of vegetation and water. The occasional bowlders and croppings of rock consist of vesicular basalt, upon the smooth vertical faces of which occur innumerable characters different from any hitherto reported from California, but bearing marked similarity to some figures found in the country now occupied by the Moki and Zuñi, in New Mexico and Arizona, respectively.
The southernmost group of etchings is eighteen miles south of the town of Benton; the next group, two miles almost due north, at the Chalk Grade; the third, about three miles farther north, near the stage road; the fourth, half a mile north of the preceding; then a fifth, five and a half miles above the last named and twelve and a half miles south of Benton. The northernmost group is about ten or twelve miles northwest of the last-mentioned locality and south west from Benton, at a place known as Watterson’s Ranch. The principal figures consist of various simple, complex, and ornamental circles, some of the simple circles varying as nucleated, concentric, and spectacle-shaped, zigzag, and serpentine lines, etc. Animal forms are not abundant, those readily identified being those of the deer, antelope, and jack-rabbits. Representations of snakes and huge sculpturings of grizzly-bear tracks occur on one horizontal surface, twelve and a half miles south of Benton. In connection with the latter, several carvings of human foot-prints appear, leading in the same direction, i. e., toward the south-southwest.
All of these figures are pecked into the vertical faces of the rocks, the depths varying from one-fourth of an inch to an inch and a quarter. A freshly broken surface of the rock presents various shades from a cream white to a Naples yellow color, though the sculptured lines are all blackened by exposure and oxidation of the iron contained therein. This fact has no importance toward the determination of the age of the work.
At the Chalk Grade is a large bowlder measuring about six feet in height and four feet either way in thickness, upon one side of which is one-half of what appears to have been an immense mortar. The sides of this cavity are vertical, and near the bottom turn abruptly and horizontally in toward the center, which is marked by a cone about three inches high and six inches across at its base. The interior diameter of the mortar is about twenty-four inches, and from the appearance of the surface, being considerably grooved laterally, it would appear as if a core had been used for grinding, similar in action to that of a millstone. No traces of such a core or corresponding form were visible. This instance is mentioned as it is the only indication that the authors of the etchings made any prolonged visit to this region, and perhaps only for grinding grass seed, though neither grass nor water is now found nearer than the remains at Watterson’s Ranch and at Benton.
The records at Watterson’s are pecked upon the surfaces of detached bowlders near the top of a mesa, about one hundred feet above the nearest spring, distant two hundred yards. These are also placed at the southeast corner of the mesa, or that nearest to the northern most of the main group across the Benton Range. At the base of the eastern and northeastern portion of this elevation of land, and but a stone’s throw from the etchings, are the remains of former camps, such as stone circles, marking the former sites of brush lodges, and a large number of obsidian flakes, arrowheads, knives, and some jasper remains of like character. Upon the flat granite bowlders are several mortar-holes, which perhaps were used for crushing the seed of the grass still growing abundantly in the immediate vicinity. Piñon nuts are also abundant in this locality.
Upon following the most convenient course across the Benton Range to reach Owen’s Valley proper, etchings are also found, though in limited numbers, and seem to partake of the character of “indicators as to course of travel.” By this trail the northernmost of the several groups of etchings above mentioned is the nearest and most easily reached.
The etchings upon the bowlders at Watterson’s are somewhat different from those found elsewhere. The number of specific designs is limited, many of them being reproduced from two to six or seven times, thus seeming to partake of the character of personal names.
One of the most frequent is that resembling a horseshoe within which is a vertical stroke. Sometimes the upper extremity of such stroke is attached to the upper inside curve of the broken ring, and frequently there are two or more parallel vertical strokes within one such curve. Bear-tracks and the outline of human feet also occur, besides several unique forms. A few of these forms are figured, though not accurately, in the Ann. Report upon the Geog. Surveys west of the 100th meridian last mentioned (1876), Plate facing p. 326.
Lieutenant Whipple reports (Rep. Pac. R. R. Exped. III, 1856, Pt. III, p. 42, Pl. 36) the discovery of pictographs at Pai-Ute Creek, about 30 miles west of the Mojave villages. These are carved upon a rock, “are numerous, appear old, and are too confusedly obscure to be easily traceable.”
These bear great general resemblance to etchings scattered over Northeast Arizona, Southern Utah, and Western New Mexico.
Remarkable pictographs have also been found at Tule River Agency. See Figure 155, page [235].