ROCK CARVINGS IN WYOMING AND IN IDAHO.
A number of pictographs in Wyoming are described in the report on Northwestern Wyoming, including Yellowstone National Park, by Capt. William A. Jones, U. S. A., Washington, 1875, p. 268 et seq., Figures 50 to 53 in that work. The last three in order of these figures are reproduced in Sign Language among North American Indians, in the First Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology, pages 378 and 379, to show their connection with gesture signs. The most important one was discovered on Little Popo-Agie, Northwestern Wyoming, by members of Captain Jones’s party in 1873. The etchings are upon a nearly vertical wall of the yellow sandstone in the rear of Murphy’s ranch, and appear to be of some antiquity.
Further remarks, with specimens of the figures, are presented in this paper as Figure 150, on page [227].
Dr. William H. Corbusier, U. S. Army, in a letter to the writer, mentions the discovery of rock etchings on a sandstone rock near the headwaters of Sage Creek, in the vicinity of Fort Washakie, Wyoming. Dr. Corbusier remarks that neither the Shoshoni nor the Arapaho Indians know who made the etchings. The two chief figures appear to be those of the human form, with the hands and arms partly uplifted, the whole being surrounded above and on either side by an irregular line.
The method of grouping, together with various accompanying appendages, as irregular lines, spirals, etc., observed in Dr. Corbusier’s drawing, show great similarity to the Algonkin type, and resemble some etchings found near the Wind River Mountains, which were the work of Blackfeet (Satsika) Indians, who, in comparatively recent times, occupied portions of the country in question, and probably also etched the designs near Fort Washakie.
A number of examples from Idaho appear infra, pages [228] and [229].