Pictographs of the North American Indians. A preliminary paper / Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1882-83, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1886, pages 3-256

by Garrick Mallery

Fig. 107.—Thunder-bird. Dakota.

Frequently, no doubt on account of the isolated and elevated position of the person in a thunder storm, accidents of this kind do occur, thus giving notoriety to the presentiment above mentioned.

A still different form of the Dakota thunder-bird is reproduced in Mrs. Eastman’s Dahcotah, op. cit., page 262. See also page [181] supra.

Figure 108 is “Skam-son,” the thunder-bird, a tattoo mark copied from the back of an Indian belonging to the Laskeek village of the Haida tribe, Queen Charlotte’s Island, by Mr. James G. Swan.

Fig. 108.—Thunder-bird. Haida.

Figure 109 is a Twana thunder-bird, as reported by Rev. M. Eells in Bull. U. S. Geol. and Geog. Survey, III, p. 112.

Fig. 109.—Thunder-bird. Twana.

There is at Eneti, on the reservation [Washington Territory], an irregular basaltic rock, about 3 feet by 3 feet and 4 inches, and a foot and a half high. On one side there has been hammered a face, said to be the representation of the face of the thunder bird, which could also cause storms.