SECTION 2.
SOUTH AMERICA.
Alexander von Humboldt (a) gives general remarks, now condensed, upon petroglyphs in South America:
In the interior of South America, between the second and fourth degrees of north latitude, a forest-covered plain is inclosed by four rivers, the Orinoco, the Atabapo, the Rio Negro, and the Cassiquiare. In this district are found rocks of granite and of syenite, covered with colossal symbolical figures of crocodiles and tigers, and drawings of household utensils, and of the sun and moon. The tribes nearest to its boundaries are wandering naked savages, in the lowest stages of human existence, and far removed from any thoughts of carving hieroglyphics on rocks. One may trace in South America an entire zone, extending through more than 8° of longitude, of rocks so ornamented, viz, from the Rupuniri, Essequibo, and the mountains of Pacaraima, to the banks of the Orinoco and of the Yupura. These carvings may belong to very different epochs, for Sir Robert Schomburgk even found on the Rio Negro representations of a Spanish galiot, which must have been of a later date than the beginning of the sixteenth century; and this in a wilderness where the natives were probably as rude then as at the present time. Some miles from Encaramada there rises in the middle of the savannah the rock Tepu-Mereme, or painted rock. It shows several figures of animals and symbolical outlines which resemble much those observed by us at some distance above Encaramada, near Caycara. Rocks thus marked are found between the Cassiquiare and the Atabapo and, what is particularly remarkable, 560 geographical miles farther to the east, in the solitudes of Parime. Nicholas Hortsmann found on the banks of the Rupunuri, at the spot where the river winding between the Macarana mountains forms several small cascades, and before arriving at the district immediately surrounding lake Amucu, “rocks covered with figures,” or, as he says in Portuguese, “de varias letras.” We were shown at the rock of Culimacari, on the banks of the Cassiquiare, signs which were called characters, arranged in lines, but they were only ill-shaped figures of heavenly bodies, boa-serpents, and the utensils employed in preparing manioc meal. I have never found among these painted rocks (piedras pintadas) any symmetrical arrangement or any regular even-spaced characters. I am therefore disposed to think that the word “letras,” in Hortsmann’s journal, must not be taken in the strictest sense.
Schomburgk saw and described other petroglyphs on the banks of the Essequibo, near the cascade of Warraputa. Neither promises nor threats could prevail on the Indians to give a single blow with a hammer to these rocks, the venerable monuments of the superior mental cultivation of their predecessors. They regard them as the work of the Great Spirit, and the different tribes whom we met with, though living at a great distance, were nevertheless acquainted with them. Terror was painted on the faces of my Indian companions, who appeared to expect every moment that the fire of heaven would fall on my head. I saw clearly that my endeavors to detach a portion of the rock would be fruitless, and I contented myself with bringing away a complete drawing of these memorials. Even the veneration everywhere testified by the Indians of the present day for these rude sculptures of their predecessors show that they have no idea of the execution of similar works. There is another circumstance which should be mentioned. Between Encaramada and Caycara, on the banks of the Orinoco, a number of these hieroglyphical figures are sculptured on the face of precipices at a height which could now be reached only by means of extraordinarily high scaffolding. If one asks the natives how these figures have been cut, they answer, laughing, as if it were a fact of which none but a white man could be ignorant, that “in the days of the great waters their fathers went in canoes at that height.”
UNITED STATES OF COLOMBIA.
Mr. W. H. Holmes (b), of the Bureau of Ethnology, gives this account of petroglyphs in the province of Chiriqui, state of Panama:
Pictured rocks.—Our accounts of these objects are very meager. The only one definitely described is the “piedra pintal.” A few of the figures engraved upon it are given by Seemann, from whom the following paragraph is quoted:
“At Caldera, a few leagues (north) from the town of David, lies a granite block known to the country people as the piedra pintal or painted stone. It is 15 feet high, nearly 50 feet in circumference, and flat on the top. Every part, especially the eastern side, is covered with figures. One represents a radiant sun; it is followed by a series of heads, all with some variations, scorpions, and fantastic figures. The top and the other side have signs of a circular and oval form, crossed by lines. The sculpture is ascribed to the Dorachos (or Dorasques), but to what purpose the stone was applied no historical account or tradition reveals.”
These inscriptions are irregularly placed and much scattered. They are thought to have been originally nearly an inch deep, but in places are almost effaced by weathering, thus giving a suggestion of great antiquity. Tracings of these figures made recently by Mr. A. L. Pinart show decided differences in detail, and Mr. McNiel gives still another transcription.