This paper is limited in its terms to the presentation of the most important known pictographs of the American Indians, but examples from other parts of the world are added for comparison. The proper classification and correlation of the matter collected has required more labor and thought than is apparent. The scheme of the work has been to give in an arrangement of chapters and sections some examples with illustrations in connection with each heading in the classification. This plan has involved a large amount of cross reference, because in many cases a character or a group of characters could be considered with reference to a number of different characteristics, and it was necessary to choose under which one of the headings it should be presented, involving reference to that from the other divisions of the work. Sometimes the decision was determined by taste or judgment, and sometimes required by mechanical considerations.
It may be mentioned that the limitation of the size of the present volume required that the space occupied by the text should be subordinated to the large amount of illustration. It is obvious that a work on picture-writing should be composed largely of pictures, and to allow room for them many pages of the present writer’s views have been omitted. Whatever may be the disadvantage of this omission it leaves to students of the work the opportunity to form their own judgments without bias. Indeed, this writer confesses that although he has examined and studied in their crude shape, as they went to the printer, all the illustrations and descriptions now presented, he expects that after the volume shall be delivered to him in printed form with its synoptic arrangement he will be better able than now to make appropriate remarks on its subject-matter. Therefore he anticipates that careful readers will judiciously correct errors in the details of the work which may have escaped him and that they will extend and expand what is yet limited and partial. It may be proper to note that when the writer’s observation has resulted in agreement with published authorities or contributors, the statements that could have been made on his own personal knowledge have been cited, when possible, from the printed or manuscript works of others. Quotation is still more requisite when there is disagreement with the authorities.
Thanks for valuable assistance are due and rendered to correspondents and to officers of the Bureau of Ethnology and of the United States Geological Survey, whose names are generally mentioned in connection with their several contributions. Acknowledgment is also made now and throughout the work to Dr. W. J. Hoffman, who has officially assisted in its preparation during several years, by researches in the field, in which his familiarity with Indians and his artistic skill have been of great value. Similar recognition is due to Mr. De Lancey W. Gill, in charge of the art department of the Bureau of Ethnology and the U. S. Geological Survey, and to Mr. Wells M. Sawyer, his assistant, specially detailed on the duty, for their work on the illustrations presented. While mentioning the illustrations, it may be noted that the omission to furnish the scale on which some of them are produced is not from neglect, but because it was impossible to ascertain the dimensions of the originals in the few cases where no scale or measurement is stated. This omission is most frequently noticeable in the illustrations of petroglyphs which have not been procured directly by the officers of the Bureau of Ethnology. The rule in that Bureau is to copy petroglyphs on the scale of one-sixteenth actual size. Most of the other classes of pictographs are presented without substantial reduction, and in those cases the scale is of little importance.
It remains to give special notice to the reader regarding the mode adopted to designate the authors and works cited. A decision was formed that no footnotes should appear in the work. A difficulty in observing that rule arose from the fact that in the repeated citation of published works the text would be cumbered with many words and numbers to specify titles, pages and editions. The experiment was tried of printing in the text only the most abbreviated mention, generally by the author’s name alone, of the several works cited, and to present a list of them arranged in alphabetic order with cross references and catch titles. This list appears at the end of the work with further details and examples of its use. It is not a bibliography of the subject of picture-writing, nor even a list of authorities read and studied in the preparation of the work, but it is simply a special list, prepared for the convenience of readers, of the works and authors cited in the text, and gives the page and volume, when there is more than one volume in the edition, from which the quotation is taken.
CHAPTER I.
PETROGLYPHS.
In the plan of this work a distinction has been made between a petroglyph, as Andree names the class, or rock-writing, as Ewbank called it, and all other descriptions of picture-writing. The criterion for the former is that the picture, whether carved or pecked, or otherwise incised, and whether figured only by coloration or by coloration and incision together, is upon a rock either in situ or sufficiently large for inference that the picture was imposed upon it where it was found. This criterion allows geographic classification. In presenting the geographic distribution, prominence is necessarily (because of the laws authorizing this work) given to the territory occupied by the United States of America, but examples are added from various parts of the globe, not only for comparison of the several designs, but to exhibit the prevalence of the pictographic practice in an ancient form, though probably not the earliest form. The rocks have preserved archaic figures, while designs which probably were made still earlier on less enduring substances are lost.
Throughout the world in places where rocks of a suitable character appear, and notably in South America, markings on them have been found similar to those in North America, though until lately they have seldom been reported with distinct description or with illustration. They are not understood by the inhabitants of their vicinity, who generally hold them in superstitious regard, and many of them appear to have been executed from religious motives. They are now most commonly found remaining where the population has continued to be sparse, or where civilization has not been of recent introduction, with exceptions such as appear in high development on the Nile.
The superstitions concerning petroglyphs are in accord with all other instances where peoples in all ages and climes, when observing some phenomenon which they did not understand, accounted for it by supernatural action. The following examples are selected as of interest in the present connection.
It must be premised with reference to the whole character of the mythology and folk-lore of the Indians that, even when professed converts to Christianity, they seem to have taken little interest in the stories of the Christian church, whether the biblical narratives or the lives and adventures of the saints, which are so constantly dwelt upon throughout the Christian world that they have become folk-lore. The general character of the Christian legends does not seem to have suited the taste of Indians and has not at all impaired their affection for or their belief in the aboriginal traditions.