“The agency is upon the western side of the Sierra Nevada, in the headwater canyons of the branches of the south fork of Tule river. The country is at present occupied by several tribes of the Mariposan linguistic stock, and the only answer made to inquiries respecting the age or origin of the painting was that it was found there when the ancestors of the present tribes arrived. The local migrations of the various Indian tribes of this part of California are not yet known with sufficient certainty to determine to whom the records may be credited, but all appearances with respect to the weathering and disintegration of the rock upon which the record is engraved, the appearance of the coloring matter subsequently applied, and the condition of the small depressions made at the time for mixing the pigments with a viscous substance, indicate that the work was performed about a century ago.
“The Indians now at Tule river have occupied that part of the state for at least one hundred years, and the oldest now living state that the records were found by their ancestors, though whether more than two generations ago could not be ascertained.
“The drawings were outlined by pecking with a piece of quartz or other siliceous rock, the depth varying from a mere visible depression to a third of an inch. Having thus satisfactorily depicted the several ideas, colors were applied which appear to have penetrated the slight interstices between the crystalline particles of the rock, which had been bruised and slightly fractured by hammering with a piece of stone. It appears probable, too, that to insure better results the hammering was repeated after application of the colors.
“Upon a small bowlder, under the natural archway formed by the breaking of the large rock, small depressions were found which had been used as mortars for grinding and mixing the colors. These depressions average 2 inches in diameter and about 1 inch in depth. Traces of color still remain, mixed with a thin layer of a shining substance resembling a coating of varnish and of flinty hardness. This coating is so thin that it can not be removed with a steel instrument, and appears to have become a part of the rock itself.
“From the animals depicted upon the ceiling it seems that both beaver and deer were found in the country, and as the beaver tail and the hoofs of deer and antelope are boiled to procure glue, it is probable that the tribe which made these pictographs was as far advanced in respect to the making of glue and preparing of paints as most other tribes throughout the United States.
“Examination shows that the dull red color is red ocher, found in various places in the valley, while the yellow was an ocherous clay, also found there. The white color was probably obtained there, and is evidently earthy, though of what nature can only be surmised, not sufficient being obtainable from the rock picture to make satisfactory analysis with the blow-pipe. The composition of the black is not known, unless it was made by mixing clay and powdered charcoal. The latter is a preparation common at this day among other tribes.
“An immense granite bowlder, about 20 feet in thickness and 30 in length, is so broken that a lower quarter is removed, leaving a large square passageway through its entire diameter almost northwest and southeast. Upon the western wall of this passageway is a collection of the colored sketches of which Fig. [983] is a reduced copy. The entire face of the rock upon which the pictograph occurs measures about 12 or 15 feet in width and 8 in height. The largest human figure measures 6 feet in height, from the end of the toes to the top of the head, the others being in proportion as represented.
Fig. 12.—Petroglyph at Tule river, California.