We called at this ranch at dinner time. They treated us badly, giving us no dinner and sending us away. There is a head man who has two dogs, one of which has no tail. There are two larger men who are laborers. They have two pairs of large horses and two large colts, also another smaller pair of horses and two ponies which have two colts.
The notice was composed thus: A circle of round stones represented the horses and ponies, the latter being smaller stones; the stones outside of the circle meant there were so many colts. Near the center was a long narrow stone, upon the end of which was a small one. This denoted the head man or owner, whose two dogs were shown by two pieces of bark, one with a square end while the other had a twig stuck in for a tail. Two other long narrow stones, larger than the first, stood for the laborers; these had no small stones on them. Some sticks of wood, upon which was a small pile of buffalo chips, meant that dinner was ready; and empty shells turned upside down told they got nothing to eat, but were sent away.
Mr. Charles W. Cunningham, formerly of Phœnix, Arizona, reports the finding of petroglyphs in Rowe canyon, one-half mile from the base of Bradshaw mountain, Arizona. The characters are pecked upon its vertical wall of hard porphyry, covering a space between 12 or 15 feet in length and about 30 feet above the surface of the earth. They consist of human figures with outstretched arms, apparently driving animals resembling sheep or goats, while at the head of the procession appears the figure of a bear. The explanation given seems to be a notification to Indian herders that in going through the canyon they should be careful to guard against bears or possibly other dangerous animals, as the trail or canyon leads down to some water tanks where the herders may habitually have driven the stock.
D’Albertis (b) mentions of the Papuans that a warning not to enter a dwelling is made by erecting outside of it a stick, on the top of which is a piece of bark or a cocoanut, and in Yule island these warnings or taboo sticks are furnished with stone heads.
When a Tartar shaman wished to be undisturbed he placed a dried goat’s-head, with its prominent horns, over a wooden peg outside of his tent and then dropped the curtain. No one would dare to venture in.
The following is quoted from Franz Keller (b):
In the immense primeval forests, extending between the Ivahy and the Paranapanama, the Paraná and the Tibagy, the rich hunting grounds of numerous Coroado hordes, one frequently encounters, chiefly near forsaken palm sheds, a strange collection of objects hung up between the trees on thin cords or cipós, such as little pieces of wood, feathers, bones, and the claws and jaws of different animals.
In the opinion of those well versed in Indian lore these hieroglyphs are designed as epistles to other members of the tribe regarding the produce of the chase, the number and stay of the huntsmen, domestic intelligence, and the like; but this strange kind of composition, reminding one of the quippus (knotted cords), of the old Peruvians, has not yet been quite unraveled, though it is desirable that it should be, for the naïve son of the woods also uses it sometimes in his intercourse with the white man.
Settlers in this country, on going in the morning to look after their very primitive mills near their cottages, have frequently discovered them going bravely, but bruising pebbles instead of the maize grains, while on the floor of the open shed names and purposes of the unwelcome nocturnal visitors have been legibly written in the sand. Among the well-drawn zigzag lines were inserted the magnificent long tail feathers of the red and blue macaw, which are generally used by the Coroados for their arrows; and, as these are the symbols of war and night attacks, the whole was probably meant for a warning and admonition ad hominem: “Take up your bundle and go or beware of our arrows.”