The resemblance between the characters on this rock and those found in western Pennsylvania, near Millsboro, Fig. [75], and south of Franklin, on the “Indian God rock,” Fig. 74, will be noted.
In Rafn’s Antiq. Amer. (b) is the following account:
A large stone, on which is a line of considerable length in unknown characters, has been recently found in Rutland, Worcester county, Massachusetts; they are regularly placed, and the strokes are filled with a black composition nearly as hard as the rock itself. The Committee also adds that a similar rock is to be found in Swanzy, county of Bristol and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, perhaps ten miles from the Dighton Rock.
MINNESOTA.
The late Mr. P. W. Norris, who was connected with the Bureau of Ethnology, reported large numbers of pecked totemic characters on the horizontal faces of the ledges of rock at Pipestone quarry in Minnesota, and presented some imitations of the peckings. There is a tradition that it was formerly the custom for each Indian who gathered stone (catlinite) for pipes, to inscribe his totem (whether clan or tribal or personal totem is not specified) upon the rock before venturing to quarry upon this ground. Some of the cliffs in the immediate vicinity were of too hard a nature to admit of pecking or scratching, and upon these the characters were placed in colors. Mr. Norris distinguished bird tracks, the outline of a bird resembling a pelican, deer, turtle, a circle with an interior cross, and a human figure.
Examples of so-called totemic designs from this locality are given in Fig. 50, which are reproduced from the work of R. Cronau (a):
Fig. 50.—Petroglyphs at Pipestone, Minn.
The same petroglyphs and also others at the Pipestone quarry are described and illustrated by Prof. N. H. Winchell (a). A part of his remarks is as follows:
On the glaciated surface of the quartzite about the “Three Maidens,” which is kept clean by the rebound of the winds, are a great many rude inscriptions, which were made by pecking out the rock with some sharp-pointed instrument or by the use of other pieces of quartzite. They are of different sizes and dates, the latter being evinced by their manner of crossing and interfering and by the evident difference in the weight of the instruments used. They generally represent some animal, such as the turtle, bear, wolf, buffalo, elk, and the human form. The “crane’s foot” is the most common; next is the image of men; next the turtle. It would seem as if any warrior or hunter who had been successful and happened to pass here left his tribute of thanks to the great spirit in a rude representation of his game and perhaps a figure of himself on the rocks about these bowlders, or perhaps had in a similar way invoked the good offices of the spirits of his clan when about to enter on some expedition. In some cases there is a connection of several figures by a continuous line, chipped in the surface of the rock in such a manner as if some legend or adventure were narrated, but for the most part the figures are isolated. This is the “sacred ground” of the locality. Such markings can be seen at no other place, though there is abundance of bare, smooth rock. (Similar inscriptions are found on the red quartzite in Cottonwood county). The excavation of the surface of the rock is very slight, generally not exceeding a sixteenth of an inch, and sometimes only enough to leave a tracing of the designed form. The hardness of the rock was a barrier to deep sculpturing with the imperfect instruments of the aborigines; but it has effectually preserved the rude forms that were made. The fine glacial scratches that are abundantly scattered over this quartzite indicate the tenacity with which it retains all such impressions, and will warrant the assignment of any date to these inscriptions that may be called for within the human period. Yet it is probable that they date back to no very great antiquity. They pertain, at least, to the dynasty of the present Indian tribes. The totems of the turtle and the bear, which are known to have been powerful among the clans of the native races in America at the time of the earliest European knowledge of them, and which exist to this day, are the most frequent objects represented. The “crane’s foot,” or “turkey foot,” or “bird track,” terms which refer perhaps to the same totem sign—the snipe—is not only common on these rocks, but is seen among the rock inscriptions of Ohio, and was one of the totems of the Iroquois, of New York.