It is to be remarked that this petroglyph is in some respects similar in general style to those before given as belonging to the eastern Algonquian type, but is still more like some of the representations of the Dighton rock inscription, one of them being Fig. [49], supra, and others, which it still more closely resembles in the mode of drawing human figures, are in the copies of Dighton rock on Pl. [LIV], Chap. XXII. In some respects this Cunningham’s island glyph occupies a typical position intermediate between the eastern and western Algonquian.
A good type of western Algonquian petroglyphs was discovered by the party of Capt. William A. Jones (b), in 1873, with an illustration here reproduced as Fig. 1091, in which the greater number of the characters are shown, about one-fifth real size.
Fig. 1091.—Algonquian petroglyphs. Wyoming.
An abstract of his description is as follows:
* * * Upon a nearly vertical wall of the yellow sandstones, just back of Murphy’s ranch, a number of rude figures had been chiseled, apparently at a period not very recent, as they had become much worn. * * * No certain clue to the connected meaning of this record was obtained, although Pínatsi attempted to explain it when the sketch was shown to him some days later by Mr. F. W. Bond, who copied the inscriptions from the rocks. The figure on the left, in the upper row, somewhat resembles the design commonly used to represent a shield, with the greater part of the ornamental fringe omitted, perhaps worn away in the inscription. We shall possibly be justified in regarding the whole as an attempt to record the particulars of a fight or battle which once occurred in this neighborhood. Pínatsi’s remarks conveyed the idea to Mr. Bond that he understood the figure [the second in the upper line] to signify cavalry, and the six figures [three in the middle of the upper line, as also the three to the left of the lower line] to mean infantry, but he did not appear to recognize the hieroglyphs as the copy of any record with which he was familiar.
Throughout the Wind river country of Wyoming many petroglyphs have been found and others reported by the Shoshoni Indians, who say that they are the work of the “Pawkees,” as they call the Blackfeet, or, more properly, Satsika, an Algonquian tribe which formerly occupied that region, and their general style bears strong resemblance to similar carvings found in the eastern portion of the United States, in regions known to have been occupied by other tribes of the Algonquian linguistic stock.
The four specimens of Algonquian petroglyphs presented here in Figs. 1088-91 and those referred to, show gradations in type. In connection with them reference may be made to the numerous Ojibwa bark records in this work; the Ottawa pipestem, Fig. [738]; and they may be contrasted with the many Dakota, Shoshoni, and Innuit drawings also presented.
The petroglyphs found scattered throughout the states and territories embraced within the area bounded by the Rocky mountains on the east and the Sierra Nevada on the west, and generally south of the forty-eighth degree of latitude, are markedly similar in the class of objects represented and the general style of their delineation, without reference to their division into pecked or painted characters; also in many instances the sites selected for petroglyphic display are of substantially the same character. This type has been generally designated as the Shoshonean, though many localities abounding in petroglyphs of the type are now inhabited by tribes of other linguistic stocks.