The Archaeology of the Yakima Valley

by Harlan Ingersoll Smith

In general, the art of the region tends toward line work of geometric and a slightly pictographic nature. It shows little resemblance to that of the coast, but a strong relationship to that of the Plains. The decorative art of the Nez Perce region includes motives from the Plains and also from the Pacific Coast.[353] Some of their designs partake strongly of motives from the Plains, while here in the Yakima Valley there are perhaps more examples of coast art and still much influence from the Plains. Spinden says that in early times the Nez Perce were very poor in decorative ideas and that the richness and variety found in their modern art may be ascribed to the absorbing of ideas from other cultures. This is perhaps equally true of the Yakima region where the influence of coast art in proportion to that from the Plains is perhaps greater than in the Nez Perce region.

Paintings. Pictographic line paintings somewhat geometric in character, made on the basaltic columns on the west of the mouth of Cowiche Creek, on the south side of the Naches River, about four miles northwest from North Yakima, are shown in Plates [XIV-XVI]. These pictures, some in red, and some in white, were probably painted with mineral matter mixed with grease. Their antiquity is unknown. In the Nez Perce region to the east,[354] pictographs in red, yellow and black occur, while in the Thompson River area[355] and in the Lillooet Valley,[356] pictographs in red are found. Some of the Yakima pictographs have been destroyed during the construction of the irrigation flume which runs along the top of this cliff. Others are partly covered by the talus slope. All those remaining, are here represented by those reproduced in the plates. They extend from the top of the talus slope upward a distance of perhaps five feet. Many of them are indistinct, and appear more easily seen, if they are not actually clearer, in the photographs here reproduced than in the originals. Many of the paintings represent human heads and headdresses and one of them the whole figure with such a headdress. These headdresses may be compared to similar designs in the petroglyphs ([Plate XI]) at Sentinal Bluffs, thirty-three miles to the northeast ([Fig. 2, Plate XII] and [Fig. 1, Plate XIII]) at Selah Canon, eight miles to the northeast and the headdress pecked on the grooved net sinker shown in [Fig. 14]. Also, taken together with the pictographs representing the full figure with similar headdress shown in [Fig. 1, Plate XIV], may be compared to the petroglyphs of men each with a headdress among those at Sentinal Bluffs, the human figure with a headdress carved in antler found near Tampico, only fourteen miles to the southwest and shown in [Fig. 121], petroglyphs which apparently represent human forms somewhat similar to this, on Buffalo Rock, in the Nez Perce region to the east[357] and the quill flattener carved to represent a human form with headdress or hair from the Dakota shown in [Fig. 122].

The human figure with feather headdress indicated by ten lines shown in [Fig. 1, Plate XIV] is all in red. It is the next to the westernmost pictograph at this site. It is 457 mm. high, the ends of the legs are 279 mm. apart, the tip of the arms 254 mm., the width of the headdress 229 mm. and the height of the middle feather 101 mm. There are four horizontal red lines on the overhanging column above the figure.[358] [Fig. 2, Plate XIV] shows human heads with feather headdresses in white.[359] Fig. 1, P[late XV] shows similar human heads with feather headdresses also in white.[360] [Fig. 2, Plate XV] shows human heads with feather headdresses in white and a double star figure in white and red.[361] [Plate XVI][362] shows human heads with feather headdresses in white and red. In addition, [Fig. 2] shows the advertisement of a modern business man over the pictographs. Some of the pictographs at the same place have every alternate radiating line in red, while others are in white.

Mr. G. R. Shafer informed me that he knows of painted rocks in the Teton River Valley, 20 miles above the Nelson Bridge, which crosses the Naches a short distance above the mouth of Cowiche Creek. Mr. W. H. Wilcox of North Yakima stated to me that there are pictures on rocks on the west side of the Columbia River ten miles south of Wenatchee. Bancroft[363] refers to painted and "carved" pictures on the perpendicular rocks between Yakima and Pisquouse. According to Mallery, "Capt. Charles Bendire, U. S. Army, states in a letter that Col. Henry C. Merriam, U. S. Army, discovered pictographs on a perpendicular cliff of granite at the lower end of Lake Chelan, lat. 48° N., near old Fort O'Kinakane, on the upper Columbia River. The etchings appear to have been made at widely different periods, and are evidently quite old. Those which appeared the earliest were from twenty-five to thirty feet above the present water level. Those appearing more recent are about ten feet above water level. The figures are in black and red colors, representing Indians with bows and arrows, elk, deer, bear, beaver, and fish. There are four or five rows of these figures, and quite a number in each row. The present native inhabitants know nothing whatever regarding the history of these paintings."[364] Apparently only paintings are meant.

Red ochre is rubbed in the circle and dot designs and the grain of the stone of the pestle shown in [Fig. 30] and also in the incised lines on the pipe shown in [Fig. 104]. Red paint (mercury) partly fills some of the holes and lines on the pendant made of steatite shown in [Fig. 119]. Because of the mineral nature of this paint, it may have remained a long time and its presence does not necessarily prove that the supposedly old grave in which the object was found is recent. Red paint also fills the circles and dots in the slate object shown in [Fig. 120] while vermilion paint is found in the grooves of the animal form shown in [Fig. 125] and as this is probably a mineral which would be rather enduring, it does not indicate that the painting was recently done.

Painting was done on moccasins in the general plateau area of which this is a part.[365] Spinden states that in the Nez Perce region the natives depended upon minerals for dyes, except in the cases of a wood, which produced a brown dye, and rock slime which produced green[366] and that white, red, blue and yellow earth paints were obtained by them further east from the vicinity of the Grande Ronde Valley;[367] also, that rock surfaces were painted over with brown as a field upon which to peck petroglyphs.[368] In the same region moreover, white clay[369] was used for cleaning clothing.

Petroglyphs. The petroglyphs pecked into the weathered surface of the basaltic columns found in this region, are similar in style to the paintings, being largely line designs of geometric or conventional representation together with a few realistic figures. The pictures are formed by pecking away the weathered surface and exposing the lighter color of the basalt below. Some of them may be very old, but the bruised surfaces making up the lines are not weathered very much in comparison with the surrounding rock surface and yet there is no history of their manufacture. In the Nez Perce region[370] such pecked pictographs are also found, some of them being upon fields painted brown.

In [Plate XI] are shown petroglyphs on the vertical basaltic columns on the eastern side of the Columbia River at Sentinal Bluffs, immediately above Priest Rapids. They are at the base of the cliffs shown in [Plate V]. Those shown in Fig. 1 are to the east of the road which runs along a notch blasted in the top of the columns that rise from the river at this point, while those shown in Fig. 2 are about fifteen feet to the southwest on the columns that rise shear from the river.

Some of those shown in Fig. 1[371] represent human figures each with a feather headdress which may be compared with that of the antler figure found at Tampico ([Fig. 121]) and the pictographs of Cowiche Creek. This place is only about 47 miles northeast from Tampico, and 33 miles in the same direction from the mouth of Cowiche Creek. One of these is shown in Fig. 2.[372] The long form in the centre has a headdress which taken with its shape reminds us especially of the human form in antler from Tampico. The general shape of the body and the row of dots on each side edge suggest a resemblance to the quill flattener made of antler from the Dakota shown in [Fig. 122]. On each side are human heads, each with a similar feather headdress that might be interpreted as rising suns with eyes and mouths. On the left are some similar figures without eyes and mouths. Below, is a horizontal figure resembling five links of a chain. There is also a goat which resembles the two pecked in a granite boulder near Buffalo Rock in the Nez Perce area, eighteen miles above Lewiston on the east bank of the Snake River.[373] The star at the bottom, the rays of which end in dots, a small oval with radiating lines at the left, and two connected ovals with radiating lines at the top, remind us of the stars at Selah Canon, shown in [Fig. 1, Plate XII], the petroglyphs near Wallula Junction, shown in [Fig. 2, Plate XIII], somewhat similar figures on the large petroglyph at Nanaimo[374] and perhaps even more than of the Nanaimo figures, those in the petroglyphs beyond Nanaimo at Yellow Island, near Comox.[375] However, the two connected ovals with the radiating lines may represent hands of a human figure with a headdress having radiating feathers. All of these headdresses remind us of the others at this place shown in Fig. 1, the rising suns at Selah Canon next described, the pictographs at the mouth of Cowiche Creek, and the incised human form in antler.