PETROGLYPHS— STEWARD 409 



American Rosetta stone is found. If writing is understood to be the 

 use of alphabetic symbols, petroglyphs were a far cry from writing ; 

 in fact, no alphabet was known to any pre-Columbian American In- 

 dians. Even the civilized Maya and Aztec of Middle America had 

 no true letters but wrote instead with symbols representing syllables, 

 a rebus writing; and their system of writing did not spread beyond 

 their immediate neighbors. That an occasional design among the 

 vast variety of shapes and forms in petroglyphs should fortuitously 

 resemble a letter in one of the many alphabets in the world does not, 

 of course, prove the presence of that alphabet. Petroglyphs are so 

 variable and generally so crude in form that it is all too easy for 

 a person bent on proving a thesis to read into them whatever he 

 desires and to find any shapes he seeks. 



The North American tribes came no nearer to writing than to 

 employ crude pictures of objects and events, with occasional sym- 

 bols or ideograms standing for somewhat abstract ideas. (Mallery 

 has treated this subject at great length in Picture Writing of the 

 North American Indians.) Thus, the Indians of the Great Plains 

 drew war counts or realistic pictures of exploits of battle. The pic- 

 tures are intelligible, however, only to the persons who made them ; 

 there is no assurance that even members of the same tribe can under- 

 stand their import. Moreover, all North American tribes did not 

 write pictographically ; it is characteristic principally of those dwell- 

 ing in the Great Plains and Great Lakes regions. The Great Basin 

 and California tribes knew nothing of such writing. It is not there- 

 fore a foregone conclusion that all petroglyphs are pictographic writ- 

 ing; and, as a matter of fact, many definitely were not. And even 

 though some petroglyphs are pictographic (see, for example, pi. 

 1, A), the artists died so long ago that it is impossible ever to know 

 precisely what they had in mind. A few petroglyphs obviously 

 represent hunting scenes (pi. 9, B), some show dances (fig. 7), but 

 the import of hundreds which clearly depict men and beasts cannot 

 be ascertained, for to the extent that they are writing they are indi- 

 vidualistic and do not follow any standard. When, therefore, any- 

 one not excepting Indians, pretends to interpret these, unless he has 

 the direct testimony of the original artist, one may be assured that 

 it is merely his own entirely unfounded guess. 



Many persons claim to find characters of Chinese writing among 

 petroglyphs, pointing out that much of Chinese writing is picto- 

 graphic. Pictographic writing, however, does not conform to univer- 

 sal conventions. Although it has been used in various parts of the world, 

 each system employs its own styles. A fortuitous resemblance of 

 occasional petroglyph designs to Chinese symbols is no proof that the 

 petroglyph is Chinese, or, indeed that it is even pictographic writing. 



