179 



hiippeus to be the possessor of any relics he puts iq^oii them no 

 modest price. It is j^laiu that a minute exploration should soon be 

 commenced. There is an opportunity for making a rare collection 

 that would hereafter be of incalculable value to the student of 

 American archaeology. 



Note. — Since writing the above, I have read a paper in the 

 American Naturalist on rock inscriptions.* The writer states that 

 " Throughout this entire country the Navajo Indians and the Utes 

 and Pah-Utes have covered the walls of bowlders with re23resentations 

 of more recent date, in which the horse figures conspicuously," etc. I 

 beg leave to differ with him, at least with regard to the "Pah," or, 

 more properly, Pai-tFtes "covering" rocks with inscriptions. I have 

 had considerable experience with these Indians; and in all my travels 

 amongst them, and conversations with them, I have found them ut- 

 terly incapable of expressing an idea or representing anything by 

 means of signs or drawings. They have gathered about and asked 

 me what I was doing, when I sketched. They had not the remotest 

 idea; the whole thing was entirely beyond their comprehension. 

 Indeed, it is almost impossible to conceive the limited range of the 

 Pai-Uta mind in its native state. "Writing — "paper-talk" — is a 

 profound mystery to them. I have frequently attempted to explain 

 it to a chief whom I well knew, an Indian of more than ordinary 

 intelligence. I showed him my writing; showed him that the let- 

 ters were synonymous with those in a newspaper; and that if what 

 I wrote were sent to the "Mericats" in the East, and were printed 

 in that way, they would all understand it. From this he may have 

 obtained a vague idea. I tried to teach him to write the name 

 by which he was called in the settlement, Frank, — jn'onounced 

 '• Brank" by himself and his tribe. After numerous attempts he 

 succeeded in constructing something that had a resemblance to the 

 copy in capitals that I had set for him. I have often given him 

 and other Indians a pen or pencil and jiaper; but they could not 

 even confine themselves to the lines; they scrawled all over it in 



* Rock Inscriptions of the "Ancient Pueblos " of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona. 

 Edwin A. Barber.— .Iw. Nat., Dec. 1876. 



