MALLERY. | PETROGLYPHS IN MEXICO. 131 
SECTION 3. 
MEXICO. 
No adequate attention can be given in the present paper to the dis- 
tribution and description of the petroglyphs of Mexico. In tact very 
littie accurate information is accessible regarding them. The distin- 
guished explorer, Mr. A. Bandelier, in a conversation mentioned that he 
had sketched but not published two petroglyphs in Sonora. One, very 
large and interesting, was at Cara Pintada, 3 miles southwest of Huas- 
savas, and a smaller one was at Las Flechas, 1 mile west of Huassavas. 
He also sketched one in Chihuahua on the trail from Casas Grandes to 
the Cerro de Montezuma. From the accounts of persons met in his 
Mexican travels he gave it as his opinion that a large number of petro- 
glyphs still remained in the region of the Sierra Madre. 
The following mention of the paintings of the ancient inhabitants of 
Lower California is translated from an anonymous account, in Docu- 
mentos para la Historia de Mexico (a), purporting to have been written 
in 1790: 
Throughout civilized California, from south to north, and especially in the caves 
and smooth rocks, there remain various rude paintings. Notwithstanding their dis- 
proportion and lack of art, the representations of men, fish, bows and arrows, can 
be distinguished and with them different kind of strokes, something like characters. 
The colors of these paintings are of four kinds; yellow, a reddish color, green and 
black. The greater part of them are painted in high places, and from this it is in- 
ferred by some that the old tradition is true, that there were giants among the 
ancient Californians. Be this as it may, in the Mission of Santiago, which is at the 
south, was discovered on a smooth rock of great height, a row of hands stamped in 
red. On the high cliffs facing the shore are seen fish painted in various shapes and 
sizes, bows, arrows, and some unknown characters. In other parts are Indians armed 
with bows and arrows, and various kinds of insects, snakes, and mice, with lines and 
characters of other forms. On a flat rock about 2 yards in length were stamped in- 
signia or escutcheons of rank and inseriptions of various characters. 
Towards Purmo, about 30 leagues beyond the Mission of Santiago del Sur, is a 
bluff 8 yards in height and on the center of if is seen an inscription which resembles 
Gothic letters interspersed with Hebrew and Chaldean characters [ ?]. 
Though the Californian Indians have often been asked concerning the significance 
of the figures, lines, and characters, no satisfactory answer has been obtained. The 
most that has been established by their information is that the paintings were their 
predecessors, and that they are absolutely ignorant of the signification of them. It 
is evident that the paintings and drawings of the Californians are significant sym- 
bols and landmarks by which they intended to leave to posterity the memory, either 
of their establishment in this country, or of certain wars or political or natural 
triumphs. These pictures are not like those of the Mexicans, but might have the 
same purpose. 
Several petroglyphs in Sonora are described and illustrated infra in 
Chapter xx on Special Comparisons. The following copies of petro- 
glyphs are presented here as specimens and are markedly different from 
those in the northwestern states of Mexico, which represent the Aztec 
culture. 
