CHAPTER XXIII. 
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 
The result of the writer’s studies upon petroglyphs as distinct from 
other forms of picture writing may now be summarized. 
Perhaps the most important lesson learned from these studies is that 
no attempt should be made at symbolic interpretation unless the syin- 
bolic nature of the particular characters under examination is known, 
or can be logically inferred from independent facts. To start with a 
theory, or even a hypothesis, that the rock writings are all symbolic 
and may be interpreted by the imagination of the observer or by trans- 
lation either from or into known symbols of similar form found in other 
regions, were a limitless delusion. Doubtless many of the characters 
are genuine symbols or emblems, and some have been ascertained 
through extrinsic information to be such. Sometimes the more modern 
forms are explained by Indians who have kept up the pictographic 
practice, and the modern forms occasionally throw light upon the more 
ancient. But the rock inscriptions do not evince mysticism or ésoteri- 
cism, cryptography, or steganography. With certain exceptions they 
were intended to be understood by all observers either as rude objec- 
tive representations or as ideograms, which indeed were often so imper- 
fect as to require elucidation, but not by any hermeneutic key. While 
they often related to religious ceremonies or myths, such figures were 
generally drawn in the same spirit with which any interesting matter 
was portrayed. 
While the interpretation of petroglyphs by Indians should be obtain- 
ed if possible, it must be received with caution. They very seldom 
know by tradition the meaning of the older forms, and their inferences 
are often made from local and limited pictographic practices. There 
is no more conscientious and intelligent Indian authority than Frank 
La Fléche, an Omaha, and he explains the marks on a rock in Ne- 
braska as associated with the figures of deceased men and exhibiting 
the object which caused their death, such as an arrow or ax. This may 
be a local or tribal practice, but it certainly does not apply to similar 
figures throughout the Algonquian and Iroquoian areas, where, ac- 
cording to the concurrent testimony for more than two centuries, 
similar figures are either designations of tribes and associations, or in 
their combinations are records of achievements. 
Lossing (>) gives the following explanation of markings on a well 
known rock: 
Among the brave warriors in the battle [of Maumee] who were the last to flee be- 
fore Wayne’s legion, was Me-sa-sa, or Turkey-foot, an Ottawa chief, who lived on 
Blanchards Fork of the AuGlaize River. He was greatly beloved by his people. 
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