BY HENRY TRYON. 



47 



some are evidences of a higher civilization than the Australian 

 natives have otherwise ever exhibited.* 



Almost without exception these descriptions have reference 

 to rock paintings proper, and have this character in common in 

 that they represent with more or less fidelity easily recognised 

 objects, indeed some of their figures the outstretched hand for 

 example, are repeated throughout the Continent. 



In reference to another class of native delineationsi 

 inscriptions of the rudest type engraved in the rock itself. These 

 are found throughout the world, and are especially numerous in 

 the United States and South America. Their origin is assigned 

 by the denizens of the locaUties where they exist, almost without 

 exception, to a mythical source. It is to similar productions that 

 Alexander Humboldt prefers as occuring in the SavanahaSf 

 bounded by the Cassiquaire, the Atabapo, the Orinoco and the 

 Rio Negro, '^attesting the previous occupation of an anterior race 

 of men very different from those who now inhabit the same 

 regions. Rude figures, representing the sun, moon, and different 

 animals traced on the hardest rocks of granite." — (Travels, Eng. 

 Trans., vol ii., p. 471-472, cf., also John Whitfield on "Rock 

 Inscriptions in Brazil." Jour., Inst. Anth, 1873.) 



In the United States they occur everywhere, and are especi- 

 ally reported from Colorado. Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming, Ari- 

 zona, and other parts of the Rocky Mountain Region. In Utah, in 

 the Upper streams of the Colorado, where once resided the myth- 

 ical ancestors of the Moquis Pueblo Indians, (the present inhabi- 

 tants of these spots who are " incapable of expressing an idea, 

 or representing anything by means of signs or drawings." — Bull. 

 Buffalo Soc. Nat., etc., vol. iii., p. 173), the red sandstone rock 

 which forms the Canon walls, and also the broad blocks of it 

 on which the houses of these people are said to have stood, are 

 covered with chiselled inscriptions, the significance of which is 

 problematical. The inscriptions moreover are not always on 

 sandstone, sometimes " they are engraved on the smooth exposed 



• It will not be without interest, in this connection, to refer to the rock 

 paintings of New Zealand, which have been subjects of communication to the 

 New Zealand Institute, by W. B. D. Mantell, (Trans. N. Z. Inst. 1868, 

 vol. I, n. e., page 6), and Dr. Haast (op. cit 1877, vol. x, page 44.) 

 Although we may feel sceptical towards the inferences which have be«n 

 drawn on a critical examination of them by Mr. Mackenzie Cameron (op. 

 cit 1879, vol. XI page 154,) who is of opinion that they are eloquent of a 

 prehistoric intercourse between India and New Zaland. Also to the anom- 

 alous exhibition, in the Tattoo marks of Motu natives of New Guinea, 

 of characters similar to those of the Azoka Inscriptions of India, which are 

 themselves allied to Phoenician, (Journ. Anthrop. Inst. 1878 Paper by 

 Mr. Park Harrison.) 



