A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro/Appendix
APPENDIX.
ON AMAZONIAN PICTURE-WRITINGS.
As connected with the languages of these people, we may mention the curious figures on the locks commonly known as picture-writings, which are found all over the Amazon district.
The first I saw was on the serras of Montealegre, as described in my Journal (p. 104). These differed from all I have since seen, in being painted or rubbed in with a red colour, and not cut or scratched as in most of the others I met with. They were high up on the mountain, at a considerable distance from any river.
The next I fell in with were on the banks of the Amazon, on rocks covered at high water just below the little village of Serpa. These figures are principally of the human face, and are roughly cut into the hard rock, blackened by the deposit which takes place in the waters of the Amazon, as in those of the Orinooko.
Again, at the mouth of the Rio Branco, on a little rocky island in the river, are numerous figures of men and animals of a large size scraped into the hard granitic rock. Near St. Isabel, S. Jozé, and Castanheiro, there are more of these figures, and I found others on the Upper Rio Negro in Venezuela. I took careful drawings of all of them, — which are unfortunately lost.
In the river Uaupé's also these figures are very numerous, and of these I preserved my sketches. They contain rude representations of domestic utensils, canoes, animals, and
human figures, as well as circles, squares, and other regular forms. They are all. scraped on the excessively hard granitic rock. Some are entirely above and others below high-water mark, and many are quite covered with a growth of lichens, through which, however, they are still plainly visible. (Plates XV. and XVI.) Whether they had any signification to those who executed them, or were merely the first attempts of a rude art guided only by fancy, it is impossible now to say. It is, however, beyond a doubt that they are of some antiquity, and are never executed by the present race of Indians. Even among the most uncivilised tribes, where these figures are found, they have no idea whatever of their origin; and if asked, will say they do not know, or that they suppose the spirits did them. Many of the Portuguese and Brazilian traders will insist upon it that they are natural productions, or, to use their own expression, that " God made them ; " and on any objection being made they triumphantly ask, "And could not God make them?" which of course settles the point. Most of them in fact are quite unable to see any difference between these figures and the natural marks and veins that frequently occur in the rocks.