For the earth he drew a straight line,
For the sky a bow above it;
White the space between for day-time,
Filled with little stars for night-time;
On the left a point for sunrise,
On the right a point for sunset,
On the top a point for noontide,
And for rain and cloudy weather
Waving lines descending from it.
From The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth
Mandan Hide with symbols.
Image available for photo prints & editorial downloads
When European explorers arrived in America, Native Americans did not
communicate through writing as we know it. Instead, they told stories
(oral histories) and created pictures and symbols. This type of
communication is not unique to
Americans, as long before writing was developed, people around the world recorded
events, ideas, plans, maps, and feelings by drawing pictures and
symbols on rocks, hides, and other surfaces.
Historic pictorial symbols for a word or a
phrase have been found dating to before 3000 BC. These symbols, called
pictographs, are created by painting on
rock surfaces with natural pigments. These natural pigments included iron
oxides found in hematite or limonite, white or yellow clays, and soft
rock, charcoal, and copper minerals. These natural pigments were mixed to
produce a palette of yellow, white, red, green, black, and blue. Historic
pictographs are usually found under protective ledges or in caves where
they have been protected from the weather.
Another similar form of communication, called petroglyphs,
were carved, pecked or abraded into stone surfaces. This carving could
produce a visible indentation in the rock or it could cut deeply enough to
reveal unweathered material of a
different color below.
Native American symbols were like words and often had one or more
definitions and/or contained different connotations. Varying from tribe to
tribe, it can sometimes be difficult to know their meanings, while others
symbols are very clear. With the multiple languages spoken by Native
American tribes, symbols or "picture writing" was often used to convey
words and ideas. Symbols were also used to decorate homes, were painted on
buffalo hides, and recorded important events of the tribe.
These images are a valuable record of cultural expression and hold
profound spiritual significance for contemporary Native Americans and for
the descendants of the early Spanish settlers.
The arrival of Spanish people to the Southwest in 1540 had a dramatic impact on the
lifestyle of the pueblo people. In 1680 the Pueblo tribes rose up in
revolt of Spanish rule, and drove the settlers out of the area and back to