Petroglyphs, Pictographs, and the Lewis and Clark Expedition

Members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition — the Corps of Discovery — wrote about the petroglyphs (carvings) and pictographs (paintings) they saw on rock. Sometimes Native people explained the markings to them: they were used for navigation, for communicating with the spirits, and in social and ceremonial life. Other markings looked abandoned, with no apparent link to the tribes living nearby.

Marks on rock, bodies and objects

The journals keep something largely lost to modern eyes: rock markings in context, among marks on trees, bodies, objects and villages.

• Body paint. Some people the Corps met wore paint, especially red and white. At one friendly meeting with a group of warriors, the head man was painted white and the others in various colours; at a war dance that night some young men "painted themselves in curious manner", and each told in turn of the warlike deeds of his life.
• Stones that answered. On the Heart (Chess-che tar) River, Clark recorded (21 October 1804) a smooth stone that Native people consulted on all great occasions, believing it showed marks or symbols of what was to come. At Medicine Hill, people visited a stone every spring, and sometimes in summer, to learn what the year would bring: they gave it smoke, slept in a nearby wood, and returned in the morning to find raised white marks foretelling peace or war and other changes. A sandstone outcrop nearby is covered with paintings and carvings — which invites the question whether rock surfaces, too, were a way to speak with the spirit world.

Drawing of a canoe with carved images, from the journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

• Carved wood. Near Beacon Rock, on 31 October 1805, Clark found an old deserted village with eight vaults for the dead, covered with curiously engraved boards and many wooden figures of people. He could not learn whether they were worshipped; people kept them in prominent places in their houses. Near Fort Clatsop (1 February 1806) he described canoes painted and ornamented with images at bow and stern, sometimes rising five feet high.

Scenes like these raise questions no one can now answer. Did rock markings mirror ceremonies and everyday social life? Did a figure's colour show its rank or importance? Were all these markings connected? Their meanings are unclear today.

Tavern Cave

The Corps left St. Charles, Missouri, on 21 May 1804. On 23 May Clark passed a large cave on the left bank that the French called "the Tavern" — about 120 feet wide, 40 feet deep and 20 feet high — with many images painted on the rock, to which Native and French travellers paid homage, and many names written. Clark added his own.

Clark sketched the figure in his journal. Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Moniteau Creek

On 7 June 1804 the Corps stopped at the mouth of Moniteau (or Manitou) Creek, at what is now Manitou Bluffs. Clark noted curious paintings and carvings on a limestone outcrop inlaid with white, red and blue flint; John Ordway and Charles Floyd each wrote of a picture of "the Devil" on the cliff. Manitou and Moniteau are variants of the Algonquian name for the Great Spirit.

Nemaha River

On 12 July 1804 the Corps rested on the Big Nemaha River. Clark climbed an "artificial mound" and, seeing more mounds or ancient graves, took them as strong evidence that the country had once been thickly settled. A couple of miles on, he saw Native markings on a rock overhanging the water and carved his name and the date beside them.

Petroglyphs along the Nemaha River. National Archives and Records Administration.

Clark's engraved signature. NPS photo.

Pompey's Pillar

On 25 July 1806, travelling the Yellowstone River, Clark passed a rock landmark with Toussaint Charbonneau, Sacagawea and their son Jean Baptiste, York — a Black man Clark enslaved — and nine other men. Clark named it "Pompy's Tower", today Pompey's Pillar. He described it as 200 feet high and 400 paces around, climbable only from the northeast. Native people had built two piles of stone on top and carved figures of animals on its face; near them, Clark carved his name and the date.

Visiting — and protecting — these places

The Corps' journals are online at lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu. To follow the route, see Lewis and Clark National Historical Park, the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, and the NPS's Travel the Lewis & Clark Expedition pages.

These markings are fragile. Don't disturb petroglyphs or pictographs, and never carve or paint over them, so that future visitors can still see these records of Native peoples and of Lewis and Clark.

Sources

• National Park Service, "Petroglyphs, Pictographs, and the Lewis and Clark Expedition." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/petroglyphs-pictographs-lewis-clark.htm
• The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, entries of 23 May, 7 June, 12 July and 21 October 1804; 31 October 1805; 1 February and 25 July 1806. https://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/
• Short quotations are from the expedition's own journals (1804–1806); the rest is rewritten in hubnx's own words.