Interpreting the Ojibwe  Pictographs of North Hegman Lake, MN

Some of the best known and most photographed pictographs in the Upper Midwest are located at North Hegman Lake, northwest of Ely, MN, in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness on a granite cliff overlooking the water. This rock art is located within the "northern woodlands" stylistic rock art region of Campbell Grant (1983) and Klaus Wellmann (1979).

The panel shows a human figure in an outstretched arms posture standing near a quadruped animal with a long tail, possibly a dog or wolf, and a remarkably well drawn bull moose with splayed hooves and dew claws. (A dew claw on a moose is a reduced hind toe or the false rudimentary hoof above the true hoof .) Beneath these figures is a long horizontal line, probably representing the ground or horizon, and above the human figure are two vertical rows of short horizontal lines or dashes. One set has 4 lines and next to it are 3 lines. Above and to the right are what look like three canoes. The top two canoes have two paddlers and the third has a faint single one in the middle. Above the moose's rack is a single mark. Above all of these figures is a large cross like a "plus" sign.

Several feet to the left of the scene are other much more faint pictographs including 6 horizontal lines, one above the other, three crosses above each other, and a "Y" shaped figure with a "C" shape to it with diagonal strokes. There may also be a spiral and grid-like figure near the water.

The arrangement of figures at the main panel of the North Hegman Lake, Minnesota rock art site appears to have been carefully composed at one time by one rock artist. After examining the pictographs from about a foot away, it appears that the application of the red ochre was relatively recent, since it hardly looks weathered compared to other similar red ochre pictographs in northern Minnesota. It is also possible that someone has carefully reapplied ochre to a much older pictograph.

Although experiments have shown that red ochre on a rock face can become sealed through natural processes and remain quite bright even when very old, I saw no particular indication from looking at the panel up close that it was naturally encapsulated or sealed; however, I have not viewed it under magnification nor conducted any sort of microscopic examination of the surface.

The most likely candidates for the cultural groups who were making red ochre pictographs with these kinds of figures during the historical period were the Ojibwe and Cree. Other similar sites in the region have been investigated by researchers like Thor Conway (1993), Selwyn Dewdney and Kenneth Kidd (1973), Henry R. Schoolcraft (1851), Grace Rajnovich (1994) and others. Most of the other recent red ochre pictographs in this area appear to have been made by Ojibwe individuals who were recording shamanistic dreams and visions and Ojibwe leaders who were recording their biographical exploits.

The panel's anthropomorphic figure is painted with an "outstretched arms" posture rather than an "upraised arms" posture. Henry R. Schoolcraft, an Indian Agent whose wife was half Ojibwe and whose mother-in-law was a full-blood Ojibwe, authored a multi-volume work called Historical and Statistical Information . . . of the Indian tribes of the United States published in 1851. According to Schoolcraft, in pictographic inscriptions used in hunting, an anthropomorph with upraised and outstretched arms "depicts a Meda [shaman]. He is about to open his performances, and appeals to the candor and sympathy of his fellows.

. . . Behold me, Medas, my friends. Unishenauba (or the common people.) Question me my friends (Schoolcraft 1851:vol.1:383-384).

According to Schoolcraft, in Ojibwe birch bark scroll pictography "friendship [is shown] by an open hand" (Schoolcraft 1851: vol.1:420).

An upraised arm posture was a widely known position of prayer assumed by Native Americans in many areas of North America. According to Albert Reagan (1958), the Indian Agent at Nett Lake, Minnesota from 1909-1914, it was also associated with a dance posture of Ojibwe medicine men and women, especially when the legs were slightly bent. It also can mean supernatural being.

Selwyn Dewdney and Kenneth E. Kidd (1973) in their book Indian Rock Paintings of the Great Lakes described a huge, detached slab of granite below the Hegman Lake pictographs, which produced a dull hollow sound when tapped with a rock.

Sound may have been a component in the selection of rock art sites in Minnesota. For example, in describing the petroglyphs at Nett Lake in northern Minnesota, Albert B. Reagan reported that Spirit Island or "Picture Island," where the petroglyphs were located, was also sometimes called "Drum Island" by the Ojibwe because "the polished rock area is hollow beneath; and, on walking over it, it gives out a hollow drum-like sound" (Reagan 1958).

A review of culturally specific ethnohistoric sources, analysis of the rock art, and specific information about the night sky suggest that this panel probably represents an accurate drawing of the Ojibwe winter constellation. Like the Ptolemaic system of constellations, Ojibwe constellations had many rich associations with stories, myths, and legends.

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