Interpreting the Ojibwe Pictographs of North Hegman Lake MN - 6

According to Schoolcraft, the Dakota had a very similar God of the North to the Ojibwe Wintermaker called Wa-ze-at-ta We-chas-tah. Wolves are "the soldiers of the northern god, who fight his battles" (Schoolcraft 1851:vol.4:496). In the drawing of the Dakota spirit he is depicted with outstretched arms bent legs and a horned headdress. A wolf is drawn to the left of the pictographic figure.

As Schoolcraft keenly observed:" The idea and the picture representing the idea are too intimately connected to allow the one to be well understood without a knowledge of the other" (Schoolcraft 1851:412). The Meda (or medical magicians) and the

Oracles or Prophets called Jossakeeds . . . are the leading influences in war and hunting . . . They furnish objects of remembrance upon graves, they animate the arcana of the mystical societies, and they constitute no small part of the pictorial matter recorded on trees, on rolls of birch bark and skins, and even on the hard surface of rocks. Whenever a sheet of Indian figures, or a piece of their symbolic writings is presented for examination, it is important to decide, as a primary point, upon its theological or mythological characteristics; for these are generally the key to its interpretation (Schoolcraft 1851:413).

Although artist George Catlin often unfortunately did not identify which specific tribe he was describing, he wrote during the first half of the nineteenth century that the dog feast was a "religious" event and dog images were carved into rocks as a symbol of fidelity (Catlin 1844:230). Dogs were also offerings to the underground spirit that caused illness and were sometimes drowned in lakes with tobacco as an offering (Copway 1851).

In Ojibwe Pictography pictographs were often mnemonic devices and sometimes there were songs associated with the signs. Rock art is a subclass of pictography which was apparently quite widely used within the landscape. Messages were chalked on rocks. Images were carved into trees. Birch bark messages were left for others. Maps were made. Birch bark scrolls were used in Midewiwin ceremonies.

The imagery at Hegman Lake may be a simple memory device and a way to remember the meridian constellations used for navigation.

Some pictographs had regular and well understood meanings e.g., clan symbols.

In Ojibwe the subclass of pictography on rock was called "muzzinabikon" and usually recorded clan symbols and the dreams and visions of medicine men and women.

As with other areas of archaeology there is differential preservation of rock art. Chalked pictographs and carvings on soft sandstone or trees tend not to be preserved. The accounts that indicated that the caves all along the Mississippi River were covered with petroglyphs have for the most part eroded away over time or been destroyed by road construction and the railroads.

The research model described here suggests that the Hegman Lake panel represents the Ojibwe meridian constellations visible during the early evening in winter. These were useful for navigating in the deep woods during hunting season. The arrangement of figures at the site appears to have been carefully composed by one rock artist.

In the future it may be useful to photograph the panel using infrared film and a red and two neutral density filters since Loendorf (1999) suggests that infrared photography can sometimes surprisingly "see through" red ochre and produce an image of what is underneath it. This could generate stratigraphic information if there is an earlier pictograph with a different set of pigments or impurities in a binder. Sturgeon cartilage was sometimes rendered as a binder.

It also might be useful to photograph the panel under high magnification to attempt to resolve if natural processes have encapsulated the red ochre paint. To the naked eye its present relatively unweathered and excellent condition appears to mean either that it may not be especially old or it may be a site where an older pictograph could have been repainted.

The inclusion of elements from widely known Ojibwe legends, and references to constellations with cosmological or religious significance, make it an intriguing scene. Its location and artistic value have made it popular with visitors to the north woods.

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