Salt Lake Telegram | 1933-07-08 | Page 4 | Gold Clue Sought in Indian Signs

Gold Clue Cille Sought In Indian Signs By Science Service The Smithsonian Institution is being beung be be- ing ung besieged by communications from treasure hunters Apparently the depression depression de de- de is responsible At any rate the mall mail brings an endless succession of request for tor scientific aid in reading supposedly cabalistic messages left by Indians There have always been legends that Indians hid gold and other valuables valuables valuables ables from European explorers Just these legends are being revived and put into wide circulation especially especially espe espe- especially in the south And the supposed clues to the lost treasures are the crude signs and pictures that Indians left on rocks and cave walls But no one alive today can interpret interpret inter inter- pret the Indian pictographs scattered through the United States Indians in Mexico had a system of ot writing but butin butin butin in the United States only a few standard standard stand stand- ard symbols were so used that they could be interpreted by Indians of ot a group Even th these e generally would have been meaningless to a member of a neighbor tribe To attempt interpretation interpretation interpretation inter inter- today is hop hopeless le The majority of pictures scratched or painted by Ind Indians ans on rocks probably probably ably had no meaning even to the Indians Indians Indians In In- who made them Many were made Idly just as a man today draws patterns on a restaurant table cloth with wilh his fork while he talks Some other pictographs were sympathetic sympathetic sympathetic sym sym- pathetic magic The Indian hunter drew a picture of the hunt believing that the act of ot drawing the animal with an arrow piercing it would foreshadow foreshadow fore fore- shadow the event happening just that way Still other pictographs were personal personal personal per per- symbols of ot individual Indians their names so to speak An Indian who ventured into enem enemy territory and showed his bravery by committing committing commit commit- ting some vandalism there would write his name on a conspicuous rock in the invaded region This was rather like the college boy who steals out at night to paint his class claM numerals numerals numerals numer numer- als on the chapel roof root Science not only considers the pictographs pictographs pic pie unreadable but it believes the Spanish accounts of ot Indian wealth In itt southern states were enormously exaggerated ted