Today’s blog was written by Arizona State Museum’s archivist Amy Rule. She can be found working alongside the rest of the Library and Archives staff in the beautiful second floor reading room at ASM providing preservation and access to over 1500 linear feet of archival and manuscript holdings.

It is not every day that a 150 year-old book in the ASM Library can precipitate controversy and debate, but this happened recently when a visiting scholar examined Henry Rowe Schoolcraft’s book, The Indian Tribes of the United States.

Early American ethnologist Schoolcraft (1793-1864) published this monumental, six-volume work between 1851 and 1857. He worked as an Indian agent and on topographical surveys of the Upper Great Lakes, and was married to a half-Ojibwa (or Chippewa) woman. Although self-educated, he was fascinated by the languages and cultures of Native Americans.

Dighton Rock, a 40-ton boulder in the Taunton River in Massachusetts was one of his long-term interests. Strange carvings on the face of the rock had been the subject of speculation by settlers since the 1680s. Were they pictographs left behind by Vikings, Portuguese explorers, or the Native people of the area? Schoolcraft believed they had to be Algonquin or Icelandic in origin. He made sketches of the markings, but then decided to obtain a scientific, factual rendering of the rock using the latest technology—photography.

Schoolcraft commissioned local photographer Horatio B. King to make a daguerreotype of Dighton Rock. King set up his tripod and camera in the river on July 7, 1853 and made several exposures showing the rock with chalk dust to highlight the mysterious markings. Artist Seth Eastman posed in his stiff collar and vest atop the rock to provide a sense of scale. One of King’s daguerreotypes was used to produce an engraving that was bound into volume 4 of The Indian Tribes of the United States in the chapter titled “Scandinavian Claims.” For Schoolcraft, the photograph provided the evidence he needed to conclude that the inscription was made by Indians.

But that did not end the controversy. In 1975, National Geographic magazine published a color photograph of the rock in raking light with an expert’s opinion that Portuguese Captain Miguel Corte Real left the markings behind after his 1511 voyage to North America.

When Scandinavian petroglyph scholar Dr. David Vogt was conducting research at ASM this spring, he looked at Schoolcraft’s book. In Vogt’s opinion, the inscriptions on Dighton Rock were certainly not made by Vikings, but more likely were carved by the indigenous people of that area.

Dr. Vogt also found an interesting parallel with his own research on petroglyph sites: the intertidal location of the rock. In his extensive survey of Scandinavia’s rock art, he has found that the inscribed stones frequently occur in areas where the coastline has undergone change due to the rising landmass of post-glacial Scandinavia. He wondered if perhaps the carvings on the rocks signal a special meaning inherent in the zone between land and water for inhabitants of both the New and Old Worlds.

Photograph from Historical and Statistical Information Respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United: Collected and Prepared under the Direction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo, & Company, 1851-57), in ASM’s collection.