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JUNE 19, 2001

An archaeologist with the United States Forest Service has spent three decades cracking a complex inter-tribal pictography code and language used by members of Plains tribes to describe battles, encounters, and history.

The rock art started around 1600 mostly as stick figures. It evolved over the next three centuries to elaborate drawings that depict tribal histories from southern Alberta to northern Mexico.

Dr. James D. Keyser has been interpreting various drawings, which were eventually found on buffalo skin robes as the nomadic lifestyle of the Plains tribes ended. One work he has used is that of Five Crows, a Flathead Chief, who drew what is known as a "ledger book" containing tribal histories.

The books are rare and can cost $50,000 to $100,000 each. Meanwhile, the rock art has been vanishing due to age, theft, and vandalism.

Get the Story:
In Once-Lost Books, the Code Behind Indian Rock Art (The New York Times 6/19)
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