“When Charcoal Was Hung”: The Story Behind the Hanging Scene Petroglyph at Writing-on-Stone

A previously undocumented petroglyph at Writing-on-Stone (Áísínai’pi) in southern Alberta depicts the execution of Blood (Káínawa) warrior Charcoal (Si’k-okskitsis), following a manhunt by the North-West Mounted Police. This discovery, supported by analysis of the Biographic art lexicon, sheds new light on historical events at the UNESCO World Heritage Site. The study combines archival research with iconographic analysis to interpret the 1897 petroglyph, which was recorded in 1976 but remained enigmatic until now.

Kaiser, D. A., Keyser, J. D., & Sundstrom, L. (2023). “When Charcoal Was Hung”: The Story Behind the Hanging Scene Petroglyph at Writing-on-Stone. Plains Anthropologist, 68(267), 229–246. https://doi.org/10.1080/00320447.2024.2409033