It is obvious that before attempting the interpretation of pictographs, concerning which no direct information is to be obtained, there should be a full collection of known characters, in order that through them the unknown may be learned. When any considerable number of objects in a pictograph are actually known, the remainder may be ascertained by the context, the relation, and the position of the several designs, and sometimes by the recognized principles of the art.

The Bureau of Ethnology has been engaged, therefore, for a considerable time in collating a large number of characters in a card-catalogue arranged primarily by similarity in forms, and in attaching to each character any significance ascertained or suggested. As before explained, the interpretation upon which reliance is mainly based is that which has been made known by direct information from Indians who themselves were actually makers of pictographs at the time of giving the interpretation. Apart from the comparisons obtained by this collation, the only mode of ascertaining the meaning of the characters, in other words, the only key yet discovered, is in the study of the gesture-sign included in many of them. The writer several years ago suggested that among people where a system of ideographic gesture-signs prevailed, it would be expected that their form would appear in any mode of artistic representation made by the same people with the object of conveying ideas or recording facts. When a gesture-sign had been established and it became necessary or desirable to draw a character or design to convey the same ideas, nothing could be more natural than to use the graphic form or delineation which was known and used in the gesture-sign. It was but one more step, and an easy one, to fasten upon bark, skins, or rocks the evanescent air pictures of the signs.

The industrious research of Dr. D. G. Brinton, whose recent work, The LenÂpÉ and their Legends, before mentioned, is received as this paper passes through the press, has discovered passages in Rafinesque’s generally neglected and perhaps unduly discredited volumes, by which that eccentric but acute writer seems to have announced the general proposition that the graphic signs of the Indians correspond to their manual signs. He also asserted that he had collected a large number of them, though the statement is not clear, for if all Indian pictographs are, in a very general sense, “based upon their language of signs,” all of those pictographs might be included in his alleged collection, without an ascertained specific relation between any pictograph and any sign. It is probable, however, that Rafinesque actually had at least valuable notes on the subject, the loss of which is greatly to be regretted.

In the paper “Sign Language among the North American Indians,” published in the First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, a large number of instances were given of the reproduction of gesture lines in the pictographs made by the North American Indians, and they appeared to be most frequent when there was an attempt to convey subjective ideas. These were beyond the range of an artistic skill limited to the rough presentation of objects in outline. It was suggested, therefore, that the part of pictographs which is the most difficult of interpretation in the absence of positive knowledge, was the one in the elucidation of which the study of sign-language would assist. Many pictographs in the present paper, the meaning of which is definitely known from direct sources, are noted in connection with the gesture-signs corresponding with the same idea, which signs are also understood from independent evidence.

So numerous and conclusive are these examples, that it is not necessary to add to them save by presenting the pictograph copied in Figure 155, as one of special importance in this connection.

During the summer of 1882 Dr. W. J. Hoffman visited the Tule River Agency, California, where he found a large rock painting, of which Figure 155 is a copy made by him, the following being his description:

The agency is located upon the western side of the Sierra Nevada in the headwater caÑons of the branches of the south fork of Tule River. The country is at present occupied by several tribes of the Yokuts linguistic stock, and the only answer received to inquiries respecting the age or origin of the record was, that it was found there when the ancestors of the present tribes arrived. The local migrations of the various Indian tribes of this part of California are not yet known with sufficient certainty to determine to whom the records may be credited, but all appearances with respect to the weathering and disintegration of the rock upon which the record is etched, the appearance of the coloring matter subsequently applied, and the condition of the small depressions made at the time for mixing the pigments with a viscous substance would indicate that the work had been performed about a century ago.

The Tulare Indians have been residents of that part of the State for at least one hundred years, and the oldest now living state that the records were found by their ancestors, though whether more than two generations ago could not be ascertained.

The drawings were outlined by pecking with a piece of quartz or other silicious rock, to the depth of from a mere visible depression to a third of an inch. Having thus satisfactorily depicted the several ideas, colors were applied which upon examination appear to have penetrated the slight interstices between the crystalline particles of the rock, which had been bruised and slightly fractured by hammering with a piece of stone. It appears probable, too, that the hammering was repeated after application of the colors to insure better results.

Upon a small bowlder, under the natural archway formed by the breaking of the large rock, small depressions were found which had been used as mortars for grinding and mixing the colors. These depressions average 2 inches in diameter and about 1 inch in depth. Traces of color still remain, mixed with a thin layer of a shining substance resembling a coating of varnish, though of a flinty hardness.

This coating is so thin that it cannot be removed with a steel instrument, and appears to have become part of the rock itself.

From the animals depicted upon the ceiling it seems that both beaver and deer were found in the country, and as the beaver tail and the hoofs of deer and antelope are boiled to procure glue, it is probable that the tribe which made these pictographs was as far advanced in respect to the making of glue and preparing of paints as other tribes throughout the United States.

Examination shows that the dull red color is red ocher, found in various places in the valley, while the yellow was an ocherous clay, also found there. The white color was probably obtained there, and is evidently earthy, though of what nature can only be surmised, not sufficient being obtainable from the rock picture to make satisfactory analysis with the blow pipe. The composition of the black is not known, unless it was made by mixing clay and powdered charcoal from the embers. The latter is a preparation common at this day among other tribes.

An immense granite bowlder, about 20 feet in thickness and 30 in length, is so broken that a lower quarter is removed, leaving a large square passageway through its entire diameter almost northwest and southeast. Upon the western wall of this passageway is a collection of the colored sketches of which Figure 155 is a reduced copy. The entire face of the rock upon which the pictograph occurs measures about 12 or 15 feet in width and 8 in height. The ceiling also contains many characters of birds, quadrupeds, etc. No. 1 in the figure measures 6 feet in height, from the end of the toes to the top of the head, the others being in proportion as represented.

The attempt at reproducing gestures is admirably portrayed, and the following explanations are based upon such natural gestures as are almost universally in use:

No. 1 represents a person weeping. The eyes have lines running down to the breast, below the ends of which are three short lines on either side. The arms and hands are in the exact position for making the gesture for rain. It was evidently the intention of the artist to show that the hands in this gesture should be passed downward over the face, as probably suggested by the short lines upon the lower end of the tears. This is a noticeable illustration of the general term used by Indians when making the gesture for weeping; i. e., “eye-rain.” It is evident that sorrow is portrayed in this illustration, grief based upon the sufferings of others who are shown in connection therewith.

Nos. 2, 3, 4. Six individuals apparently making the gesture for “hunger,” by passing the hands towards and backward from the sides of the body, denoting a “gnawing sensation,” as expressed by Indians. No. 4 occupying a horizontal position, may possibly denote a “dead man,” dead of starvation, this position being adopted by the Ojibwa, Blackfeet, and others as a common way of representing a dead person. The varying lengths of head ornaments denote different degrees of position as warriors or chiefs.

Nos. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 are individuals in various shapes making gestures for negation, or more specifically nothing, nothing here, a natural and universal gesture made by throwing one or both hands outward toward either side of the body. The hands are extended also, and, to make the action apparently more emphatic, the extended toes are also shown on Nos. 5, 6, 7, and 9. The several lines upon the leg of No. 9 refer evidently to trimmings upon the leggings.

No. 10 is strikingly similar to the Alaskan pictographs (see No. 1 of Figure 55, page 153) indicating self with the right hand, and the left pointing away, signifying to go.

No. 11 is an ornamented head with body and legs, and is unintelligible. This may probably refer to a Shaman, the head being similar to like personages as represented by the Ojibwa and Iroquois.

Similar drawings occur at a distance of about 10 miles southeast of this locality, as well as at other places toward the northwest, and it appears probable that the present record was made by a portion of a tribe which had advanced for the purpose of selecting a new camping place, but failing to find the necessary quantities of food for sustenance, this notice was erected to advise their successors of their misfortune and ultimate departure toward the northwest. It is noticeable, also, that the picture is so placed upon the rock that the extended arm of No. 10 points toward the north.

The foregoing description is substantially the same as published by Dr. Hoffman in Transactions of the Anthropological Society, Washington, II, 1883, pages 128-132.

The limits of this paper do not allow of presenting a list of the characters in the pictographs which have become known. It may be properly demanded, however, that some of the characters in the petroglyph, Figure 1, should be explained. The following is a list of those which were interpreted to Mr. Gilbert, as mentioned on page 29 supra.

Figure 156 is an inclosure, or pen, in which ceremonial dances are performed. Figure 157 is a head-dress used in ceremonial dances.

Figure 158 shows different representations of houses.

Figure 159 sketches the frames or sticks used in carrying wood on the back. Figure 160 shows different forms of arrows.

Figure 161 represents the blossoms of melons, squashes, etc.

Figure 162 shows three ways in which lightning is represented. Figure 163 represents clouds.

Figure 164 represents clouds with rain descending.

Figure 165 shows various forms of stars.

Figure 166 shows various representations of the sun.

Figure 167 shows various representations of sunrise.

It is of interest in this connection that in the pictorial notation of the Laplanders the sun bears its usual figure of a man’s head, rayed, as reported in Schoolcraft, op. cit. I, 426. See drawings in Scheffer’s Hist. of Lapland, London ed., 1704.

It may be desirable also to note, to avoid misconception, that where, through this paper, mention is made of particulars under the headings of Customs, Religious, etc., which might be made the subject of graphic illustration in pictographs, and for that reason should be known as preliminary to the attempted interpretation of the latter, the suggestion is not given as a mere hypothesis. Such objective marks and conceptions of the character indicated which can readily be made objective, are in fact frequently found in pictographs and have been understood by means of the preliminary information to which reference is made. When interpretations obtained through this line of study are properly verified they can take places in the card-catalogue little inferior to those of interpretations derived directly from aboriginal pictographers.

HOMOMORPHS AND SYMMORPHS.

It has been already mentioned that characters substantially the same, or homomorphs, made by one set of people, have a different signification among others. Differing forms for the same general conception or idea are also noticed. These may be termed symmorphs. Some examples under these titles are noted as follows, not for the purpose of giving an even approximately complete list, but merely to show the manner in which they may be compared and sometimes confused with similar characters, some of which appear in other parts of this paper.