Garrick Mallery

The utility of the present work depends mainly upon the opportunity given by the various notes and illustrations collected for students to make their own comparisons and deductions. This chapter is intended to assist in that study by presenting some groups of comparisons which have seemed to possess special interest. For that reason descriptions and illustrations are collected here which logically belong to other headings.

Many of the pictographs discussed and illustrated in this chapter and in the one following are the representation of animals and other natural objects. It would therefore seem that they could be easily identified, but in fact the modes of representation of the same object among the several peoples differed, and when conventionalizing has also become a factor the objects may not be recognized without knowledge of the typical style. Sometimes there was apparently no attempt at the imitation of natural objects, but marks were used, such as points, lines, circles, and other geometric forms. These were combined in diverse modes to express concepts and record events. Those marks and combinations originated in many centers and except in rare instances of “natural” ideograms those of one people would not correspond with those of other peoples unless by conveyance or imitation. Typical styles therefore appear also in this class of pictographs and, when established, all typical styles afford some indication with regard to the peoples using them.

This chapter is divided under the headings of: 1. Typical Style. 2. Homomorphs and Symmorphs. 3. Composite forms. 4. Artistic skill and methods.

SECTION 1.
TYPICAL STYLE.

Fig. 1088 is presented as a type of eastern Algonquian petroglyphs. It is a copy of the “Hamilton picture rock,” contributed by Mr. J. Sutton Wall, of Monongahela city, Pennsylvania. The drawings are on a sandstone rock, on the Hamilton farm, 6 miles southeast from Morgantown, West Virginia. The turnpike passes over the south edge of the rock.

Fig. 1088.—Algonquian petroglyph. Hamilton farm, West Virginia.

Mr. Wall furnishes the following description of the characters:

a, outline of a turkey; b, outline of a panther; c, outline of a rattlesnake; d, outline of a human form; e, a “spiral or volute;” f, impression of a horse foot; g, impression of a human foot; h, outline of the top portion of a tree or branch; i, impression of a human hand; j, impression of a bear’s forefoot, but lacks the proper number of toe marks; k, impression of two turkey tracks; l, has some appearance of a hare or rabbit, but lacks the corresponding length of ears; m, impression of a bear’s hindfoot, but lacks the proper number of toe marks; n, outline of infant human form, with two arrows in the right hand; o, p, two cup-shaped depressions; q, outline of the hind part of an animal; r might be taken to represent the impression of a horse’s foot were it not for the line bisecting the outer curved line; s represent buffalo and deer tracks.

The turkey a, the rattlesnake c, the rabbit l, and the “footprints” j, m, and q, are specially noticeable as typical characters in Algonquian pictography.

Mr. P. W. Sheafer furnishes, in his Historical Map of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1875, a sketch of a pictograph on the Susquehanna river, Pennsylvania, below the dam at Safe Harbor, part of which is reproduced in Fig. 1089. This appears to be purely Algonquian, and has more resemblance to Ojibwa characters than any other petroglyph in the eastern United States yet noted.

Fig. 1089.—Algonquian petroglyphs. Safe Harbor, Pennsylvania.

See also Figs. 70, et seq., supra, under the heading of Pennsylvania, as showing excellent types of eastern Algonquian petroglyphs and resembling those on the Dighton rock.

Fig. 1090.—Algonquian petroglyphs. Cunningham’s island, Lake Erie.

Fig. 1090 is reproduced from Schoolcraft (p), and is a copy taken in 1851 of an inscription sculptured on a rock on the south side of Cunningham’s island, Lake Erie. Mr. Schoolcraft’s explanation, given in great detail, is fanciful. It is perhaps only necessary to explain that the dotted lines are intended to divide the partially obliterated from the more distinct portions of the glyph. The central part is the most obscure.

It is to be remarked that this petroglyph is in some respects similar in general style to those before given as belonging to the eastern Algonquian type, but is still more like some of the representations of the Dighton rock inscription, one of them being Fig. 49, supra, and others, which it still more closely resembles in the mode of drawing human figures, are in the copies of Dighton rock on Pl. LIV, Chap. XXII. In some respects this Cunningham’s island glyph occupies a typical position intermediate between the eastern and western Algonquian.

A good type of western Algonquian petroglyphs was discovered by the party of Capt. William A. Jones (b), in 1873, with an illustration here reproduced as Fig. 1091, in which the greater number of the characters are shown, about one-fifth real size.

Fig. 1091.—Algonquian petroglyphs. Wyoming.

An abstract of his description is as follows:

* * * Upon a nearly vertical wall of the yellow sandstones, just back of Murphy’s ranch, a number of rude figures had been chiseled, apparently at a period not very recent, as they had become much worn. * * * No certain clue to the connected meaning of this record was obtained, although PÍnatsi attempted to explain it when the sketch was shown to him some days later by Mr. F. W. Bond, who copied the inscriptions from the rocks. The figure on the left, in the upper row, somewhat resembles the design commonly used to represent a shield, with the greater part of the ornamental fringe omitted, perhaps worn away in the inscription. We shall possibly be justified in regarding the whole as an attempt to record the particulars of a fight or battle which once occurred in this neighborhood. PÍnatsi’s remarks conveyed the idea to Mr. Bond that he understood the figure [the second in the upper line] to signify cavalry, and the six figures [three in the middle of the upper line, as also the three to the left of the lower line] to mean infantry, but he did not appear to recognize the hieroglyphs as the copy of any record with which he was familiar.

Throughout the Wind river country of Wyoming many petroglyphs have been found and others reported by the Shoshoni Indians, who say that they are the work of the “Pawkees,” as they call the Blackfeet, or, more properly, Satsika, an Algonquian tribe which formerly occupied that region, and their general style bears strong resemblance to similar carvings found in the eastern portion of the United States, in regions known to have been occupied by other tribes of the Algonquian linguistic stock.

The four specimens of Algonquian petroglyphs presented here in Figs. 1088-91 and those referred to, show gradations in type. In connection with them reference may be made to the numerous Ojibwa bark records in this work; the Ottawa pipestem, Fig. 738; and they may be contrasted with the many Dakota, Shoshoni, and Innuit drawings also presented.

The petroglyphs found scattered throughout the states and territories embraced within the area bounded by the Rocky mountains on the east and the Sierra Nevada on the west, and generally south of the forty-eighth degree of latitude, are markedly similar in the class of objects represented and the general style of their delineation, without reference to their division into pecked or painted characters; also in many instances the sites selected for petroglyphic display are of substantially the same character. This type has been generally designated as the Shoshonean, though many localities abounding in petroglyphs of the type are now inhabited by tribes of other linguistic stocks.

Mr. G. K. Gilbert, of the U.S. Geological Survey, has furnished a small collection of drawings of Shoshonean petroglyphs from Oneida, Idaho, shown in Fig. 39, supra.

Five miles northwest from this locality and one-half mile east from Marsh creek is another group of characters on basalt bowlders, apparently totemic, and drawn by Shoshoni. A copy of these, also contributed by Mr. Gilbert, is given in Fig. 1092.

Fig. 1092.—Shoshonean petroglyphs. Idaho.

All of these drawings resemble the petroglyphs found at Partridge creek, northern Arizona, and in Temple creek canyon, southeastern Utah, mentioned supra, pages 50 and 116, respectively.

Fig. 1093.—Shoshonean petroglyphs. Utah.

Mr. I. C. Russell, of the U.S. Geological Survey, has furnished drawings of rude pictographs at Black Rock spring, Utah, represented in Fig. 1093. Some of the other characters not represented in the figure consist of several horizontal lines, placed one above another, above which are a number of spots, the whole appearing like a numerical record having reference to the figure alongside, which resembles, to a slight extent, a melon with tortuous vines and stems. The left-hand upper figure suggests the masks shown in Fig. 713.

Fig. 1094.—Shoshonean rock-painting. Utah.

Mr. Gilbert Thompson, of the U.S. Geological Survey, has discovered pictographs at Fool creek canyon, Utah, shown in Fig. 1094, which strongly resemble those still made by the Moki of Arizona. Several characters are identical with those last mentioned, and represent human figures, one of which is drawn to represent a man, shown by a cross, the upper arm of which is attached to the perinÆum. These are all drawn in red color and were executed at three different periods. Other neighboring pictographs are pecked and unpainted, while others are both pecked and painted.

Both of these pictographs from Utah may be compared with the Moki pictographs from Oakley springs, Arizona, copied in Fig. 1261.

Dr. G. W. Barnes, of San Diego, California, has kindly furnished sketches of pictographs prepared for him by Mrs. F. A. Kimball, of National city, California, which were copied from records 25 miles northeast of the former city. Many of them found upon the faces of large rocks are almost obliterated, though sufficient remains to permit tracing. The only color used appears to be red ocher. Many of the characters, as noticed upon the drawings, closely resemble those in New Mexico, at Ojo de Benado, south of ZuÑi, and in the canyon leading from the canyon at Stewart’s ranch, to the Kanab creek canyon, Utah. This is an indication of the habitat of the Shoshonean stock apart from the linguistic evidence with which it agrees.

From the numerous illustrations furnished of petroglyphs found in Owens valley, California, reference is here made to Pl. II a, Pl. III h, and Pl. VII a as presenting suggestive similarity to the Shoshonean forms above noted, and apparently connecting them with others in New Mexico, Arizona, Sonora, and Central and South America.

Fig. 1095.—Arizona petroglyph.

Mr. F. H. Cushing (a) figured three petroglyphs, now reproduced in Figs. 1095 and 1096, from Arizona, and referred to them in connection with figurines found in the ruined city of Los Muertos, in the Salado valley, as follows:

Fig. 1096.—Arizona petroglyph.

Beneath the floor of the first one of these huts which we excavated, near the ranch of Mr. George Kay Miller, were discovered, disposed precisely as would be a modern sacrifice of the kind in ZuÑi, the paraphernalia of a Herder’s sacrifice, namely, the paint line, encircled, perforated medicine cup, the Herder’s amulet stone of chalcedony, and a group of at least fifteen remarkable figurines. The figurines alone, of the articles constituting this sacrifice, differed materially from those which would occur in a modern ZuÑi “New Year Sacrifice” of the kind designed to propitiate the increase and prosperity of its herds. While in ZuÑi these figurines invariably represent sheep (the young of sheep mainly; mostly also females), the figurines in the hut at “Los Guanacos,” as I named the place, represented with rare fidelity * * * some variety, I should suppose, of the auchenia or llama of South America.

Summing up the evidence presented by the occurrence of numerous “bola stones” in these huts and within the cities; by the remarkably characteristic forms of these figurines; by the traditional statement of modern ZuÑis regarding “small hairy animals” possessed by their ancestors, no less than by the statements of Marcus Nizza, Bernal Diaz, and other Spanish writers to the same effect, and adding to this sum the facts presented in sundry ritualistic pictographs, I concluded, very boldly, * * * that the ancient Pueblos-Shiwians, or Aridians, * * * must have had domesticated a North American variety of the auchenia more nearly resembling, it would seem, the guanaco of South America than the llama.

It is ascertained that the petroglyphs copied by Mr. Cushing as above are pecked upon basaltic rock in the northern face of Maricopa mountains, near Telegraph pass, south of Phoenix, Arizona.

The following information is obtained from Dr. H. Ten Kate (a):

In several localities in the sierra in the peninsula of California and Sonora are rocks painted red. These paintings are quite rude and are inferior to many of the pictographs of the North American Indians. Figs. 1097 and 1098 were found at Rincon de S. Antonio. The right-hand division of Fig. 1097 is a complete representation, and the figures copied appear on the stone in the order in which they are here given. The left-hand division of the same figure represents only the most distinct objects, selected from among a large number of others, very similar, which cover a block of marble several meters in height. The object in the upper left-hand corner of Fig. 1097 measures 20 to 21 centimeters; the others are represented in proportion.

Fig. 1097.—Petroglyphs, Lower California.

Fig. 1098.—Petroglyphs in Lower California.

These two figures resemble petroglyphs reported from the Santa Inez range, west of Santa Barbara, Lower California.

The same author, op. cit., p. 324, says:

Fig. 1098 represents symbols which were the most easily distinguished among the great number of those which cover two immense granite blocks at Boca San Pedro. The rows of dots (or points) which are seen at the left of this figure measure 1.50 meters, the parallel lines traced at the right are about 1 meter.

This figure is like another found farther east (see Fig. 31) from Azuza canyon, California.

A number of Haida pictographs are reproduced in other parts of this work. In immediate connection with the present topic Fig. 1099 is presented. It shows the carved columns in front of the chief’s house at Massett, Queen Charlotte island.

Fig. 1099.—Haida Totem Post.

The following illustrations from New Zealand are introduced here for comparison.

Fig. 1100.—New Zealand house posts.

Dr. F. von Hochstetter (b) writing of New Zealand, says:

The dwellings of the chiefs at Ohinemutu are surrounded with inclosures of pole fences, and the Whares and Wharepunis, some of them exhibiting very fine specimens of the Maori order of architecture, are ornamented with grotesque wood carvings. Fig. 1100 is an illustration of some of them. The gable figure with the lizard having six feet and two heads is very remarkable. The human figures are not idols, but are intended to represent departed sires of the present generation.

Niblack (c) gives a description of the illustration reproduced as Fig. 1101.

Fig. 1101.—New Zealand tiki.

Tiki. At Raroera Pah, New Zealand. From Wood’s Natural History, page 180. Of this he says: “This gigantic tiki stands, together with several others, near the tomb of the daughter of Te Whero-Whero, and, like the monument which it seems to guard, is one of the finest examples of native carving to be found in New Zealand. The precise object of the tiki is uncertain, but the protruding tongue of the upper figure seems to show that it is one of the numerous defiant statues which abound in the islands. The natives say that the lower figure represents Maui the Auti who, according to Maori tradition, fished up the islands from the bottom of the sea.”

Dr. Bransford (b) gives an illustration, copied here as the left-hand character of Fig. 1102, with the description of the site, viz: “On a hillside on the southern end of the island of Ometepec, Nicaragua, about a mile and a half east of Point San Ramon.” On a rough, irregular stone of basalt, projecting 3 feet above ground, was the following figure on the south side:

Fig. 1102.—Nicaraguan petroglyphs.

This suggests comparison with some of the Moki and British Guiana figures.

The same authority gives on page 66, from the same island and neighborhood, the illustration copied as the right-hand character of the same figure.

By comparing some of the New Mexican, ZuÑi, and Pueblo drawings with the above figure the resemblance is obvious. This is most notable in the outline of the square abdomen and the widespread legs.

Fig. 1103.—Nicaraguan petroglyphs.

Fig. 1103, also mentioned and figured by Dr. Bransford as found with the preceding in Nicaragua, resembles some of the petroglyphs presented in the collection from Owens valley, California.

The carvings in Fig. 1104 are from British Guiana, and are reproduced from im Thurn (i):

Fig. 1104.—Deep carvings in Guiana.

Most of these figures so strongly resemble some from New Mexico, and perhaps Arizona, as to appear as if they were made by the same people. This is specially noticeable in the lowermost characters, and more particularly so in the last two, resembling the usual Shoshonean type for toad or frog.

The petroglyph of Boca del Infierno, a copy of which is furnished by Marcano (f), reproduced as Fig. 1105, is thus described:

Fig. 1105.—Venezuelan petroglyphs.

In the strange combination that surmounts it, a, there are seen at the lower part two figures resembling the eyes of jaguars, but asymmetric. Still the difference is apparent rather than real. These eyes are always formed of three circumferences, the central one being at times replaced by a point, as in the eye at the left; the one at the right shows its three circumferences, but the outermost is continuous with the rest of the drawing. The two eyes are joined together by superposed arches, the smallest of which touches only the left eye, while the larger one, which is not in contact with the left eye, forms the circumference of the right eye. The whole is surrounded by 34 rays, pretty nearly of the same size, except one, which is larger. Is there question of a jaguar’s head seen from in front with its bristling mane, or is it a sunrise? All conjecture is superfluous, and it is useless to search for the interpretation of these figures, whose value, entirely conventional, is known only by those who invented them.

In b of the same pictograph, alongside of a tangle of various figures, always formed of geometric lines, we distinguished, at the left, three points; in the middle a collection of lines representing a fish. Let us note, finally, the dots which, as in the preceding case, run out from certain lines.

The design of c, while quite as complex, has quite another arrangement. At the left we see again the figure of the circumferences surrounding a dot, and these are surmounted by a series of triangles; at the bottom there are two little curves terminated by dots. At d two analogous objects are represented; they may be what Humboldt took to be arms or household implements.

In the above figure, the uppermost character, a, is similar to various representations of the “sky,” as depicted upon the birch-bark mide' records of the Ojibwa. The lower characters are similar to several examples presented under the Shoshonean types, particularly to those in Owens valley, California.

Dr. A. Ernst in Verhandl. der Berliner, Anthrop. Gesell. (c) gives a description of Fig. 1106, translated and condensed as follows:

Fig. 1106.—Venezuelan petroglyphs.

The rock on which the petroglyph is carved is 41 kilometers WSW. of Caracas, and 27 kilometers almost due north of La Victoria, in the coast mountains of Venezuela. The petroglyph is found on two large stones lying side by side and leaning against other blocks of leptinite, though resembling sandstone. The length of the two stones is 3.5 m., their height 2 m. The stones lie beside the road from the colony of Tovar to La Maya, on the border of a clearing somewhat inclined southward not far from the woods. The surface is turned south. Concerning the meaning of the very fragmentary figures I can not even express a conjecture.

Araripe (c) furnishes the following description of Fig. 1107:

Fig. 1107.—Brazilian petroglyphs.

In the district of Inhamun, on the road from Carrapateira to CracarÁ, at a distance of half a league, following a footpath which branches off to the left, is a small lake called Arneiros, near which is a heap of round and long stones; on one of the round ones is an inscription, here given in the order in which the figures appear, on the face toward the north, engraved with a pointed instrument, the characters being covered with red paint.

The same authority, p. 231, gives the following description of the lower group in Fig. 1108. It is called Indian writing in VorÁ, in Faxina, province of SÃo Paulo.

Fig. 1108.—Spanish and Brazilian petroglyphs.

From a rock which is more than 40 meters in height, a large mass has been detached leaving a greater inclination of 10 meters. This incline, together with the wall formed by the detached portion, constitutes a sheltered place which was used by the Indians as a resting place for their dead.

On the walls of this grotto are figures engraved in the stone and painted with “indelible” colors in red and black. It would seem that the Indians had engraved in these figures the history of the tribe. The designs are as follows:

A human figure with ornaments of feathers on the head and neck; a palm tree rudely engraved and painted; a number of circular holes, 24 or more or less, in a straight line; a circle with a diameter of 15 inches, having dentated lines on the edge; two concentric circles resembling a clock face, with 60 divisions; immediately following this the figure of an idol, and various marks all painted in a very firm black; a figure of the sun with a +; a T; six more circles; a human hand and foot well carved, etc. In the wall are fragments of bones.

The two upper groups are copies of petroglyphs in Fuencaliente, Andalusia, Spain, which are described in Chap. IV, sec. 3, and are introduced here for convenient comparison with characters in the lower group of this figure, and also with others in Figs. 1097 and 1107.

Fig. 1109.—Brazilian petroglyphs.

Dr. LadislÁu Netto (c) gives an account of characters copied from the inscriptions of Cachoeira Savarete, in the valley of the Rio Negro, here reproduced as Fig. 1109. They represent men and animals, concentric circles, double spirals, and other figures of indefinite form. The design in the left hand of the middle line evidently represents a group of men gathered and drawn up like soldiers in a platoon.

The same authority, p. 552, furnishes characters copied from rocks near the villa of Moura in the valley of the Rio Negro, here reproduced as Fig. 1110. They represent a series of figures on which Dr. Netto remarks as follows:

Fig. 1110.—Brazilian petroglyphs.

It is singular how frequent are these figures of circles two by two, one of which seems to simulate one of the meanders that in a measure represent the form of the Buddhic cross. This character, represented by the double cross, is very common in many American inscriptions. It probably signifies some idea which has nothing to do with that of nandyavarta.

Fig. 1111.—Brazilian petroglyphs.

The same authority, p. 522, gives carvings copied from the rocks of the banks of the Rio Negro, from Moura to the city of MaÑaus, some of which are reproduced as Fig. 1111. The group on the left Dr. Netto believes to represent a crowned chief, having by his side a figure which may represent either the sun or the moon in motion, but which, were it carved by civilized men, would suggest nothing more remarkable than a large compass.

Fig. 1112.—Brazilian pictograph.

The same authority, p. 553, presents characters copied from stones on the banks of the Rio Negro, Brazil, here reproduced as Fig. 1112.

They are rather sketches or vague tracings and attempts at drawing than definite characters. The human heads found in most of the figures observed at this locality resemble the heads carved in the inscriptions of Central America and on the banks of the Colorado river. The left-hand character, which here appears to be simply a rude drawing of a nose and the eyes belonging to a human face, may be compared with the so-called Thunderbird from Washington, contributed by Rev. Dr. Eels (see Fig. 679).

Dr. E. R. Heath (b), in his Exploration of the River Beni, introducing Fig. 1113, says:

Fig. 1113.—Brazilian petroglyphs.

Periquitos rapids connects so closely with the tail of “RiberÁo” that it is difficult to say where one begins and the other ends. Our stop at the Periquitos rapids was short yet productive of a few figures, one rock having apparently a sun and moon on it, the first seen of that character.

He further says:

Fig. 1114.—Brazilian petroglyphs.

On some solid water-worn rocks, at the edge of the fall, are the following figures [Fig. 1114]. There were many fractional parts of figures which we did not consider of sufficient value to copy.

SECTION 2.
HOMOMORPHS AND SYMMORPHS.

It has already been mentioned that characters substantially the same, or homomorphs, made by one set of people, have a different signification among others. The class of homomorphs may also embrace the cases common in gesture signs, and in picture writing, similar to the homophones in oral language, where the same sound has several meanings among the same people.

It would be very remarkable if precisely the same character were not used by different or even the same persons or bodies of people with wholly distinct significations. The graphic forms for objects and ideas are much more likely to be coincident than sound is for similar expressions, yet in all oral languages the same precise sound, sometimes but not always distinguished by different literation, is used for utterly diverse meanings. The first conception of different objects could not have been the same. It has been found, indeed, that the homophony of words and the homomorphy of ideographic pictures is noticeable in opposite significations, the conceptions arising from the opposition itself. The same sign and the same sound may be made to convey different ideas by varying the expression, whether facial or vocal, and by the manner accompanying their delivery. Pictographs likewise may be differentiated by modes and mutations of drawing. The differentiation in picturing or in accent is a subsequent and remedial step not taken until after the confusion had been observed and had become inconvenient. Such confusion and contradiction would only be eliminated from pictography if it were far more perfect than is any spoken language.

This heading, for convenience, though not consistently with its definition, may also include those pictographs which convey different ideas and are really different in form of execution as well as in conception, yet in which the difference in form is so slight as practically to require attention and discrimination. Examples are given below in this section, and others may be taken from the closely related sign-language, one group of which may now be mentioned.

Fig. 1115.—Tree.

The sign used by the Dakota, Hidatsa, and several other tribes for “tree” is made by holding the right hand before the body, back forward, fingers and thumb separated; then pushing it slightly upward, Fig. 1115; that for “grass” is the same, made near the ground; that for “grow” is made like “grass,” though, instead of holding the back of the hand near the ground, the hand is pushed upward in an interrupted manner, Fig. 1116. For “smoke” the hand (with the back down, fingers pointing upward as in grow) is then thrown upward several times from the same place instead of continuing the whole motion upward. Frequently the fingers are thrown forward from under the thumb with each successive upward motion. For “fire” the hand is employed as in the gesture for smoke, but the motion is frequently more waving, and in other cases made higher from the ground.

Fig. 1116.—Grow.

Symmorphs, a term suggested by the familiar “synonym,” are designs not of the same form, but which are used with the same significance or so nearly the same as to have only a slight shade of distinction and which sometimes are practically interchangeable. The comprehensive and metaphorical character of pictographs renders more of them interchangeable than is the case with words; still, like words, some pictographs with essential resemblance of meaning have partial and subordinate differences made by etymology or usage. Doubtless the designs are purposely selected to delineate the most striking outlines of an object or the most characteristic features of an action; but different individuals and likewise different bodies of people would often disagree in the selection of those outlines and features. In an attempt to invent an ideographic, not an iconographic, design for “bird,” any one of a dozen devices might have been agreed upon with equal appropriateness, and, in fact, a number have been so selected by several individuals and tribes, each one, therefore, being a symmorph of the other. Gesture language gives another example in the signs for “deer,” designated by various modes of expressing fleetness, also by his gait when not in rapid motion, by the shape of his horns, by the color of his tail, and sometimes by combinations of those characteristics. Each of these signs and of the pictured characters corresponding with them may be indefinitely abbreviated and therefore create indefinite diversity. Some examples appropriate to this line of comparison are now presented.

SKY.

Fig. 1117.—Sky.

The Indian gesture sign for sky, heaven, is generally made by passing the index from east to west across the zenith. This curve is apparent in the Ojibwa pictograph, the left-hand character of Fig. 1117, reported in Schoolcraft (q), and is abbreviated in the Egyptian character with the same meaning, the middle character of the same figure, from Champollion (e). A simpler form of the Ojibwa picture sign for sky is the right-hand character of the same figure, from Copway (h).

SUN AND LIGHT.

Fig. 1118.—Sun. Oakley springs.

Fig. 1118 shows various representations of the sun taken from a petroglyph at Oakley springs.

Fig. 1119.—Sun. Gesture sign.

The common Indian gesture sign for sun is: Right hand closed, the index and thumb curved, with tips touching, thus approximating a circle, and held toward the sky, the position of the fingers of the hand forming a circle as is shown in Fig. 1119. Two of the Egyptian characters for sun, the left-hand upper characters of Fig. 1120 are the common conception of the disk. The rays emanating from the whole disk appear in the two adjoining characters on the same figure, taken from the rock etchings of the Moki pueblos in Arizona. From the same locality are the two remaining characters in the same figure, which may be distinguished from several similar etchings for “star,” Fig. 1129, infra, by their showing some indication of a face, the latter being absent in the characters denoting “star.”

Fig. 1120.—Devices for sun.

With the above characters for sun compare the left-hand character of Fig. 1121, found at Cuxco, Peru, and taken from Wiener (h).

Fig. 1121.—Sun and light.

In the pictorial notation of the Laplanders the sun bears its usual figure of a man’s head, rayed. See drawings in Scheffer’s History of Lapland, London, 1704.

The Ojibwa pictograph for sun is seen in the second character of Fig. 1121, taken from Schoolcraft (r). The sun’s disk, together with indications of rays, as shown in the third character of the same figure, and in its linear form, the fourth character of that figure, from Champollion, Dict., constitutes the Egyptian character for light.

Fig. 1122.—Light.

Fig. 1122.—Light. Red-Cloud’s Census. This is to be compared with the rays of the sun as above shown, but still more closely resembles the old Chinese character for light, or more specifically “light above man,” in the left-hand character of Fig. 1123, reported by Dr. Edkins.

Fig. 1123.—Light and sun.

The other characters of the same figure are given by Schoolcraft (s) as Ojibwa symbols of the sun.

Fig. 1124.—Sun. Kwakiutl.

The left-hand character of Fig. 1124, from Proc. U.S. Nat. Museum (a), shows the top of an heraldic column of the Sentlae (Sun) gens of the Kwakiutl Indians in Alert bay, British Columbia, which represents the sun surrounded by wooden rays. A simpler form is seen in the right character of the same figure where the face of the sun is also fastened to the top of a pole. The author, Dr. Boas, states that Fig. 1125 is the sun mask used by the same gens in their dance. This presents another mode in which the common symbolic connection of the eagle (the beak of which bird is apparently shown) with the sun is indicated.

Fig. 1125.—Sun mask. Kwakiutl.

Prof. Cyrus Thomas, in Aids to the Study of the Manuscript Troano, Sixth Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn., p. 348, gives the left-hand character in Fig. 1126 as representing the sun.

Fig. 1126.—Suns.

General Forlong (a) states that the middle device of the same figure represents the sun as Mihr, the fertilizer of the seed.

Dr. Edkins (e) gives the right-hand device of the same figure as a picture of the sun. Originally it was a circle with a stroke or dot in the middle.

MOON.

Fig. 1127.—Gesture for moon.

A common Indian gesture sign for moon, month, is the right hand closed, leaving the thumb and index extended, but curved to form a half circle and the hand held toward the sky, in a position which is illustrated in Fig. 1127, to which curve the Moki drawing, the upper left-hand device in Fig. 1128, and the identical form in the ancient Chinese have an obvious resemblance.

Fig. 1128.—Moon.

The crescent, as Europeans and Asiatics commonly figure the satellite, appears also in the Ojibwa pictograph, the lower left-hand character in Fig. 1128, taken from Schoolcraft (t), which is the same, with a slight addition, as the Egyptian figurative character.

The middle character in Fig. 1128 is the top of an upright post of a house of the moon gens of the Kuakiutl Indians taken from Boas (g). It represents the moon.

Schoolcraft (u) gives the right-hand character of the same figure for the moon, i.e., an obscured sun, as drawn by the Ojibwa.

STARS.

Fig. 1129.—Stars.

Fig. 1129 shows various forms of stars, taken from a petroglyph at Oakley Springs, Arizona. Most of them show the rays in a manner to suggest the points of stars common in many parts of the world.

DAYTIME AND KIND OF DAY.

Fig. 1130, copied from Copway (h), presents respectively the characters for sunrise, noon, and sunset.

Fig. 1130.—Day. Ojibwa.

An Indian gesture sign for “sunrise,” “morning,” is: Forefinger of right hand crooked to represent half of the sun’s disk and pointed or extended to the left, slightly elevated. In this connection it may be noted that when the gesture is carefully made in open country the pointing would generally be to the east, and the body turned so that its left would be in that direction. In a room in a city, or under circumstances where the points of the compass are not specially attended to, the left side supposes the east, and the gestures relating to sun, day, etc., are made with such reference. The half only of the disk represented in the above gesture appears in the Moki pueblo drawings for morning and sunrise.

Fig. 1131.—Morning. Arizona.

Fig. 1131 shows various representations of sunrise from Oakley Springs, Arizona.

J. B. Dunbar (b), in The Pawnee Indians, says:

As an aid to the memory the Pawnees frequently made use of notches cut in a stick or some similar device for the computation of nights (for days were counted by nights), or even of months and years. Pictographically a day or daytime was represented by a six or eight pointed star as a symbol of the sun. A simple cross (a star) was a symbol of a night and a crescent represented a moon or lunar month.

A common Indian gesture for day is when the index and thumb form a circle (remaining fingers closed) and are passed from east to west.

Fig. 1132.—Day.

Fig. 1132 shows a pictograph found in Owens valley, California, a similar one being reported in the Ann. Rep. Geog. Survey West of the 100th Meridian for 1876, Washington, 1876, pl. opp. p. 326, in which the circle may indicate either day or month (both these gestures having the same execution), the course of the sun or moon being represented perhaps in mere contradistinction to the vertical line, or perhaps the latter signifies one.

Fig. 1133.—Days. Apache.

Fig. 1133 is a pictograph made by the CoyotÈro Apaches, found at Camp Apache, in Arizona, reported in the Tenth Ann. Rep. U. S. Geol. and Geogr. Survey of the Terr., Washington, 1878, Pl. LXXVII. The sun and the ten spots of approximately the same shape represent the days, eleven, which the party passed in traveling through the country. The separating lines are the nights, and may include the conception of covering over and consequent obscurity referred to in connection with the pictographs for night.

Fig. 1134.—Clear, stormy. Ojibwa.

The left-hand character in Fig. 1134, copied from Copway (h), represents smooth water or clear day.

The right-hand character in the same figure, from the same authority, p. 135, represents storm or a windy day.

NIGHT.

Fig. 1135.

Fig. 1135.—Kills-the-Enemy-at-Night. Red-Cloud’s Census. Night is indicated by the black circle around the head, suggesting the covering over with darkness, as is shown in the common gesture for night, made by passing both flat hands from their respective sides, inward and downward, before the body. The sign for kill is denoted here by the bow in contact with the head, in accordance with a custom among the Dakota of striking the dead enemy with the bow or coup stick.

Fig. 1136.

Fig. 1136.—Kills-Enemy-at-Night. Red-Cloud’s Census. This drawing is similar to the preceding. The differentiation is sufficient to allow of a distinction between the two characters, each representing the same name, though belonging to two different men.

Fig. 1137.

Fig. 1137.—Smokes-at-Night. Red-Cloud’s Census. Again the concept is expressed by the covering over with darkness.

Fig. 1138.

Fig. 1138.—Kills-at-Night. Red-Cloud’s Census. Night is here shown by the curve for sky and the suspension, beneath it, of a star, or more probably in Dakotan expression, a night sun, i.e., the moon.

Fig. 1139.

Fig. 1139.—A Crow chief, Flat-Head, comes into the tipi of a Dakota chief, where a council was assembled. Flame’s Winter Count, 1852-’53. The night is shown by the black top of the tipi.

Fig. 1140.—Ojibwa.

Fig. 1140 is taken from Copway (f). It represents “night.”

Fig. 1141.—Sign for night.

A typical Indian gesture for night, illustrated by Fig. 1141, is: Place the flat hands horizontally about 2 feet apart, move them quickly in an upward curve toward one another until the right lies across the left. “Darkness covers all.”

Fig. 1142.—Night. Egyptian.

The conception of covering executed by delineating the object covered beneath the middle point of an arch or curve, appears also clearly in the Egyptian characters for night, Fig. 1142, Champollion (f).

Fig. 1143.—Night. Mexican.

In Kingsborough (m) is the painting reproduced as Fig. 1143.

This painting expresses the multitude of eyes, i.e., stars in the sky, and signifies the night. Eyes in Mexican paintings are painted exactly in this manner.

CLOUD.

Fig. 1144.—Cloud shield.

Fig. 1144.—Cloud shield. Red-Cloud’s Census. This figure shows in conjunction with the disk, probably a shield but possibly the sun, a dim cloud, and below is a line apparently holding up clouds from which the raindrops have not yet begun to fall. This may be collated with the pictographs for rain and also for snow, as figured below.

Fig. 1145.—Clouds, Moki.

A Cheyenne sign for cloud is as follows: (1) Both hands partially closed, palms facing and near each other, brought up to level with or slightly above but in front of the head; (2) suddenly separated sidewise, describing a curve like a scallop; this scallop motion is repeated for “many clouds.” The same conception is in the Moki etchings, the three left-hand characters of Fig. 1145 (Gilbert MS.), and in variants from Oakley Springs, the two right-hand characters of the same figure.

Fig. 1146.—Cloud, Ojibwa.

The Ojibwa pictograph for cloud, reported in Schoolcraft (n), is more elaborate, Fig. 1146. It is composed of the sign for sky to which that for clouds is added, the latter being reversed, as compared with the Moki etchings, and picturesquely hanging from the sky.

RAIN.

Fig. 1147.—Rain. Ojibwa.

Fig. 1147.—From Copway, loc. cit., represents rain, cloudy.

Fig. 1148.—Rain. Pueblo.

The gesture sign for rain is illustrated in Fig. 1002. The pictograph, Fig. 1148, reported as found in New Mexico, by Lieut. Simpson, in Ex. Doc. No. 64, 31st Congress, 1st session, 1850, p. 9, is said to represent Montezuma’s adjutants sounding a blast to him for rain. The small character inside the curve which represents the sky, corresponds with the gesturing hand, but may be the rain cloud appearing.

Fig. 1149.—Rain. Moki.

The Moki drawing for rain, i.e., a cloud from which the drops are falling, is given in Fig. 1149, in six variants taken from a petroglyph at Oakley Springs.

Fig. 1150.—Rain. Chinese.

Edkins (f) gives Fig. 1150 as the Chinese character for rain. It is a picture of rain falling from the clouds. He adds, p. 155:

Rain was anciently without the upper line, and instead of the vertical line in the middle there were four, but all shorter. Above each of them and within the concave was a dot. These four dots were raindrops, the four lines were the direction of their descent, and the concave was the firmament.

LIGHTNING.

Among the northern Indians of North America the concept of lightning is included in that of thunder, and is represented by the thunder bird, see Chap. XIV, sec. 2, supra.

Fig. 1151.—Lightning. Moki.

Fig. 1151 shows three ways in which lightning is represented by the Moki. They are copied from a petroglyph at Oakley Springs, Arizona. In the middle character the sky is shown, the changing direction of the streak and clouds with rain falling. The part relating specially to the streak is portrayed in an Indian gesture sign as follows: Right hand elevated before and above the head, forefinger pointing upward, brought down with great rapidity with a sinuous, undulating motion, finger still extended diagonally downward toward the right.

Fig. 1152.—Lightning. Moki.

Fig. 1152 is a copy from a vase in the collection of relics of the ancient builders of the southwest table lands in the MS. Catalogue of Mr. Thomas V. Keam, and represents the body of the mythic Um-tak-ina, the Thunder. This body is a rain cloud with thunder [lightning] darting through it, and is probably of ancient Moki workmanship.

Fig. 1153.—Lightning. Moki.

Fig. 1153, also from Keam’s MS., gives three other representations of the Moki characters for lightning. The middle one shows the lightning sticks which are worked by the hands of the dancers.

Fig. 1154.—Lightning. Pueblo.

Fig. 1154 also represents lightning, taken by Mr. W. H. Jackson, photographer of the late U.S. Geol. and Geogr. Survey, from the decorated walls of an estufa in the Pueblo de Jemez, New Mexico. The former is blunt, for harmless, and the latter terminates in an arrow or spear point, for destructive or fatal lightning.

Connected with this topic is the following extract from Virgil’s Æneis, Lib. VIII, 429:

Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosÆ
Addiderant, rutili tres ignis et alitis austri.

The “radii” are the forks or spikes by which lightning is designated, especially on medals. It consisted of twelve wreathed spikes or darts extended like the radii of a circle. The wings denote the lightning’s rapid motion and the spikes or darts its penetrating quality. The four different kinds of spikes refer to the four seasons. The “tres imbristorti radii” or the three spikes of hail, are the winter when hail storms abound. The “tres nubis aquosÆ radii,” the three spikes of a watery cloud, denote the spring. The “tres rutili ignis radii,” the three spikes of sparkling fire, are the summer when lightning is frequent and the “tres alitis austri radii,” or the three spikes of winged wind, are for autumn with its many wind storms.

HUMAN FORM.

Fig. 1155.—Human form.

Fig. 1155.—a among the Arikara signifies men. The characters are used in connection with horseshoes, to denote “mounted men” b. In other pictographs such spots or dots are merely numerical. c is drawn by the KiatÉxamut branch of the Innuits for man. It is an abbreviated form and rare. d, drawn by the Blackfeet, signifies “Man-dead.” This is from a pictograph in Wind River mountains, taken from Jones’s (c) Northwestern Wyoming. e is also a KiatÉxamut Innuit drawing for man. This figure is armless; generally represents the person addressed.

Fig. 1156.—Human form.

Fig. 1156.—a is also a KiatÉxamut Innuit drawing for man. The person makes the gesture for negation. b and c, from a Californian petroglyph, are men also gesturing negation. d, from Schoolcraft (v), is the Ojibwa “symbol” for disabled man.

Fig. 1157.—Human form.

Fig. 1157.—a is the KiatÉxamut Innuit drawing for Shaman. b, used by the same tribe, represents man supplicating. c, reproduced from Schoolcraft (u), is the Ojibwa representative figure or man.

Fig. 1158.—Human form.

Fig. 1158.—a, from Schoolcraft, loc. cit., is an Ojibwa drawing of a headless body. b, from the same, is another Ojibwa figure for a headless body, perhaps female. c, contributed by Mr. Gilbert Thompson, is a drawing for a man, made by the Moki in Arizona. d, reproduced from Schoolcraft (w), is a drawing from the banks of the River Yenesei, Siberia, by Von Strahlenberg (a). e is given by Dr. Edkins, op. cit., p. 4, as the Chinese character for, and originally a picture of, a man.

Fig. 1159.—Human form. Alaska.

The representation of a headless body does not always denote death. An example is given in Fig. 1159, a, taken from an ivory drill-bow in the collection of the Alaska Commercial Company, of San Francisco, California. It was made by the Aigaluxamut natives of Alaska. As the explanation gives no suggestion of a fatal casualty, the concept may be that the hunter got lost or “lost his head,” according to the colloquial phrase.

The figures of men in a canoe are represented by the KiatÉxamut Innuit of Alaska, as shown in the same figure, b. The right-hand upward stroke represents the bow of the boat, while the two lines below the horizontal stroke denote the paddles used by the men, who are shown as the first and second upward strokes above the canoe; in the same figure, c shows the outline of human figures, copied from a walrus ivory drill-bow (U.S. Nat. Mus., No. 44398) from Cape Nome, Alaska. The second pair closely resemble forms of the thunder-bird as drawn by various Algonquian tribes and as found in petroglyphs upon rocks in the northeastern portion of the United States; in the same figure, d, selected from a group of human forms, is incised upon a walrus ivory drill-bow obtained at Port Clarence, Alaska, by Dr. T. H. Bean, of the National Museum. The specimen is numbered 40054. The fringe-like appendages on the arms may indicate the garment worn by some of the Kenai or other inland Athabascan Indians of Alaska.

Fig. 1160.—Bird-man. Siberia.

Fig. 1160, from Strahlenberg, op. cit., was found in Siberia, and is identical with the character which, according to Schoolcraft, is drawn by the Ojibwa to represent speed and the power of superior knowledge by exaltation to the regions of the air, being, in his opinion, a combination of bird and man.

It is to be noticed that some Ojibwa recently examined regard the character merely as a human figure with outstretched arms, and fringes pendent therefrom. It has, also, a strong resemblance to some of the figures in the Lone-Dog Winter Counts (those for 1854-’55 and 1866-’67, pages 283 and 285, respectively), in which there is no attempt understood to signify anything more than a war-dress.

Fig. 1161.—American. Ojibwa.

Fig. 1161, according to Schoolcraft (t), is the Ojibwa drawing symbolic for an American.

Fig. 1162.—Man. Yakut.

Bastian (a), in Ethnologisches Bilderbuch, says:

Upon a shaman’s drum, from the Yakuts of Siberia, is the figure of a human form greatly resembling some forms of the American types. The appendages beneath the arms, given in Fig. 1162, suggest also some forms of the thunder-bird as drawn by the Ojibwa.

Fig. 1163.—Human forms. Moki.

Fig. 1163 is a copy of human forms found by Mr. Dellenbaugh in petroglyphs in Shinumo canyon, Utah. They probably are of Moki workmanship.

Fig. 1164.—Human form. Navajo.

Fig. 1164, from Mr. Stevenson’s paper in the Eighth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 283, is the form of a man, drawn in the sand in the Hasjelti ceremony of the Navajo.

Fig. 1165.—Man and woman. Moki.

The left-hand character of Fig. 1165 is described in Keam’s MS. as follows:

This is a conventional design of dragon flies, and is often found among rock etchings throughout the plateau [Arizona]. The dragon flies have always been held in great veneration by the Mokis and their ancestors, as they have been often sent by Oman to reopen springs which Muingwa had destroyed and to confer other benefits upon the people.

This form of the figure, with little vertical lines added to the transverse lines, connects the Batolatci with the Ho-bo-bo emblems. The youth who was sacrificed and translated by Ho-bo-bo reappeared a long time afterwards, during a season of great drought, in the form of a gigantic dragon fly, who led the rain clouds over the lands of Ho-pi-tu, bringing plenteous rains.

Describing the middle character of the figure, he says: “The figure represents a woman. The breath sign is displayed in the interior. The simpler design in the right-hand character consists of two triangles, one upon another, and is called the ‘woman’s head and body.’”

Fig. 1166.—Human form. Colombia.

Fig. 1166, reproduced by permission from the Century Magazine for October, 1891, p. 887, is a representation of a golden breastplate found in the United States of Colombia, and now in the Ruiz-Randall collection. The human figure is nearly identical with some of those described and illustrated in the present work as found in other localities.

Crevaux, quoted by Marcano, (g) in speaking of the photographs of French Guyana, makes these useful suggestions:

The drawings of frogs found by Brown on the Esesquibo are nothing else than human figures such as the Galihis, the Roucouyennes, and the Oyampis represent them every day on their pagaras, their pottery, or their skin. We ourselves, on examining these figures with legs and arms spread out, thought that they were meant for frogs, but the Indians told us that that was their manner of representing man.

In Necropolis of Ancon in Peru, by W. Reiss and A. Stubel, (a) are descriptions of figures a to g in Pl. L, all being painted sepulcher tablets one-seventh of the actual size. The descriptions are condensed. The general characteristics of the tablets are that they are in a tabular form, made of reeds, and covered with a white cotton fabric, the edges of which are stitched together behind and attached to a pole, short at top, and projecting to a greater length downwards. On the front is a slightly sketched design in red and black lines, while a winding or undulating border usually runs around the sides. Nearly all the space within this border is occupied by a human figure surrounded by isolated symbols or ornaments. The head and features of the conventionalized figure is out of all proportion to the small body, which is often merely suggested by a few strokes.

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY TENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. L
TABLETS AT ANCON, PERU.

a. The features and high headdress of a human figure, represented by concentric black and red lines. To the short arms are attached outstretched three-fingered hands, the right holding some object, while body and legs are arbitrarily indicated. The legs are twice reproduced in black and red lines. The space between the figure and border is occupied by six simple designs, two black and one red on either side.

b. The human figure, comparatively simple and distinct, distinguished by large ear ornaments, with designs similar to those of the preceding figure, but varying in number and disposition.

c. Highly fantastic figure with diverse ornamentations; the space in the corners cut off by designs, of which the upper two show a bird motive, such as frequently occurs on earthenware and woven fabrics.

d. This is doubtless meant to represent a figure clothed down to the feet.

e. Here the human figure is formed of black lines, connected at right angles with complementary red lines. A wide top-piece covers the head, which consists of two small rectangles, leaving room only to indicate the eyes, while the mouth, placed rather too low down, is suggested by a red stroke. The arms are bent downwards; hands and feet with triple articulation. Within the red and black frame the figure is encircled by crosses, dots, and a conventional star.

f. Human figure filling most of the space, which is inclosed only by a narrow edging. Surface painting distinguishes the wide body, which is rounded off below and to which the triangular head is fitted above. Hands with five, feet with three, articulations; crenelled head gear; necklace suggested by dots; the corners of the ground-surface filled in with rectangular sharply-edged ornaments.

g. Human figure consisting of two disconnected parts; triangular head and body; hands and feet with two articulations; frame of red and black dovetailed teeth.

Fig. 1167.—Human form. Peru.

The design a of this series presents peculiarities found in ZuÑi drawings on pottery. The appendages from the side of the head among the latter denote large coils of hair so arranged by tying. Their significance is that the wearer is an unmarried woman. The remaining designs also resemble types of human figures found upon ZuÑi and Pueblo pottery, being rather of a decorative character than having special significance.

HUMAN HEAD AND FACE.

A large number of human faces as drawn by members of different tribes and stocks of North American Indians appear in the present paper. Some of them are iconographic and others are highly conventionalized. Other examples from other regions of the world are also presented under various headings.

In the present connection it may be useful to examine a series of drawings from the prehistoric pottery of Brazil in the National Museum at Rio de Janeiro. Although the U.S. National Museum contains many specimens of a similar character, some of which have been copied and published, the Brazilian types show an instructive peculiarity in the reduction of the face to certain main lines and finally to the eyes, so that the latter are placed apart and independent in a symmetric field.

The following Figs. 1168 to 1174 are reproduced from Dr. LadislÁu Netto (d), all of them being from Brazil and from paintings and carvings on Marajo ware.

Fig. 1168 shows broken lines without the aid of curves, but gracefully attached to an instrument, either lance or trident, which present the outline of the contours of a face.

The characters in Fig. 1169 are somewhat more elaborate. The eyes are decorated with lines and the contour of the face is round.

The characters in Fig. 1170 are carved human faces, some of which would not be recognized as such unless shown in the series.

The face in Fig. 1171 represents the horizontal projection or plan of a double-faced head. The central H represents in this case the top of the head, each of the shafts of the H being neither more nor less than the double arch of the eyebrows, joined to which the representation of the nose in a triangular figure may be recognized. The most noticeable point is that if this surface be applied in imagination to the cranium of the bifrontal head, of which it seems to be the covering or skin, the features of the double-faced heads of the Marajo idols are immediately recognized, including the orifices by which those idols are hung on cords, which orifices are seen in the dividing line of the two faces.

The Brazilian system above illustrated, which reduces the face to certain main lines and finally to the eyes, in such manner that the eyes are placed apart and each is put by itself in a symmetric field, has its parallel in North America. This is the practice of the Bella Coola Indians and their neighbors at the present day. They divide the surface, to be ornamented into zones and fields, by means of broad horizontal and vertical lines, each field containing, according to its position, now a complete face, now only an indication of it, the especial indication being made by the eye. The eyes themselves are given different shapes, according to the different animals represented, being now large and round, now oblong and with pointed angles. These peculiarities, which have become conventional, are retained when the eye is represented alone, so that by this method it may still be easy to recognize which animal—for example, a raven or a bear, is intended to be portrayed.

The left-hand character in Fig. 1175, from Champollion (g), is the Egyptian character for a human face. The predominance of the ears probably has some special significance.

Schoolcraft (u) gives the right-hand character of the same figure as a man’s head, with ears open to conviction, as made by the Ojibwa.

Both of these may be compared with the exaggerated ears in Fig. 1167.

HAND.

The impression, real or represented, of a human hand is used in several regions in the world with symbolic significance.

Among the North American Indians the mark so readily applied is of frequent occurrence, with an ascertained significance, which, however, differs in several tribes.

Fig. 1176, taken from Copway (b), represents the hand, and also expresses “did so.” This signification of “do,” or action, and hence “power,” is also given to the same character in the Egyptian and Chinese ideograms.

Among several Indian tribes a black hand on a garment or ornament means “the wearer of this has killed an enemy.” The decoration appears upon Ojibwa bead belts, and the Hidatsa and Arikara state that it is an old custom of showing bravery. The character was noticed at Fort Berthold, and the belt bearing it had been received from Ojibwa Indians of northern Minnesota. The mark of a black hand drawn of natural size or less, and sometimes made by the impress of an actually blackened palm, was also noticed, with the same significance, on articles among the Hidatsa and Arikara in 1881.

Schoolcraft (x) says of the Dakota on the St. Peters river that a red hand indicates that the wearer has been wounded by his enemy, and a black hand that he has slain his enemy.

Irving (b) remarks, in Astoria, of the Arikara warriors: “Some had the stamp of a red hand across their mouths, a sign that they had drunk the life-blood of a foe.”

In other parts of the present paper the significance of the mark is mentioned and may be briefly summarized here.

Among the Sioux a red hand painted on a warrior’s blanket or robe means that he has been wounded by the enemy, and a black hand that he has been in some way unfortunate. Among the Mandan a yellow hand on the breast signifies that the wearer had captured prisoners.

Among the Titon Dakota a hand displayed meant that the wearer had engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle with an enemy. The impress of a hand, stained or muddy, upon the body or horse was the Winnebago mark that the wearer had killed a man.

The drawing of linked fingers or joined hands has been before discussed, p. 643, and in several petroglyphs illustrated in this paper the single hand appears. It is a common device on rocks, and doubtless with varieties of signification, as above mentioned in other forms of pictograph.

It will suffice now to add that the figure of a hand with extended fingers is very common in the vicinity of ruins in Arizona as a rock etching, and is also frequently seen daubed on the rocks with colored pigments or white clay. But Mr. Thomas V. Keam explains the Arizona drawings of hands on the authority of the living Moki. In his MS., in describing Fig. 1177, he says:

Le Plongeon (a) tells that the tribes of Yucatan have the custom of printing the impress of the human hand, dipped in a red-colored liquid, on the walls of certain sacred edifices.

A. W. Howitt, in manuscript notes on Australian pictographs, says:

Thomas Worsnop (b) says:

Renan (a) says in the chapter on the Nomad Semites:

Major Conder (c) writes that in Jerusalem a rough representation of a hand is marked by the native races on the wall of every house while building. Some authorities connect it with the five names of God, and it is generally considered to avert the evil eye. The Moors generally, and especially the Arabs in Kairwan, apply paintings of red hands above the doors and on the columns of their houses as talismans to drive away the envious. Similar hand prints are found in the ruins of El Baird near Petra. Some of the quaint symbolism connected with horns is supposed to originate from such hand marks. The same people make the gesture against the evil eye by extending the five fingers of the left hand.

H. Clay Trumbull (b) gives the following:

The following is extracted from Panjab Notes and Queries, Vol. I, No. 1 (October, 1883), p. 2:

Gen. A. Hontum-Schindler, Teheran, Persia, in a letter of December 19, 1888, tells:

In Journal of the Proc. Royal Soc. Antiq., Ireland, I, 3, fifth series, 1890, p. 247, is the following:

Gen. Forlong (b) makes the following remarks:

FEET AND TRACKS.

In the two first illustrations of this group the respective figures of the man and the eagle are in the act of forming tracks on the ground. Such tracks are shown in the next two figures, but without the context might not be recognized as such. The fifth figure is more distinctly ideographic, showing the foot and leg as in the act of making the impress, and the eagle’s feather to indicate the kind of track which would have been made by a running eagle.

BROKEN LEG.

This group gives several modes of expressing, pictorially, broken legs.

VOICE AND SPEECH.

This group relates to sounds issuing from the mouth, that is, to voice and speech:

Irving (c) noticed fifty years ago that each tribe of Indians has a different mode of shaping and arranging lodges, and especially that the Omaha make theirs gay and fanciful with undulating bands of red and yellow or with dressed and painted buffalo skins.

The left-hand upper characters of Fig. 1203 represents Dakota lodges as drawn by the Hidatsa. These characters when carelessly or rudely drawn can only be distinguished from personal marks by their position and their relation to other characters.

The right-hand upper characters of the same figure signify, among the Hidatsa, earth lodges. The circles represent the ground plan of the lodges, while the central markings are intended to represent the upright poles, which support the roof on the interior. Some of these are similar to the Kadiak drawing for island, Fig. 439.

The left-hand lower character of the figure represents buildings erected by civilized men; the character is generally used by the Hidatsa to designate government buildings and traders’ stores.

The remaining character is the Hidatsati, the home of the Hidatsa; an inclosure having earth lodges within it.

ECLIPSE OF THE SUN.

Fig. 1214.—Dakotas witnessed eclipse of the sun; they were terribly frightened. The sun is a dark globe and the stars appear. The-Swan’s Winter Count, 1869-’70.

The left-hand design on the lower line of Pl. XLIX is reproduced from Kingsborough. “In this year there was a great eclipse of the sun.”

Humboldt infers from this painting that the Mexicans were informed of the real cause of the eclipses; which would not be at all surprising considering the many other curious things with which they were acquainted, the knowledge of which they must have derived from the West. It is proper to observe that on the 127th page of the Vatican MS., where a representation of the same eclipse occurs, the disk of the moon does not appear to be projecting over that of the sun. The Vatican MS. appears to have been copied from a Mexican painting similar to but not the same as that which Pedro de los Rios copied, whose notes and interpretations the Italian interpreter had before his eyes and strictly followed.

METEORS.

This group shows the pictorial representation of meteors by the Dakotas. The translations as well as the devices are suggestive.

THE CROSS.

Referring to the numerous forms of cross delineated in the work of Mr. W. H. Holmes (d), it is to be noted that most of them are equilateral or the Greek pattern, and that similar ornaments or instruments now used by the Dakotas are always worn so that the cross upon them stands as if resting on one foot only and not on two, as is the mode in which St. Andrew’s cross is drawn.

The “Greek” cross represents to the Dakota the four winds, which issue from the four caverns in which the souls of men existed before their incarnation in the human body. All “medicine-men,” i.e., conjurers and magicians, recollect their previous dreamy life in those places and the instructions then received from the gods, demons, and sages. They recollect and describe their preexistent life, but only dream and speculate as to the future life beyond the grave.

Fig. 1225.—Cross. Dakota.

The top of the cross is the cold all-conquering giant, the North-wind, most powerful of all. It is worn on the body nearest the head, the seat of intelligence and conquering devices. The left arm covers the heart; it is the East-wind, coming from the seat of life and love. The foot is the melting burning South-wind, indicating, as it is worn, the seat of fiery passion. The right arm is the gentle West-wind, blowing from the spirit land, covering the lungs, from which the breath at last goes out, gently, but into unknown night. The center of the cross is the earth and man, moved by the conflicting influences of the gods and winds. This cross is often illustrated as in Fig. 1225. It is sometimes drawn and depicted in beadwork and also on copper, as in Fig. 1226, extracted from the Second Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn., Pl. LII, Fig. 4, where it appears cut out of a copper plate found in an Ohio mound.

But among some of the Indian tribes the true Latin cross is found, viz, upright with three members of equal length, and the fourth, the foot, much longer. The use of this symbol antedates the discovery of America, and is carried far back in tradition and myth. When a missionary first asked a Dakota the name of this figure, which he drew for him in the sand, wishing to use the information in his translation of Bible and Creed, the Dakota promptly replied Sus-be-ca, and retraced the figure saying “That is a Sus-be-ca.” It was therefore promptly transferred to Scripture and Creed where it still reads “He was nailed to the Susbeca,” etc. “God forbid that I should glory save in the Susbeca of our Lord Jesus Christ.” To the good missionary this was plain and satisfactory; for the Dakota had demonstrated by tracing it in the sand that Susbeca was the name of the figure called in English, “cross.” The foregoing statement is made on the excellent authority of Rev. S. D. Hinman.

But when the Dakota read his new Bible or Creed, he must have been puzzled or confused to find, “He was nailed to a mosquito-hawk,” or, “God forbid that I should glory save in the mosquito-hawk of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The same disposition of straight lines which is called the Latin cross was and is used by the Dakota to picture or signify both in pictograph and gesture sign, the mosquito-hawk, more generally called dragon fly. The Susbeca or mosquito-hawk is a supernatural being. He is gifted with speech. He warns men of danger. He approaches the ear of the man moving carelessly or unconcernedly through the deep grass of the meadow or marsh—approaches his ear silently and at right angles, as shown in Fig. 1227a, and says to him, now alarmed, “Tci”-“tci”-“tci!”—which is an interjection equivalent to “Look out!” “You are surely going to destruction!” “Look out!” “Tci”-“tci”-“tci!”

Now the mosquito-hawk is easily knocked down and caught and has a temptingly small neck. But woe to the man or woman or child who with the cruelty commonly practiced on all living things by Indians of all ages and states, dares to wring off his head. Whoever shall do this before the winter comes shall be beheaded by the detested Ojibwa. It is true, for long ago a reckless young warrior feeling annoyed or insulted by the infernal “Tci”-“tci”-“tci!” so unceremoniously uttered in explosive breaths near his ear, tried it, and his headless trunk was found ere he escaped from the swamp.

The cross has its proper significance in this use not only in representing quite faithfully the shape of the insect but also the angle of his approach. It is variously drawn, but usually as in Fig. 1227, a, or b, and in painting or embroidery, c, and sometimes d.

One reason for the adoption of the dragon fly as a mysterious and supernatural being, is on account of its sudden appearance in large numbers. When in the still of the evening, before the shades of darkness come, there is heard from the meadow a hum as of the sound of crickets or frogs, but indistinct and prolonged; on the morrow the Susbeca will be hovering over it; it is the sound of their coming, but whence no man kens. See also Fig. 1165 and remarks.

Among the Ojibwa of northern Minnesota the cross is one of the sacred symbols of the society of the Mide or shamans, and has special reference to the fourth degree. A neophyte who has been advanced to the third initiation or degree, is instructed in ritualistic chants purporting to relate the struggle between Mi'nabo'zho, the mediator between the Ojibwa and Ki'tshi Ma'nido, and the malevolent Bear spirit, which contest occurred when Mi'nabo'zho entered the fourth degree structure at the time when the first Indian was inducted therein for initiation.

The structure as erected at this day is built in the form of an oblong square having openings or doors at the four cardinal points. At these openings Mi'nabo'zho appeared and shot into the inclosure charmed arrows, to expel the horde of demons occupying the sacred place, and the Bear spirit was the last to yield to his superior powers. The openings being opposite to one another, north and south and east and west, suggested to Mi'nabo'zho the cross, which is now erected whenever a third degree Mide receives this last and highest honor.

The cross is made of saplings, the upright pole reaching the height of 4 to 6 feet, the transverse arms being somewhat shorter, each being of the same length as that part of the pole between the arms and the top. The upper parts are painted white, or besmeared with white clay, over which are spread small spots of red, the latter suggesting the sacred shell or megis, the symbol of the order. The lower arm or pole is squared, the surface toward the east being painted white, to denote the source of light and warmth. The face on the south is green, denoting the source of the thunder bird who brings the rains and causes the appearance of vegetation; the surface toward the west is covered with vermilion and relates to the land of the setting sun, the abode of the dead. The north is painted black, as that faces the direction from which come affliction, cold, and hunger.

Illustrations and additional details on this topic are presented in the paper of Dr. Hoffman (a).

In the chart presented in that paper, Pl. B, a mide' structure is also shown, within which are a number of crosses, each of which designates the spirit of a deceased mide priest.

Upon several birch-bark scrolls received from Ojibwa mide priests are characters resembling rude crosses, which are merely intended to designate wigwams, resembling in this respect similar characters made by Hidatsa to designate Sioux lodges as shown in Fig. 1203.

Groups of small crosses incised upon ivory bow drills and representing flocks of birds, occur on Eskimo specimens, Nos. 45020 and 44211, in the collection of the U.S. National Museum. They are reproduced in Fig. 1228. In Figs. 429 and 1129, representing petroglyphs at Oakley Springs, Arizona, are crosses which are mentioned by Mr. G. K. Gilbert as signifying stars. The simple cross appears to be the simplest type of character to represent stellar forms. See Figs. 1219, 1220, 1221 and 1223.

Fig. 28, supra, represents a cross copied from the Najowe Valley group of colored pictographs, 40 miles west of Santa Barbara, California. The cross measures 10 inches in length, the interior portion being painted black, while the outside or border is of a dark red tint. This drawing, as well as numerous others in close connection, is painted on the walls of a shallow cave or rock-shelter in the limestone formation.

Fourteen miles west of Santa Barbara, on the summit of the Santa Ynez mountains, are caverns having a large opening, facing the northwest and north, in which crosses occur of the types given in Fig. 33, supra.

The interior portion of the cross is of a dull, earthy red, while the outside line is of a faded black tint. The cross measures nearly a foot in extent.

At Tulare Indian agency, Tulare valley, California, is an immense bowlder of granite which has become broken in such a manner that one of the lower quarters has moved away from the larger mass sufficiently to leave a passageway 6 feet wide and nearly 10 feet high. The interior walls are well covered with large, painted figures, while upon the ceiling are numerous forms of animals, birds, and insects. Among this latter group is a white cross measuring about 18 inches in length, Fig. 1229, presenting a unique appearance, for the reason that white coloring matter applied to petroglyphs is, with this single exception, entirely absent in that region.

One of the most interesting series of rock sculpturings in groups is that in Owens valley, south of Benton, California. Among these various forms of crosses occur, and circles containing crosses of various simple and complex types, as shown in Pls. I to XI and in Mojave desert, California, illustrated in Fig. 19, but the examples of most interest in the present connection are the two shown herewith in Fig. 1230, a and b.

The larger one, a, occurs upon a large bowlder of trachyte, blackened by exposure, located 16 miles south of Benton, at a locality known as the Chalk Grade. The circle is a depression about 1 inch in depth, the cross being in high relief within. Another smaller cross, b, found 3 miles north of the one above-mentioned, is almost identical, each of the arms of the cross, however, extending to the rim of the circle.

In this locality occurs also the form of the cross c, in the same figure, and some examples having more than two cross arms. Other simple forms clearly represent the human form, but by erosion the arms and body have become partially obliterated so as to lose all trace of resemblance to humanity.

In the same figure, d, from a rock in the neighborhood, exhibits the outline of the human form, while in e parts of the extremities have been removed by erosion so that the resemblance is less striking; in f a simple cross occurs, which may also have been intended to represent the same, but through disintegration the extremities have been so greatly changed or erased that their original forms can not be determined.

Rev. John McLean (a) says: “On the sacred pole of the sun lodge of the Blood Indians two bundles of small brushwood taken from the birch tree were placed in the form of a cross. This was an ancient symbol evidently referring to the four winds.”

The ceremonial employment of the cross by the Pueblo is detailed in Mr. Stevenson’s paper entitled Ceremonial of Hasjelti Dailjis and Mythical Sand-painting of the Navajo Indians, in the Eighth Ann. Rept. Bur. Ethn., p. 266, where it denotes the scalp-lock.

In the present paper the figure of the cross among the North American Indians is presented under other headings with many differing significations. Among other instances it appears on p. 383 as the tribal sign for Cheyenne; on p. 582 as Dakota lodges; on p. 613 as the character for trade or exchange; on p. 227 as the conventional sign for prisoner; on p. 438 for personal exploits; while elsewhere it is used in simple numeration.

Bandelier (a) thinks that the crosses which were frequently used before the conquest by the aborigines of Mexico and Central America were merely ornaments and were not objects of worship, while the so-called crucifixes, like that on the “Palenque tablet,” were only the symbol of the “new fire” or close of a period of fifty-two years. He believes them to be merely representations of “fire-drills,” more or less ornamented.

Mr. W. H. Holmes (e) shows by a series representing steps in the simplification of animal characters that in Chiriqui a symmetrical cross was developed from the design of an alligator.

The remarkable resemblance of some of these characters to forms on petroglyphs in the three Americas, presented in this paper, will at once be noticed.

D’Alviella (c), remarks:

It is, however, impossible within the present limits, to attempt even a summary of the vast amount of literature on this topic. Perhaps one symbolic use of the form which is not commonly known is of sufficient interest to be noted. Travelers say that crosses are exhibited in the curtains of the monasteries of the Thibetan Buddhists, to mean peace and quietness. With the same conception the loopholes of the Japanese forts were in time of peace covered with curtains embroidered with crosses, which when war broke out were removed.

It is also impossible to refrain from quoting the following, translated with condensation, from de Mortillet (a). The illustration referred to is reproduced in the present paper by Fig. 1238, the right-hand figure being from the vase, and that on the left the recognized monogram of Christ:

The author, with considerable naivetÉ, has evidently determined that the form of the cross was significant of a high state of religious culture, and that its being succeeded by effigies, which he calls idols, showed a lapse into idolatry. The fact is simply that, next after one straight line, the combination of two straight lines forming a cross is the easiest figure to draw, and its use before art could attain to the drawing of animal forms, or their representation in plastic material, is merely an evidence of crudeness or imperfection in designing. It is worthy of remark that Dr. Schliemann, in his “Troja,” page 107, presents as his Fig. 38 a much more distinct cross than that given by M. de Mortillet, with the simple remark that it is “a geometrical ornamentation.”

Probably no cause has more frequently produced archeologic and ethnologic blunders than the determination of Christian explorers and missionaries to find monograms of Christ in every monument or inscription where the cross figure appears. The early missionaries to America were obliged to explain the presence of this figure there by a miraculous visit of an apostle, St. Thomas being their favorite. Other generations of the same good people were worried in the same manner by the cross pattÉe or Thor hammer of the Scandinavians, and by the conventionalized clover leaf of the Druids. This figure often has been a symbol and as often an emblem or a mere sign, but it is so common in every variety of application that actual evidence is necessary to show in any special case what is its real significance.

Gen. G. P. Thruston (a) gives the following account of Pl. LI, which suggests several points of comparison with figures under other headings in this paper:

The following summary of the translation, kindly furnished by Mr. Pom K. Soh of an article, “Pictures of Dokatu or so-called bronze bell,” by Mr. K. Wakabayashi (a), in the Bulletin of the Tokyo Anthropological Society, refers to Pl. LII. The author saw the bell described at the town of Takoka, Japan, in August, 1891. The “pictures” on it were fourteen in number, cast in the metal of the bell, each one occupying a separate compartment and running around the bell in several bands. The author took rubbings of the pictures, lithographs of which are published as illustrations of his article, and from these the eight pictures now presented in actual size are selected, the remainder being of the same general character, and some of them nearly identical with those selected. The information obtained is that the bell, which is iron and not bronze, was procured before, and perhaps long before, the present century from Jisei, in the village of Sasakura in the state of Yetsin, and had been excavated from a mountain at Samki. Copies of the markings upon it were taken in 1817 to a high authority at Yedo, now Tokyo. It is believed that the markings illustrate or are related to a national story, “Kanden Ko Hitsu,” written by Ban Kokei. A few similar bells or fragments of them, some being bronze, have been found in various parts of the Japanese empire. One, which is bronze, height about 3½ feet, and diameter somewhat more than 1 foot, was dug up in Hanina in the year A.D. 821.

The interest of the drawings on Pl. LII, in the present connection, consists in their remarkable similarity, both in form and apparent motive, with several of those found in the western continent and figured in the present work. Thus, a is to be compared with characters on Figs. 437 and 1227 and others referring to the human form, the cross, and the dragon-fly; b with Figs. 57, 165 b and 1261 l; the two characters in c, respectively, with Fig. 1262; the mantis, and Fig. 1129, one form of star; d with a common turtle form, as in Fig. 50; e with Fig. 166, an Ojibwa human form, and also exhibiting gesture, and Fig. 113 a Brazilian petroglyph; and f with Fig. 657, a north-eastern Algonquian drawing. The three last-mentioned pictures, e and f and g, exhibit the peculiar internal life organ (often the conventionalized heart), noticed in Figs. 50, 700, and 701, and it is to be remarked that the largest quadruped in g has the life organ connected with the mouth, while the other quadrupeds, and those in h, show no depiction of internal organs. The human figure in g is noticeable for the American form of bow, and the upper character of h is to be compared with Figs. 104 and 148.

SECTION 3.
COMPOSITE FORMS.

The figures in this group are selected from a larger number in which the union of two animals of different kinds or that of an animal and another object indicates the union of the several qualities or attributes supposed to belong to those animals or objects. The form and use of such composite figures are familiar from the publication of the inscriptions on Egyptian monuments and papyri.

SECTION 4.
ARTISTIC SKILL AND METHODS.

Dr. Andree (d), in Das Zeichnen bei den NaturvÖlkern, makes the following remarks, translated with condensation:

The same author, in the same connection, reasserts the old statement that there is an established difference in artistic capacity between the so-called mound-builders and the present Indians, so great that it either shows a genetic difference between them or that the Indians had degenerated in that respect. This statement is denied by the Bureau of Ethnology, but the point to be now considered is whether it is true that the historic North American Indians are as low in artistic skill as is alleged.

The French traveler Crevaux, as quoted by Marcano (g), says that he had the happy idea of giving pencils to the Indians, in order to see whether they were capable of producing the same drawings. The young Yumi rapidly drew for him sketches of man, dog, tiger; in brief, of all the animals of the country. Another Indian reproduced all sorts of arabesques, which he was wont to paint with genipa. Crevaux saw that these savages, who are accused of being absolutely ignorant of the fine arts, all drew with extraordinary facility.

The same idea, i.e., of testing the artistic ability of Indians in several tribes, occurred to the present writer and to many other travelers, who generally have been surprised at the skill in free-hand drawing and painting exhibited. It would seem that the Indians had about the same faults and decidedly more talent than the average uninstructed persons of European descent who make similar attempts. An instance of special skill in portrait painting is given by Lossing (a), where a northern tribe in 1812 made a bark picture of Joseph Barron, a fugitive, to obtain his identification by sending copies of it to various tribes. The portrait given as an illustration in the work cited is very distinct and lifelike. This, however, was a special task prompted by foreign influence. While the Indians had no more knowledge of perspective than the Japanese, they were unable or indisposed to attempt the accurate imitation of separate natural objects in which the Japanese excel. Before European instruction or example they probably never produced a true picture. Some illustrations in the present work, which show a continuous series of men, animals, and other objects, are no more pictures than are the consecutive words of a printed sentence, both forms, indeed, being alike in the fact that their significance is expressed by the relation between the separate parts. The illustration which at a first glance seems to be most distinctively picturesque is Fig. 659, but it will be noticed that the personages are repeated, the scene changed, and the time proceeds, so that there is no view of specified objects at any one time and place.

Fig. 1254.—Moose, Kejimkoojik.

Fig. 1254 shows two drawings from Kejimkoojik, N. S., reduced to one-fourth, each supposed to represent a moose, though possibly one of them is a caribou, and the mode of execution vividly suggests some of the examples of prehistoric art found in Europe and familiar by repeatedly published illustrations.

Fig. 1255 is the etching of a hand from the Kejimkoojik rocks, reduced one-half. Its peculiarity consists in the details by which the lines of the palm and markings on the balls of the thumb and fingers are shown. If this is the real object of the design it shows close observation, though it is not suggested that any connection with the pseudo-science of palmistry is to be inferred.

In connection with this drawing the following translated remarks in Verhandl. Berlin. Gesellsch. fÜr Anthrop. (d), may be noted:

The upper character in the same plate is a copy of a drawing made in 1884 by an Apache Indian at Anadarko, although the insignia of the riders are more like those used by the Cheyenne than those of the Apache. A striking similarity will be noticed in the motive of the two sketches of the mounted warriors and their steeds as well as in their decorations, from which in Europe the devices called heraldic were differentiated. Doubtless still better examples could be obtained to compare the degree of artistic skill attained by the several draftsmen, but these are used as genuine, convenient, and typical. See also the Mexican representation of horses and riders under the heading of meteors, Fig. 1224.

These horses are far less skillfully portrayed than they are by the Plains tribes, which may be explained by the fact that the Mexicans had not yet become familiar with the animal.

A story told by Catlin to the general effect that the Siouan stock of Indians did not understand the drawing of human faces in profile has been repeated in various forms. The last is by Popoff (a):

Another variant of the story is that Catlin was accused of practicing magic, by which the half of the subject’s head should get into his power, and he was forced to stop his painting and flee for his life. The explorer and painter who tells the story is not considered to be altogether free from exaggeration, and he may have invented the tale to amuse his auditors in his lectures and afterwards his readers, or he may have been the victim of a practical joke by the Indians, who are fond of such banter, and the well-known superstitions about sorcerers gaining possession of anything attached to the person would have rendered their anger plausible. But certain it is that the people referred to, before and after and at the time of the visit of Catlin to them, were in the habit of drawing the human face in profile, and, indeed, much more frequently than the full or front face. This is abundantly proved by many pictures in existence at that time and place which have been seen by this writer, and a considerable number of them are copied in the present work. Thus much for one of the oft-cited fictions on which the allegation of the Indian’s stupidity in drawing has been founded.

Another false statement is copied over and over again by authors, to the effect that from a similar superstition the Indians are afraid to, and therefore do not, make delineations of the whole human figure. The present work shows their drawing of front, side, and rear views of the whole human figure, presenting as each view may allow, all the limbs and features. This, however, is rare, not from the fear charged, but because the artists directed their attention, not to iconography, but to ideography, seizing some special feature or characteristic for prominence and disregarding or intentionally omitting all that was unnecessary to their purpose.

On the other hand the Indians have sometimes been unduly praised for acumen in observation and for skill in their iconography. For instance, in the lectures of Mr. Edward Muybridge, explaining the highly interesting photographs of consecutive movements of animals from which he formulates the novel science of zoÖpraxography, the lecturer attributes to the Indians a scientific and artistic method of drawing horses in motion which has excelled in that respect all the most famous painters and sculptors. But Mr. Muybridge bases his statement upon a small number of Indian drawings, apparently seen by him in Europe, the characteristics of which do not appear in the many drawings of horses in the possession of the present writer, a considerable number of which are published in this work. The position of the legs in the drawings praised is doubtless fortuitous. The Indian in his delineation of horses cared little more than to show an animal with the appropriate mane, tail, and hoofs, and the legs were extended without the slightest regard to natural motion. The drawing of the Indians closely resembles the masterly abstractions of the living forms devised by the early heraldic painters which later were corrupted by an attempt to compromise with zoÖlogy, resulting in a clumsy naturalism if not caricature.

A comparison of artistic rather than of pictographic skill may frequently be made, for instance the art of the Haida in carving, which shows remarkable similarity to that in Central and South America, and made public by Habel, op. cit., and H. H. Bancroft (i).

The style of drawing is strongly influenced by the material on which it is made. This topic must receive some consideration here, though too extensive for full treatment. The substances on which and the instruments by which pictographs are made in America are discussed in Chaps. VII and VIII of this work, and the remarks and illustrations there presented apply generally to other forms of drawing and painting. Examples of drawing on every kind of material known to the American aborigines appear in this work. Carving, pecking, and scratching of various kinds of rock are illustrated, also paintings on skins and on wood. The Innuit carving on walrus ivory, of which numerous illustrations are furnished, is notable for its minuteness as well as distinctness. The substance was precious, the working surface limited, and the workmanship required time and care. Birch bark, common in the whole of the northern Algonquian region, was an attractive material. It was used much more freely and was worked more easily than walrus ivory, and in two modes, one in which outlines are drawn by any hard-pointed substance on the inner side of the bark when it is soft and which remain permanent when dry, the other made by scraping on the rough outer surface, thus producing a difference in color. Many examples of the first-mentioned method are shown throughout this work, and of the latter in Pl. XVI and Fig. 659. Having before them this large collection of varied illustrations readers can judge for themselves of the effect of the material in determining the style among people who had substantially the same concepts.

It is universally admitted that the material used, whether papyrus or parchment, stone or wood, palm leaves or metal, wax or clay, and the appropriate instruments, hammer, knife, graver, brush or pen, decided the special style of incipient artists throughout the world. The Chinese at first worked with knives on bamboo and stone, and even after they had obtained paper, ink, and fine hair pencils, the influence of the old method continued. The cuneiform characters are due to the shape of the wooden style used to impress the figures on unbaked clay. It may generally be remarked that in materials having a decided “grain,” of which bamboo is the most obvious instance, the early stage of art with its rude implements was forced to work in lines running with the grain.

Dr. Andree (e) gives the illustration presented here as Fig. 1256 with these remarks:

The explanation of many peculiar forms of Indian drawing and painting is to be found in the stage of mythologic sophiology reached by the several tribes. For instance, Mr. W. H. Holmes, op. cit., discovered that in Chiriqui all the decorations originated in life forms of animals, none being vegetal and none clearly expressive of the human figure or attempting the portrayal of physiognomy. This peculiarity doubtless arose from the exclusively zoomorphic character of the religion of the people. Other mythologic concepts have given a special trend to the art of other tribes and peoples. This results in conventionalism. The sculptures of Persia chiefly express the power and glory of the God-King, and the Egyptian statues are canonical idealizations of an abstract human being, type of the race. It is to be noticed that Indians also show conservatism and conventionalization in their ordinary pictures. Within what may be called a tribal, or more properly stock, system, every Indian draws in precisely the same manner. The figures of a man, of a horse, and of every other object delineated are made by everyone who attempts to make any such figure, with seeming desire for all the identity of which their mechanical skill is capable, thus showing their conception and motive to be the same. In this respect the drawing of the Indians may be likened to that of boys at a public school, who are always drawing, and drawing the same objects and with constant repetition of the same errors from one school generation to another.

In discussing artistic skill only in its relation to picture-writing the degree of its excellence is not intrinsically important, though it may be so for comparison and identification. The figures required were the simplest. Among these were vertical and horizontal straight lines and their combinations, circles, squares, triangles, a hand, a foot, an ax or a bow, a boat or a sledge. Both natural and artificial objects were drawn by a few strokes without elaboration. The fewer the marks the more convenient was the pictograph, if it fulfilled its object of being recognized by the reader. The simple fact without esthetic effect was all that the pictographic artists wanted to show, and when an animal was represented it was not by imitation of its whole form, but by emphasis of some characteristic which must be made obvious, even if it distorted the figure or group and violated every principle of art as now developed.