a vessel is taken to produce more lifelike imitation, as in Fig. 1173.
It is the neck of an anthropomorphic vase of Marajo ornamented with
grooves and lines, red on a white ground, reduced to one-half.

[Illustration: FIG. 1174.--Marajo vases.]

Fig. 1174 _a_, real size, is the neck of a Marajo vase, representing a
human head. The nose and chin are very prominent, the eyes horizontal
and slit in the same direction. This head is remarkable for the relief
of the eyebrows which, after reaching the height of the ears, form these
organs, describing above a second curve in the inverse direction of the
curve of the brow, each brow thus forming an S. There are other heads in
which the eyebrows are prolonged to form the relief of the ears at the
outer extremity. In these cases the whole relief represents a semicircle
more or less irregular, while on the contrary this relief forms the
figure S.

Same figure, _b_, real size, is the neck of an ornithomorphic,
anthropocephalous vase. It has on the face the classic and conventional
T to represent the nose and brows. The eyes are formed by the symbolic
figure equally conventional in the ceramics of the mound-builders of
Marajo, and the ears differ very little from the characters seen in
other figures.

Same figure, _c_, four-fifths real size, is the neck of a Marajo vase
representing, by engraving and painting, all the conventional characters
of the different parts of the human face employed by the mound-builders
of Marajo. This vase preserves perfectly the primitive colors, which
show vermilion lines on a white ground. A double protuberance from each
ear, the design which forms the eyes, and that which surrounds and
outlines the mouth, the nose, and the ears, are characteristic traces
of the decorative art of the human face which few heads present in such
perfection.

Same figure, _d_, four-fifths real size, is the neck of a Marajo vase
more simple than the preceding one, but with more regular and distinct
features.

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.

[Illustration: FIG. 1175.--Human heads.]

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.

[Illustration: FIG. 1176.--Hand. Ojibwa.]

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.

[Illustration: FIG. 1177.--Joined hands. Moki.]

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:

    The outline of two outstretched hands joined at the wrists and
    figure of a hand with extended fingers is very common as a rock
    etching.

    These are vestiges of the test formerly practiced among young
    men who aspired for admission to the fraternity of Salyko. The
    Salyko is a trinity of two women and a woman from whom the Hopitu
    obtained the first corn. The first test above referred to was that
    of putting their hands in the mud and impressing them upon the rock.
    Only those were chosen as novices the imprints of whose hands had
    dried on the instant.

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:

    In very many places there are representations of a human hand
    imprinted or delineated upon the rocks or in caverns. In the
    mountains on the western side of the Darling river, in New South
    Wales, I have observed such, and the aborigines whom I questioned
    upon the subject said that these representations were made in sport.
    This reply would, however, be also given were any white man to find
    and draw their attention to one of the figures which are made in
    connection with the initiation ceremonies. The representations of
    hands are made in two ways. In one the hand is smeared with red
    ocher and water, and impressed upon the rock surface. In the other
    the hand, being placed upon the rock, a mouthful of red ocher or
    pipe-clay and water is squirted over it. The hand being then removed
    there remains its representation surrounded and marked out by the
    colored wash.

Thomas Worsnop (_b_) says:

[Illustration: FIG. 1178.--Cave painting, Australia.]

    Mr. Winnecke, in 1879, saw several drawings on rocks and in
    caves, [Fig. 1178], and describes them as follows:

    There are found in several large caves near Mount Skinner and
    Ledans hill, in latitude 22° 30′ south and longitude 134° 30′ east.
    The natives appear to have selected the smooth surface of granite
    rocks inside several large caves, which spots are not subject to
    the influence of wind or rain. These caves are resorted to by the
    natives during excessive rainy seasons, as indicated by their camp
    preparations, and it is beyond doubt that these drawings have
    been performed during these periods of forced inactivity by some
    artistically inclined native. Those I am alluding to are somewhat
    numerous in these particular localities and present a uniform
    appearance.

    _a_, apparently represents a heart pierced in the center by a
    spear. The outline of the object representing the heart has been
    delineated with red ocher, whilst the spear has been drawn with
    a burnt stick or piece of coal. I have only seen this particular
    sketch in one instance, where four distinct drawings of the same
    object exactly below and equidistant from each other have been made
    in anything but a crude manner, the outline having been carefully
    and very distinctly traced on the rocks, showing a degree of
    perfection scarcely to be anticipated from these wild inhabitants.
    The breadth of the heart is about 5 inches and its length about 6
    inches. The length of the spear portion is about 3 feet. [The device
    reminds of St. Valentine’s day.]

    _b_, consists of two parallel lines about 6 inches apart, with
    regular marks between, and probably represents the native’s notion
    of a creek with emu tracks traversing its bed. This drawing has been
    made with a coal, and is found depicted on smooth rocks in various
    localities.

    _c_, has been drawn both with coal and red ocher. It is found
    in many places, and seems to be a favorite drawing of the natives.
    I have found it depicted in several localities in the interior of
    Australia. It is generally supposed to represent a hand.

    _d._ This figure is made by the natives in the following manner:
    Placing their extended hand against a smooth rock, after having
    previously moistened the same, they fill their mouths with powdered
    charcoal, which they then blow violently along the outline of their
    extended hand, thus leaving the portions of rock covered perfectly
    clean, whilst the space between their fingers and elsewhere around
    about becomes covered with the black substance. This drawing is not
    very common. I found several specimens near the Sabdover river. I
    have, however, been informed that it has been seen in other and
    distant parts of Australia.

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

    The real monuments of the period were, as in the case with
    all people who can not write, the stones which they reared, the
    columns erected in memory of some event, and upon which was often
    represented a hand, whence the name of _iad_ [finger post].

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:

    It is a noteworthy fact that among the Jews in Tunis, near
    the old Phenician settlement of Carthage, the sign of a bleeding
    hand is still an honored and a sacred symbol as if in recognition
    of the covenant-bond of their brotherhood and friendship. “What
    struck me most in all the houses,” says a traveler (Chevalier de
    Hesse-Wartegg) among these Jews, “was the impression of an open
    bleeding hand on every wall of each floor. However white the walls,
    this repulsive (yet suggestive) sign was to be seen everywhere.”

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

    At the Temple of Balasundarí Deví at Tilokpúr, near Náhan, the
    priests stamp a red hand on the left breast of the coat of a pilgrim
    who visits the temple for the first time to show that he has, as
    it were, paid for his footing. If the pilgrim again visits the
    temple and can show the stamp he pays only 4 annas as his fee to the
    priests.

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

    All through Persia, principally in villages though, a rough
    representation of a hand, or generally the imprint of a right hand,
    in red, may be seen on the wall or over the door of a house whilst
    in building, or on the wall of a mosque, booth, or other public
    building. It is probably an ancient custom, although the Persians
    connect it with Islam, and they say that the hand represents that of
    Albas, a brother of Husain (a grandson of the prophet Mohammed), who
    was one of the victims at the massacre of Kerbela in 680, and who
    had his right hand cut off by el Abrad ibu Shaibân. In India I have
    noticed similar marks, hands, or simply red streaks.

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

    The hand an emblem of good luck in Ireland.--In Maj. Conder’s
    “Syrian Stone Lore,” published for the Palestine Exploration
    Committee by Bentley & Son (1886), p. 71, occurs the following
    passage: “Among other primitive emblems used by the Phenicians
    is the hand occurring on votive steles at Carthage, sometimes in
    connection with the sacred fish. This hand is still a charm in
    Syria, called Kef Miriam, ‘the Virgin Mary’s hand,’ and sovereign
    against the evil eye. The red hand is painted on walls, and occurs,
    for instance, in the Hagia Sophia at Constantinople and elsewhere.
    It is common also in Ireland and in India (Siva’s hand) and on
    early scepters, always as an emblem of good luck.” What actual
    foundation is there for the above statement as regards Ireland?
    About twenty years ago the first Monday in January was known in
    the south of Ireland as “Handsel Monday,” and looked upon as in
    some way indicating the prosperity the year succeeding was to bring
    forth. But whether, as the name would seem to imply, this had any
    connection with the hand as an emblem of good luck I am unaware.--J.
    C.

[Illustration: FIG. 1179.--Irish cross.]

Gen. Forlong (_b_) makes the following remarks:

    The “red hand of Ireland” is known alike to Turanians, Shemites,
    and Aryans, and from the Americas to farthest Asia. The hand, being
    an organ peculiar to man, is in the East a sign of Siva, and seems
    to have been identified with his emblem even by the Medes. All men
    have usually worshiped and plighted their troth or sworn by manual
    signs, so the hand naturally stands as the sign of man himself; but
    more than this, Easterns attach a significance to it as an organ
    without which the procreating one is useless. In Germany, says J.
    Grimm, the hand was _Tyr_, or the son of Odin, “the one-handed,”
    for he lost one limb by the biting wintry wolf--that is, he
    became powerless to produce.... He was then the “golden-handed,”
    fertilizer, whom ancient Irans denoted by their name Zerdosht, and
    Irish Kelts placed as a talisman on their Ulster shield.... The
    Irish solo-phalik idea is seen in the “crosses” of Clon-Mac-Noise
    and Monasterboise, where, as in Fig. 1179, all the fingers are
    carefully placed in the center of the circle of fertility. The Vedas
    constantly speak of Savatar as “the golden-handed sun,” who lost
    this limb owing to his efforts when at sacrifice, and who remained
    impotent until the deity restored to him a hand of gold.

    Hindus, like the high Asian tribes and the old Mexicans, usually
    impress a hand covered with blood or vermilion on the door posts
    of their temple--that is, on the Delpheus or “door of life;” and
    the great Islamite, Mahmood, when he captured Constantinople, rode
    up to the holy feminine shrine of St. Sophia, and reaching up as
    high as he could, there unwittingly imprinted this bloody sign of
    Great Siva. We must remember how often the hand appears with other
    significant objects on the arms of men and nations, and notably so
    on Roman standards.... Fig. 1180.

    In the old shrines of America, Leslie says, the “sacred hand was
    a favorite subject of art,” and Stevens in his Yucatan says, “The
    red hand stared us in the face over all the ruined buildings of the
    country, ... not drawn or printed, but stamped by the living hand,
    the pressure of the palm upon the stone being quite distinct, the
    thumb and fingers being extended as we see in the Irish and Hindu
    hands.”

[Illustration: FIG. 1180.--Roman standard.]

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.

[Illustration: FIG. 1181.]

Fig. 1181.--Goes-Walking. Red-Cloud’s Census.

[Illustration: FIG. 1182.]

Fig. 1182.--Running-Eagle. Red-Cloud’s Census.

[Illustration: FIG. 1183.]

Fig. 1183.--Tracks. Red-Cloud’s Census.

[Illustration: FIG. 1184.]

Fig. 1184.--Walking-Bull-Track. Red-Cloud’s Census.

[Illustration: FIG. 1185.]

Fig. 1185.--Eagle-Track. Red-Cloud’s Census.

[Illustration: FIG. 1186.--Feet.]

Fig. 1186, copied from Copway (_b_), gives three characters of which the
first represents “ran,” the second “walked” or “passed,” and the third
“stand,” characters similar both to the tracks and the feet found on
many petroglyphs in North America.

They are also found in the terraces of temples of Thebes, of Karnak, and
especially at Nakhaur in South Bihar.

P. le Page Renouf (_a_), in An Elementary Grammar of the Ancient
Egyptian Language, gives the right-hand character of the same figure as
the generic determinative implying motion.

BROKEN LEG.

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

[Illustration: FIG. 1187.]

Fig. 1187.--Many were thrown from their horses while surrounding
buffalo, and some had their legs broken. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count,
1847-’48. The legs are distorted and the line may refer to the slippery
ice touched by the toes.

[Illustration: FIG. 1188.]

Fig. 1188.--Lone-Horn’s father broke his leg. The-Flame’s Winter Count,
1832-’33. This is a strongly marked representation.

[Illustration: FIG. 1189.]

[Illustration: FIG. 1190.]

Fig. 1189.--A Minneconjou Dakota named Broken-Leg died. The-Flame’s
Winter Count, 1846-’47. The-Flame’s representation is objective, but
Battiste Good gives another more ideographic. The arm in his character,
given in Fig. 1190, is lengthened so as nearly to touch the broken leg,
which is shown distorted, instead of indicating the injury by the mere
distortion of the leg itself. The bird over the head, and connected by a
line with it, probably represents the teal as a name-totem. Perhaps he
was called Broken-Leg after the injury.

[Illustration: FIG. 1191.]

Fig. 1191.--There were a great many accidents and some legs were broken,
the ground being covered with ice. American-Horse’s Winter Count,
1847-’48. Here the fracture is very obvious--too much so to be intended
as objective--rather delineating the idea of the breaking and separation
of the bone.

[Illustration: FIG. 1192.]

Fig. 1192.--Broken-Leg was killed by the Pawnees. His leg had
been broken by a bullet in a previous fight with the Pawnees.
American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1807-’08. Here the leg is entirely
removed from its normal position.

[Illustration: FIG. 1193.--Broken leg. Chinese.]

Dr. Edkins (_g_) gives Fig. 1193, _a_, as a picture of a bent leg
broken, and adds, “The true radical and phonetic for which this stands
as representative is rather _b_, ‘fault,’ ‘move.’”

VOICE AND SPEECH.

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

[Illustration: FIG. 1194.]

Fig. 1194.--The-Elk-that-Holloes-Walking. The-Swan’s Winter
Count, 1860-’61. Interpreter A. Lavary said, in 1867, that
The-Elk-that-Holloes-Walking, then chief of the Minneconjous, was
then at Spotted-Tail’s camp. His father was Red-Fish. He was the
elder brother of Lone-Horn. His name is given as A-hag-a-hoo-man-ie,
translated The-Elk’s-Voice-Walking, compounded of he-ha-ka, elk,
and omani, walk; this according to Lavary’s literation. The correct
literation of the Dakota word meaning elk is heqaka; voice, ho; and
to walk, walking, mani. Their compound would be heqaka ho mani, the
translation being the same as above given.

[Illustration: FIG. 1195.]

Fig. 1195.--Elk-walking-with-his-Voice. Red-Cloud’s Census: This is
explained by the following figure.

[Illustration: FIG. 1196.]

Fig. 1196 is taken from the manuscript drawing book of an Indian
prisoner at St. Augustine, Florida, now in the Smithsonian Institution,
No. 30664. It represents an antelope and the whistling sound produced by
the animal on being surprised or alarmed. It also shows the tracks, and
supplies the idea of walking not exhibited by the preceding two figures.

[Illustration: FIG. 1197.]

Fig. 1197.--Dog-with-good-voice. Red-Cloud’s Census. The peculiar
angular divisions of the line may indicate the explosive character
of a dog’s bark as distinct from a long-drawn howl. Among the many
lines indicating voice which appear in the Dakota pictographs none has
been found identical with this, and therefore it probably has special
significance.

[Illustration: FIG. 1198.]

Fig. 1198.--Bear-that-growls. Red-Cloud’s Census. This figure gives a
marked differentiation. The sound of growling does not appear to come
from the mouth, but from the lower part of the neck or the upper part of
the chest, from which the lines here are drawn to emanate. They are also
confined by a surrounding line, to suggest the occluded nature of the
sound.

[Illustration: FIG. 1199.--Speech. Ojibwa.]

Fig. 1199, from Copway (_b_), represents “speak.”

[Illustration: FIG. 1200.--Talk. Mexican.]

The Mexican pictograph, Fig. 1200, taken from Kingsborough (_n_), is
illustrative of the sign made by the Arikara and Hidatsa for “tell” and
“conversation.” “Tell me” is: Place the flat right hand, palm upward,
about 15 inches in front of the right side of the face, fingers pointing
to the left and front; then draw the hand inward toward and against the
bottom of the chin. For “conversation,” talking between two persons,
both hands are held before the breast, pointing forward, palms up, the
edges being moved several times toward one another. Perhaps, however,
the picture in fact only means the common poetical image of “flying
words.”

[Illustration: FIG. 1201.--Talk. Maya.]

Fig. 1201 is from Landa (_b_) and suggests one of the gestures for
“talk,” and more especially that for “sing,” in which the extended and
separated fingers are passed forward and slightly downward from the
mouth--“many voices.” Although late criticisms of the bishop’s work are
unfavorable to its authenticity, yet even if it were prepared by a Maya,
under his supervision, the latter would probably have given him some
genuine native conceptions, and among them gestures would be likely to
occur.

Gustav Eisen (_a_), in describing Fig. 1202, says:

[Illustration: FIG. 1202.--Talk. Guatemala.]

    The original, from near Santa Lucia, Guatemala, represents a
    sepulchral tablet, on which are seen the portraits of perhaps man
    and wife, their different headdresses, etc., indicating decidedly
    their different sexes. From the mouths of the respective portraits
    extend as usual curved figures with notes or nodes.

DWELLINGS.

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.

[Illustration: FIG. 1203.--Dwellings.]

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.

[Illustration: FIG. 1204.]

Fig. 1204.--Dakotas and Rees meet in camp together and are at peace.
The-Flame’s Winter Count, 1792-’93. The two styles of dwellings, viz,
the tipi of the Dakotas and the earth lodge of the Arikaras, are
depicted.

[Illustration: FIG. 1205.]

Fig. 1205.--The Dakotas camped on the Missouri river, near the Gros
Ventres, and fought with them a long time. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count,
1792-’93. The Dakota tipi and the Gros Ventre lodge are shown in the
figure. The gun shows that war was raging.

[Illustration: FIG. 1206.]

Fig. 1206.--The Dakotas camped near the Rees and fought with them.
Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1795-’96. This figure is a variant of the
one foregoing.

[Illustration: FIG. 1207.]

Fig. 1207.--Some of the Dakotas built a large house and lived
in it during the winter. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1815-’16.
White-Cow-Killer calls it “Made-a-house-winter.” It would seem to be a
larger dwelling than the ordinary tipi, and that wood entered into its
construction. This is made more clear by the figure next following.

[Illustration: FIG. 1208.]

Fig. 1208.--They lived in the same house that they did last winter.
Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1816-’17.

[Illustration: FIG. 1209.]

Fig. 1209.--Adobe houses were built by Maj. J. W. Wham, Indian agent
(afterwards paymaster, U. S. Army), on the Platte river, about 30
miles below Fort Laramie. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1871-’72.
White-Cow-Killer calls it “Major-Wham’s-house-built-on-Platte-river
winter.”

[Illustration: FIG. 1210.]

Fig. 1210.--American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1815-’16. The figure is
intended to represent a white man’s house. Other forms are shown in
Lone-Dog’s Winter Count, Chap. X, sec. 2.

[Illustration: FIG. 1211.--Dwelling. Moki.]

Fig. 1211 shows different representations of Moki houses copied from a
petroglyph at Oakley Springs, Arizona.

Prof. Cyrus Thomas, in A Study of the Manuscript Troano, Contrib. N. A.
Ethn., Vol. V, p. 128, gives the following description of Fig. 1212:

[Illustration: FIG. 1212.--Dwelling. Maya.]

    The side wall in Fig. 1212 appears to be composed of blocks of
    some kind placed one upon another, probably of stone, each bearing
    the _Muluc_ character. The character at the top of the wall with a
    cross in it, somewhat resembling that in the symbol for _Ezanab_,
    is very common in these figures. This probably marks the end of the
    beam which was placed on the wall to support the roof. The curved
    line running from this to the top portion probably represents the
    rafter; the slender thread-like lines (yellow in the original) the
    straw or grass with which the roof was thatched.

    The checkered part may represent a matting of reeds or brushwood
    on which the straw was placed.

[Illustration: FIG. 1213.--House. Egyptian.]

Champollion (_h_) gives the Egyptian characters for house, reproduced in
Fig. 1213.

ECLIPSE OF THE SUN.

[Illustration: FIG. 1214.--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.

[Illustration: FIG. 1215.]

Fig. 1215.--A large roaring star fell. It came from the east and
shot out sparks of fire along its course. Cloud-Shield’s Winter
Count, 1821-’22. Its track and the sparks are shown in the figure.
White-Cow-Killer says “One-star-made-a-great-noise winter.”

This and the three following figures evidently refer to the fall of a
single large meteor in the land of the Dakotas some time in the winter
of 1821-’22. The fact can not be verified by scientific records. There
were not many correspondents of scientific institutions in the upper
Missouri region at the date mentioned.

[Illustration: FIG. 1216.]

Fig. 1216.--Large ball of fire with hissing noise (aerolite).
The-Flame’s Winter Count, 1821-’22.

[Illustration: FIG. 1217.]

Fig. 1217.--Dakota Indians saw an immense meteor passing from southeast
to northwest, which exploded with great noise. The-Swan’s Winter Count,
1821-’22.

[Illustration: FIG. 1218.]

Battiste Good says for the same phenomenon:
“Star-passed-by-with-loud-noise winter.” His device is shown in Fig.
1218, showing the meteor, its pathway, and the clouds from which it came.

The five winter counts next cited all undoubtedly refer to the
magnificent meteoric display of the morning of November 13, 1833, which
was witnessed throughout North America and which was correctly assigned
to the winter corresponding with that of 1833-’34. All of them represent
stars having four points, except The-Swan, who draws a globular object
followed by a linear track.

[Illustration: FIG. 1219.]

Fig. 1219.--It rained stars. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1833-’34.
White-Cow-Killer calls it “Plenty-stars winter.”

[Illustration: FIG. 1220.]

Fig. 1220.--The stars moved around. American-Horse’s Winter Count,
1833-’34. This shows one large four-pointed star as the characterizing
object and many small stars, also four-pointed.

[Illustration: FIG. 1221.]

Fig. 1221.--Many stars fell. The-Flame’s Winter Count, 1833-’34. The
character shows six stars above the concavity of the moon.

[Illustration: FIG. 1222.]

Fig. 1222.--Dakotas witnessed magnificent meteoric showers; much
terrified. The-Swan’s Winter Count, 1833-’34.

[Illustration: FIG. 1223.]

Battiste Good calls it “Storm-of-stars winter,” and gives as the device
a tipi with stars falling around it. This is presented in Fig. 1223. The
tipi is colored yellow in the original and so represented in the figure
according to the heraldic scheme.

[Illustration: FIG. 1224.--Meteors. Mexican.]

Fig. 1224 is taken from Kingsborough, I, Pls. XXIX and XXX. The
description, given in Codex Tell.-Rem., VI, p. 148, et seq., is as
follows: Regarding the left-hand device figure, “In the year of Three
Rabbits, or in 1534, Don Antonio de Mendoça arrived as Viceroy of New
Spain. They say that the star smoked.”

Regarding the lower figure: “In the year of Eleven Houses, or in
1529, Nuño de Guzman set out for Yalisco on his march to subdue
that territory; they pretend that a serpent descended from the sky,
exclaiming that troubles were preparing for the natives since the
Christians were directing their course thither.”

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.

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration: FIG. 1226.--Cross. 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.”

[Illustration: FIG. 1227.--Dragon fly.]

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. 1227_a_, 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 Midē 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'nabō'zho, the mediator between the Ojibwa
and Ki'tshi Ma'nidō, and the malevolent Bear spirit, which contest
occurred when Mi'nabō'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'nabō'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'nabō'zho the cross, which is now erected whenever a
third degree Midē 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
mēgis, 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 midē' structure is also
shown, within which are a number of crosses, each of which designates
the spirit of a deceased midē priest.

Upon several birch-bark scrolls received from Ojibwa midē 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.

[Illustration: FIG. 1228.--Crosses. Eskimo.]

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.

[Illustration: FIG. 1229.--Cross. Tulare valley, California.]

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_.

[Illustration: FIG. 1230.--Crosses. Owens valley, California]

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.”

Among the Kiatéxamut, an Innuit tribe, a cross placed on the head, as
in Fig. 1231, signifies a Shaman’s evil spirit or demon. This is an
imaginary being under control of the Shaman to execute the wishes of the
latter.

[Illustration: FIG. 1231.--Cross. Innuit.]

Many of the mescal eaters at the Kaiowa mescal ceremony wear the
ordinary Roman Catholic crucifixes, which they adopt as sacred emblems
of the rite, the cross representing the cross of scented leaves upon
which the consecrated mescal rests during the ceremony, while the human
figure is the mescal goddess.

Concerning Fig. 1232, Keam, in his MS., says:

[Illustration: FIG. 1232.--Crosses. Moki.]

    The Maltese cross is the emblem of a virgin; still so recognized
    by the Moki. It is a conventional development of a more common
    emblem of maidenhood, the form in which the maidens wear their hair
    arranged as a disk of 3 or 4 inches in diameter upon each side of
    the head. This discoidal arrangement of their hair is typical of the
    emblem of fructification worn by the virgin in the Muingwa festival,
    as exhibited in the head-dress illustration _a_. Sometimes the hair,
    instead of being worn in the complete discoid form, is dressed from
    two curving twigs and presents the form of two semicircles upon each
    side of the head. The partition of these is sometimes horizontal
    and sometimes vertical. A combination of both of these styles, _b_,
    presents the form from which the Maltese cross was conventionalized.
    The brim decorations are of ornamental locks of hair which a maiden
    trains to grow upon the sides of the forehead.

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.

But, although this device is used with a great variety of meanings,
when it is employed ceremonially or in elaborate pictographs by the
Indians both of North and South America, it represents the four winds.
The view long ago suggested that such was the significance of the many
Mexican crosses, is sustained by Prof. Cyrus Thomas, in his Notes on
Maya and Mexican MSS., Second Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn., p. 61, where strong
confirmatory evidence is produced by the arms of the crosses having the
appearance of conventionalized wings, similar to some representations
of the thunder-bird by more northern tribes. Yet the same author, in
his paper on the Study of the MS. Troano, Contrib. N. A. Ethn., V,
144, gives Fig. 1233 as the symbol for wood, thus further showing the
manifold concepts attached to the general form.

[Illustration: FIG. 1233.--Crosses. Maya.]

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.

[Illustration: FIG. 1234.--Crosses. Nicaragua.]

Carl Bovallius (_a_) gives an illustration, copied here as Fig. 1234, of
pictographs in the island of Ceiba, Nicaragua.

Zamacois (_a_) says that “the cross figured in the religion of various
tribes of the peninsula of Yucatan and that it represented the god of
rain.”

[Illustration: FIG. 1235.--Cross. Guatemala.]

Dr. S. Habel (_f_), describing Fig. 1235, says:

    On it is a person in a reclining position, with a single band
    tied around his forehead, forming a knot with two pendent tassels.
    From his temple rises an ornament resembling the wing of a bird.
    The emaciated face, as well as the recumbent position of the body,
    indicates a state of sickness. The hair is interwoven behind with
    many ribbons forming loops, which are bound together by a clasp,
    and then spread out in the shape of a fan. The ear is ornamented
    with a circular disk, to the center of which are attached a plume
    and a twisted ornament similar to a queue. On the breast is a kind
    of brooch, which is hollow like a shell, and in which are imbedded
    seven pearls. Around the waist are three rows of a twisted fabric,
    which is knotted in front in a bow, the ends descending between
    the thighs. Another band, of a different texture, stretches out
    horizontally from the region of the above-mentioned knot. Attached
    to this girdle is another fabric, of a scaly texture, which
    surrounds the thighs. The right leg, below the knee, is encircled
    with a ribbon and a rosette. This would seem to be the undress
    substitute for the band and pendant. In front of the recumbent
    person stands the representation of a skeleton, quite well executed.
    Other points noticeable about this skeleton are the hair on the head
    and the fact that its hands are fleshy and the fingers and toes have
    nails. Like all representations by these sculptures, the skeleton is
    also embellished with ornaments.

    From the back of the head emanate two objects similar to horns,
    which, if they were not differently ribbed, might represent flames.
    The ear is ornamented with a circular disk, with a pendant from its
    center. A double-ruffled collar surrounds the neck and a serpent
    encircles the loins. Both the shoulders and arms are enveloped in
    flames. From the mouth emanates a bent staff, touching the first of
    a row of ten circles. Beneath the second and third circles are five
    bars, three of which are horizontal. The lowest one is the longest,
    while the two upper ones are shorter and of different lengths. On
    the uppermost of these bars rest two others, crossing each other
    obliquely, and touching with their upper ends two of the aforesaid
    circles. From the last of these circles descend serpentine lines,
    which touch the ground behind the recumbent person.

Gustav Eisen, op. cit., describing Fig. 1236, says:

    From near Santa Lucia, Guatemala, is a stone tablet, most likely
    a sepulchral tablet, having in its center a forced dead head, with
    outstretched tongue. Above the same are seen two crossed bars,
    perhaps meant to represent two crossed bones.

[Illustration: FIG. 1236.--Cross. Guatemala.]

W. F. Wakeman (_a_) makes the following remarks:

    A cross was used by the people of Erin as a symbol of some
    significance at a period long antecedent to the mission of St.
    Patrick or the introduction of Christianity to this island. It is
    found, not unfrequently, amongst the scribings picked or carved
    upon rock surfaces and associated with a class of archaic designs,
    to the meaning of which we possess no key. * * * It may be seen on
    prehistoric monuments in America, on objects of pottery found by Dr.
    Schliemann at Hissarlik and at Mycenæ, and, in more than one form,
    on pagan Roman altars still preserved in Germany and Britain. With
    the Chinese it was for untold ages a symbol of the earth. The Rev.
    Samuel Beal, B. A., rector of Flastone, North Tyrone, professor of
    Chinese in University College, London, writes: “Now, the earliest
    symbol of the earth was a plain cross, denoting the four cardinal
    points; hence we have the word chaturanta, i. e., the four sides,
    both in Pâli and Sanscrit, for the earth; and on the Nestorian
    tablet, found at Siganfu some years ago, the mode of saying “God
    created the earth” is simply this: “God created the +.””

A writer in the Edinburgh Review in an article entitled “The
Pre-Christian Cross,” January, 1870, p. 254, remarks: “The Buddhists
and Brahmins who together constitute nearly half the population of the
world, tell us that the decussated figure of the cross, whether in a
simple or complex form, symbolizes the traditional happy abode of their
primeval ancestors.”

[Illustration: FIG. 1237.--Crosses. Sword-maker’s marks.]

Rudolf Cronau (_c_), describing Fig. 1237, says that in the Berlin
Zeughause are swords of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, bearing
the marks shown in _a_, _b_, _c_, and _d_, while those having the marks
_e_ and _f_ are from swords in the Historical Museum at Dresden.

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:

    One of the most frequent forms of the cross is called the gamma
    cross, because its four arms are bent at a right angle so as to form
    a figure like that of four Greek gammas turned in the same direction
    and joined at the base. We meet it among all the peoples of the Old
    World, from Japan to Iceland, and it is found in the two Americas.
    There is nothing to prevent us from supposing that in the instance
    it was spontaneously conceived everywhere, like the equilateral
    crosses, circles, triangles, chevrons, and other geometrical
    ornaments so frequent in primitive decoration. But we see it, at
    least among the peoples of the Old Continent, invariably passing for
    talisman, appearing in the funeral scenes or on the tombstones of
    Greece, Scandinavia, Numidia, and Thibet, and adorning the breasts
    of divine personages--of Apollo and Buddha--without forgetting
    certain representations of the Good Shepherd in the Catacombs.

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:

[Illustration: FIG. 1238.--Cross. Golasecca.]

    There can no longer be any doubt as to the use of the cross as a
    religious symbol long before the advent of Christianity. The worship
    of the cross, extensive throughout Gaul before the conquest, already
    existed during the bronze age, more than a thousand years before
    Christ.

    It is especially in the sepulchres of Golasecca that this
    worship is revealed in the most complete manner, and there, strange
    to say, has been found a vessel bearing the ancient monogram of
    Christ, designed perhaps 1,000 years before the coming of Jesus
    Christ. Is the isolated presence of this monogram of Christ in the
    midst of numerous crosses, an entirely accidental coincidence?

    Another curious fact, very interesting to prove, is that this
    great development of the worship of the cross before the coming
    of Christ seems to coincide with the absence of idols and indeed
    of any representation of living objects. Whenever such objects
    appear, it may be said that the crosses become more rare and finally
    disappear altogether. The cross has then been, in remote antiquity,
    long before Christ, the sacred emblem of a religious sect which
    repudiated idolatry.

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:

[Illustration: BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY TENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. LI

THRUSTON TABLET, TENNESSEE.]

    There has been discovered in Sumner county, Tennessee, near the
    stone graves and mounds of Castalian springs, a valuable pictograph,
    the ancient engraved stone which we have taken the liberty to
    entitle a Group of Tennessee Mound Builders.

    This engraved stone, the property of the Tennessee Historical
    Society, is a flat, irregular slab of hard limestone, about 19
    inches long and 15 inches wide. It bears every evidence of very
    great age. * * * The stone was found on Rocky creek, in Sumner
    county, and was presented, with other relics, to the Tennessee
    Historical Society about twelve years ago. * * *

    It is evidently an ideograph of significance, graven with a
    steady and skillful hand, for a specific purpose, and probably
    records or commemorates some important treaty or public or tribal
    event. * * * Indian chiefs fully equipped with the insignia of
    office, are arrayed in fine apparel. Two leading characters
    are vigorously shaking hands in a confirmatory way. The banner
    or shield, ornamented with the double serpent emblem and other
    symbols, is, doubtless, an important feature of the occasion. Among
    the historic Indians, no treaty was made without the presence or
    presentation of the belt of wampum. This, the well-dressed female of
    the group appears to grasp in her hand, perhaps as a pledge of the
    contract. The dressing of the hair, the remarkable scalloped skirts,
    the implements used, the waistbands, the wristlets, the garters, the
    Indian leggings and moccasins, the necklace and breastplates, the
    two banners, the serpent emblem, the tattoo stripes, the ancient
    pipe, all invest this pictograph with unusual interest. * * * The
    double serpent emblem or ornament upon the banner may have been
    the badge or totem of the tribe, clan, or family that occupied
    the extensive earthworks at Castalian springs in Sumner county,
    near where the stone was found. The serpent was a favorite emblem
    or totem of the Stone Grave race of Tennessee, and is one of the
    common devices engraved on the shell gorgets taken from the ancient
    cemeteries. * * * The circles or sun symbol ornaments on the banners
    and dresses are the figures most frequently graven on the shell
    gorgets found near Nashville.

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 Tōkyō 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 Tōkyō. 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 3-1/2 feet,
and diameter somewhat more than 1 foot, was dug up in Hanina in the year
A. D. 821.

[Illustration: BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY TENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. LII

PICTURES ON DŌTAKU, JAPAN.]

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.

[Illustration: FIG. 1239.]

Fig. 1239.--Eagle-Elk. Red-Cloud’s Census. Here are the branching
antlers of the elk and the tail of the eagle.

[Illustration: FIG. 1240.]

Fig. 1240.--Eagle-Horse. Red-Cloud’s Census. Eagle feathers replace the
horse’s mane.

[Illustration: FIG. 1241.]

Fig. 1241.--Eagle-Horse. Red-Cloud’s Census. This is a variant of the
preceding, the change being shown in the tail.

[Illustration: FIG. 1242.]

Fig. 1242.--Eagle-Swallow. Red-Cloud’s Census. The characteristics of
the two birds are obvious.

[Illustration: FIG. 1243.]

Fig. 1243.--Eagle-Bear. Red-Cloud’s Census.

[Illustration: FIG. 1244.]

Fig. 1244.--Weasel-Bear. Red-Cloud’s Census. With only hasty view the
really characteristic form of the weasel might be mistaken for a rudely
drawn gun.

[Illustration: FIG. 1245.]

Fig. 1245.--Horned-Horse. Red-Cloud’s Census.

[Illustration: FIG. 1246.]

Fig. 1246.--Bull-Lance. Red-Cloud’s Census. The object attached to the
bull’s muzzle is the common ornamented lance of the Plains tribes.

[Illustration: FIG. 1247.]

Fig. 1247.--Shield-Bear. Red-Cloud’s Census. The ornamented shield is
borne on the bear’s body.

[Illustration: FIG. 1248.]

Fig. 1248.--Ring-Owl. Red-Cloud’s Census.

[Illustration: FIG. 1249.]

Fig. 1249.--Sunka-wanbli, Dog-Eagle; from the Oglala Roster. The
mingling of the attributes of the dog and the eagle with special
reference to swiftness may be suggested.

[Illustration: FIG. 1250.]

Fig. 1250.--Zintkala-wicasa, Bird-Man; also from the Oglala Roster. An
indication of a bird gens is suggested without information, but perhaps
it is only a representation of the usual vision required from and
therefore obtained by boys before reaching manhood.

[Illustration: FIG. 1251.]

Fig. 1251.--Sunkakan-heton, Horse-with-horns; also from the Oglala
Roster. Perhaps this is not intended as a composite animal, but as
a horse possessing special and mystic power, as is indicated by the
gesture sign for wakan, and, as elsewhere in pictographs, by lines
extending from each side of the head. The same sub-chief appears in
Red-Cloud’s Census with the name translated into English as Horned-Horse.

This union of the human figure with that of other animals is of interest
in comparison with the well-known forms of similar character in the art
of Egypt and Assyria.

[Illustration: FIG. 1252.--Wolf-man. Haida.]

The feet of the accompanying Fig. 1252, reproduced from Bastian (_b_)
on the Northwest Coast of America, can not be seen, being hidden in
the head of the figure beneath. It is squatting, with its hands on its
knees, and has a wolf’s head. Arms, legs, mouth, jaws, nostrils, and
ear-holes are scarlet; eyebrows, irises, and edges of the ears black.

[Illustration: FIG. 1253.--Panther-man. Haida.]

The drawing Fig. 1253 was made by Mr. J. G. Swan while on a visit to
the Prince of Wales archipelago, where he found two carved figures with
panthers’ heads, and claws upon the fore feet, and human feet attached
to the hind legs. These mythical animals were placed upon either side of
a corpse which was lying in state, awaiting burial.

The Egyptians represented the evil Typhon by the hippopotamus, the most
fierce and savage of their animals; the hawk was the symbol for power,
and the serpent that for life. Plutarch, in Isis and Osiris, 50, says
that in Hermopolis these symbols were united, a hawk fighting with a
serpent being placed on the hippopotamus, thus accentuating the idea of
the destroyer. The Greeks sometimes substituted the eagle for the hawk,
and pictured it killing a hare, the most prolific of quadrupeds, or
fighting a serpent, the same attribute of destruction being portrayed.
But the eagle when alone meant simply power, as did the hawk in Egypt.
The Scandinavians posited the eagle on the head of their god Thor and
the bull on his breast to express a similar union of attributes.

SECTION 4.

ARTISTIC SKILL AND METHODS.

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

    The great ability of the Eskimo and their southern neighbors,
    the natives of northwest America (Koliushes, Thlinkits, etc.), in
    representative art is well known and needs no further insisting.
    Among all primitive peoples they have made the greatest advances in
    the conventionalization of figures, which indicates long practice
    in painting. The totem figures, carved both in stone and in wood
    and tattooed on the body, show severe conventionalization and have
    perfect heraldic value. Ismailof, one of the earliest Russian
    explorers that came in contact with the Koliushes, relates that
    European paintings and drawings did not strike them with the least
    awe. When a chief was shown portraits of the Russian imperial family
    he manifested no astonishment. That chief was accompanied by his
    painter, who examined everything very closely, in order to paint
    it afterward. He was able in particular “to paint all manner of
    objects on wooden tablets and other material (leather),” using blue
    iron earth, iron ocher, colored clays, and other mineral colors.
    Among these peoples, too, painting is employed as a substitute for
    writing, in order to record memorable things.

    Far below the artistic achievements of the Eskimo and of the
    natives of the American northwest (Haida, Thlinkit, etc.) are those
    of the redskins east of the Rocky mountains. They are, however,
    very productive in figure drawing; nay, that art has advanced to a
    kind of picture writing, which, it is true, is not distinguished by
    artistic finish. That “fling” which, depending on good observation
    of nature, appears in the drawings of Australians, Bushmen, etc.,
    and the good characterization of the figures, are lacking among
    the Indians; and though, as is frequently the case, their animals
    are better represented than the men, yet they can not compare
    with the animal figures of the Eskimo or Bushmen. Dr. Capitan,
    who had drawings made by the Omahas shown in 1883 in the Jardin
    d’acclimatation of Paris, says concerning them: “It is singular to
    note that by the side of very rudimentary representations of human
    figures the pictures of horses are drawn with a certain degree of
    correctness. If the Indians take pains in anything it is in the
    painting of their buffalo skins, which are often worn as mantles.
    On red-brown ground are seen black figures, especially of animals;
    on others, on white ground, the heroic deeds and life events of
    distinguished Indians, represented in black or in other colors.
    You see the wounded enemies, the loss of blood, the killed and the
    captives, stolen horses, all executed in the peculiar manner of an
    art of painting still in the stage of infancy, with earth colors
    black, red, green, and yellow. Almost all the Missouri tribes
    practice painting on buffalo skins; the most skillful are the
    Pawnees, Mandans, Minitaris, and Crows. Among the Mandans, Wied met
    individuals who possessed “a very decided talent” for drawing.”

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.

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration: FIG. 1255.--Hand, Kejimkoojik.]

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 frequency with which partial representations of the eye are
    met with appeared to me so striking that I requested Mr. Jacobson
    to ask the Bella Coola Indians whether they had any special idea
    in employing the eye so frequently. To my great surprise the
    person addressed pointed to the palmar surface of his finger tips
    and to the fine lineaments which the skin there presents; in his
    opinion a rounded or longitudinal field, such as appears between
    the converging or parallel lines, also means an eye, and the reason
    of this is that originally each part of the body terminated in an
    organ of sense, particularly an eye, and was only afterward made to
    retrovert into such rudimentary conditions.

[Illustration: BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY TENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. LIII

GERMAN KNIGHTS AND APACHE WARRIORS.]

The lower character in Pl. LIII is copied from Rudolph Cronau (_c_)
Geschichte der Solinger Klingenindustrie, where it is presented as an
illustration of the knights of the thirteenth century, after a sketch in
a MS. of the year 1220, in the library of the University of Leipsig.

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_):

    When Catlin was drawing the profile of a chief named Matochiga,
    the Indians around him seemed greatly moved, and asked why he did
    not draw the other half of the chief’s face. “Matochiga was never
    ashamed to look a white man square in the face.” Matochiga had not
    till then seemed offended at the matter, but one of the Indians said
    to him sportively, “The Yankee knows that you are only half a man,
    and he has only drawn half of your face because the other half is
    not worth anything.”

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.

[Illustration: FIG. 1256.--Engravings on bamboo, New Caledonia.]

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

    The advances made by the Kanakas of New Caledonia in drawing are
    illustrated by the bamboo staves covered with engraved drawings,
    which they carry about as objects of fashion, somewhat as we do
    our walking sticks, and a number of which are preserved in the
    ethnographic museum of Paris (Trocadero). They have been described
    by E. T. Hamy. In these finely incised drawings ornaments of the
    simplest kind (straight lines and zigzag models) are combined
    with figures and tree groups. The artistic execution is a rather
    primitive one, yet the figures by no means lack character and
    vividness. There are seen on the bamboo the pointed-roofed huts of
    the chieftains, turtles, fowl, lizards, and between them scenes from
    the life of the Kanakas. A man beats his wife, men discharge their
    bows, others stand idle in rank and file, adorned with the cylindric
    straw hat described by Cook, which at this day has almost entirely
    disappeared.

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.

CHAPTER XXI.

MEANS OF INTERPRETATION.

The power of determining the authorship of pictographs made on materials
other than rocks, by means of their general style and type, can be
estimated by a comparison of those of the Abnaki, Ojibwa, Dakota, Haida,
Innuit, Shoshoni, Moki, etc., presented in various parts of this paper.

[Illustration: FIG. 1257.--Typical character. Guiana.]

Everard F. im Thurn (_k_), in reference to Fig. 1257, remarks:

    Wherever a peculiar, complex, and not very obvious figure
    occurs in many examples it is legitimate to assume that this had
    some ulterior object and meaning. Now this figure, occurring in the
    shallow engravings of Guiana, is of such kind. It is not a figure
    which an Indian would be likely to invent in an idle moment even
    once, for such a man very seldom, probably never, except in these
    particular figures, has been known to draw straight lines. Moreover,
    even if it were a figure that one Indian might idly invent, it is
    certainly highly improbable that this would be copied by many other
    Indians in various places. And, lastly, a figure strikingly like
    the one in question, if, indeed, it is not identical, occurs in
    certain Mexican picture writings. For example, in the Mexican MSS.
    [reproduced in Kingsborough, _op. cit._, I, from Sir Thomas Bodley’s
    MSS., pp. 22, 23, and from the Selden MSS., also in the Bodleian,
    p. 3] several figures occur so like that of the shallow engravings
    of Guiana that there can be but little doubt of their connection.
    The recurrence of this peculiar figure in these writings is surely
    sufficient evidence of the fact that they are not without intention.
    If it were possible to obtain a clue to the meaning of the Mexican
    figures it might serve as a key to decipher the hieroglyphic
    writings of Guiana.

With regard to the study of the individual characters themselves to
identify the delineators of pictographs, the various considerations of
fauna, religion, customs, tribal signs, indeed most of the headings of
this paper, will be applicable.

It is convenient to divide this chapter into: 1. Marked characters of
known significance. 2. Distinctive costumes, weapons, and ornaments. 3.
Ambiguous characters, with ascertained meaning.

SECTION 1.

MARKED CHARACTERS OF KNOWN SIGNIFICANCE.

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

The present writer has been engaged, therefore, for a considerable time
in collating a large number of characters in a card-catalogue arranged
primarily by similarity in forms, and in attaching to each character
any significance ascertained or suggested. As before explained, the
interpretation upon which reliance is mainly based is that which has
been made known by direct information from Indians who themselves were
actually makers of pictographs at the time of giving the interpretation.
Apart from the comparisons obtained by this collation, the only mode of
ascertaining the meaning of the characters, in other words, the only key
yet discovered, is in the study of the gesture sign included in many of
them.

A spiral line frequently seen in petroglyphs is explained by the Dakota
to be a snail shell, and, furthermore, this device is seen in Pl. XX,
and fully described in that connection as used in the recording and
computation of time.

The limits of this paper do not allow of presenting a complete list of
the characters in the pictographs which have become known. But some of
the characters in the petroglyphs, Figs. 1258, 1259, and 1260, which are
not discussed under various headings, supra, should be explained. The
following is a selection of those which were interpreted to Mr. Gilbert.

[Illustration: FIG. 1258.--Moki devices.]

The left hand device of Fig. 1258 is an inclosure, or pen, in which
ceremonial dances are performed. That on the right is a headdress used
in ceremonial dances.

Compare the drawing from Fairy Rocks, N. S., Fig. 549.

[Illustration: FIG. 1259.--Frames and arrows. Moki.]

Fig. 1259 gives sketches of the frames or sticks used in carrying wood
on the back; also shows different forms of arrows.

[Illustration: FIG. 1260.--Blossoms. Moki.]

Fig. 1260 represents the blossoms of melons, squashes.

The appearance of objects showing the influence of European civilization
and christianization should always be carefully noted. An instance
where an object of that character is found among a multitude of others
not liable to such suspicion is in the heart surmounted by a cross,
in the upper line of Fig. 437. This suggests missionary teaching and
corresponding date.

Maximilian of Wied (_g_) says:

    Another mode of painting their robes by the Dakotas is to
    represent the number of valuable presents they have made. By these
    presents, which are often of great value, they acquire reputation
    and respect among their countrymen. On such robes we observed long
    red figures with a black circle at the termination placed close to
    each other in transverse rows; they represent whips, indicating the
    number of horses given, because the whip belonging to the horse is
    always bestowed with the animal. Red or dark-blue transverse figures
    indicate cloth or blankets given; parallel transverse stripes
    represent firearms, the outlines of which are pretty correctly drawn.

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

The interpretation by means of gesture-signs has already been discussed,
Chap. XVIII, Sec. 4.

Capt. Carver (_b_) describes how an Ojibwa drew the emblem of his own
tribe as a deer, a Sioux as a man dressed in skins, an Englishman as a
human figure with a hat on his head, and a Frenchman as a man with a
handkerchief tied around his head.

In this connection is the quotation from the Historical Collections of
Louisiana, Part III, 1851, p. 124, describing a pictograph, as follows:
“There were two figures of men without heads, and some entire. The first
denoted the dead and the second the prisoners. One of my conductors told
me on this occasion that when there are any French among either, they
set their arms akimbo, or their hands upon their hips, to distinguish
them from the savages, whom they represent with their arms hanging down.
This distinction is not purely arbitrary; it proceeds from these people
having observed that the French often put themselves in this posture,
which is not used among them.”

It is also said suggestively, by C. H. Read (_f_) in Jour. of the
Anthrop. Inst. of Gr. Br. and I., that in the carvings of the West
African negroes, the typical white man is constantly figured with a
brandy bottle in one hand and a large glass in the other.

[Illustration: FIG. 1261.--Moki characters. The following is the
explanation:

    _a._ A beaver.
    _b._ A bear.
    _c._ A mountain sheep (_Ovis montana_).
    _d._ Three wolf heads.
    _e._ Three jackass rabbits.
    _f._ Cottontail rabbit.
    _g._ Bear tracks.
    _h._ An eagle.
    _i._ Eagle tails.
    _j._ A turkey tail.
    _k._ Horned toads (_Phryosoma_ sp. ?).
    _l._ Lizards.
    _m._ A butterfly.
    _n._ Snakes.
    _o._ A rattlesnake.
    _p._ Deer track.
    _q._ Three bird tracks.
    _r._ Bitterns (wading birds).
]

Instructive particulars regarding pictographs may be discovered in the
delineation of the fauna in reference to its present or former habitat
in the region where the representation of it is found.

As an example of the number and kind of animals pictured as well as of
their mode of representation, the foregoing Fig. 1261, comprising many
of the Moki inscriptions at Oakley Springs, Arizona, is presented by
Mr. G. K. Gilbert. These were selected by him from a large number of
etchings for the purpose of obtaining the explanation, and they were
explained to him by Tubi, an Oraibi chief living at Oraibi, one of the
Moki villages.

[Illustration: FIG. 1262.--Mantis. Kejimkoojik.]

The large object in Fig. 1262, scratched on the Kejimkoojik rocks, Nova
Scotia, is probably intended for a mantis or “rear-horse,” but strongly
reminds the observer of the monkey forms in the petroglyphs of Central
and South America.

[Illustration: FIG. 1263.--Animal forms. Sonora.]

Ten Kate (_b_) shows in Fig. 1263 those animal forms which were not
obliterated from the face of the rock of El-Sauce, Sonora; they were
very nearly in the order in which they are represented. The fish at the
upper right hand is 20 centimeters long.

SECTION 2.

DISTINCTIVE COSTUMES, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS.

On examining the relics of ancient peoples or their modern
representatives, the instruments and arms accompanying them and the
clothing upon them mark the social status of the individual. In the
social life of past generations, and still to-day, certain garments
with their adjuncts indicate certain functions. The lawyer, the
mechanic, the priest, and the soldier are easily recognizable. These
garments do not only give general indications, but minute details, so in
looking upon a certain soldier it is known what country he serves, how
many men are under his orders, and how many chiefs are above him. It is
known if he marches on horseback or afoot, if he handles the rifle or
the saber, works the cannon, designs fortifications, or builds bridges.
Also, by looking on his decorated breast, it is shown if he has made
campaigns and participated in historic battles, and whether or not he
has gained distinction. This is told by the color, cut, and ornaments of
his clothes and by the weapon he bears. Some details are also furnished
by the cut of the hair, and even the style of foot-gear. The above
remarks apply to the highest civilization, but all kinds of personal
and class designations by means of distinctive costumes, weapons, and
adornments were and still are most apparent and important among the less
cultured peoples.

The American Indians seldom clothed themselves, except in very cold
weather, save for purposes of ornament. They habitually wore no other
garment than the breech-cloth, but in their ceremonies and social
dances they bedecked themselves with full and elaborate costumes, often
regulated with special punctilio for the occasion. The boreal tribes,
such as the Alaskan, Athapascan, and Chippewayan, who were obliged to
protect themselves for a large part of the year by furs and skins,
developed characteristic forms of dress which in pictography take the
place occupied by painting and tattooing among tribes where the person
was more habitually exposed. Among the southern tribes there was need of
protection against the rays of the sun, as in Mexico, where cotton and
other fibers were used. In general some of the forms of wearing apparel,
if only varieties in the make of moccasins or sandals, designated the
tribe of the wearers, and therefore often became adopted as pictorial
signs. Ceremonial clothing is often elaborately decorated with beads,
porcupine quills, claws and teeth of animals, shells, and feathers. Many
of these garments are further ornamented with paintings of a totemic
or mythologic character, or bear the insignia of the wearer’s rank and
social status. Metal ornaments, such as armlets, bracelets, anklets,
earrings and bells, were also worn, the material and quantity being in
accordance with the wearer’s ability and pecuniary condition. Upon both
social and ceremonial occasions the headgear displayed eagle feathers
and the plumes of other species of birds, and tufts of hair dyed in red
or other colors. Necklaces were made of claws, shells, deer and antelope
hoofs, the teeth of various animals, snake-skins, and even human
fingers.

Immediately following are some of the Dakota designations in the
particulars mentioned:

[Illustration: FIG. 1264.]

Fig. 1264.--Shield. Red Cloud’s Census. The shield here is without
device, though frequently one is painted on the war shields. Such
painting may be the pictograph of the gens or of the personal
designation, or may show the marks of rank.

[Illustration: FIG. 1265.]

Fig. 1265.--Wahacanka, Shield. The Oglala Roster. The marks or bearings
on the shield probably are personal and similar to those commonly called
heraldic, but in this drawing are too minute for accurate blazonry.

[Illustration: FIG. 1266.]

Fig. 1266.--Black-Shield “says his prayers” (in the interpreter’s
phrase; that is, he performed the rites elsewhere explained); and takes
the war-path to avenge the death of two of his sons who had been killed
by the Crows. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1859-’60.

[Illustration: FIG. 1267.]

Fig. 1267.--Eagle-Feather. Red-Cloud’s Census. This is probably the same
name as translated Lone-Feather in the following figure, in which the
feather also comes from an eagle’s tail:

[Illustration: FIG. 1268.]

Fig. 1268.--Lone-Feather said his prayers and took the warpath to avenge
the death of some relatives. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1842-’43.

[Illustration: FIG. 1269.]

Fig. 1269.--Feathers. Red-Cloud’s Census. This figure and the next refer
to some special ornamentation.

[Illustration: FIG. 1270.]

Fig. 1270.--Feathers. Red-Cloud’s Census.

[Illustration: FIG. 1271.]

Fig. 1271.--Bone-Necklace. Red-Cloud’s Census. This figure and the three
following show special kinds of neck ornaments.

[Illustration: FIG. 1272.]

Fig. 1272--Beads. Red-Cloud’s Census.

[Illustration: FIG. 1273.]

Fig. 1273.--Stone-Necklace. Red-Cloud’s Census.

[Illustration: FIG. 1274.]

Fig. 1274.--Feather-Necklace. Red-Cloud’s Census.

[Illustration: FIG. 1275.]

Fig. 1275.--Wolf-Robe was killed by the Pawnees. American-Horse’s Winter
Count, 1850-’51.

He is killed and scalped while wearing a robe of wolf-skin.

[Illustration: FIG. 1276.]

Fig. 1276.--Wears-the-Bonnet. Red-Cloud’s Census. This is the ornamented
war bonnet of the Dakotas.

[Illustration: FIG. 1277.]

Fig. 1277.--Garter. Red-Cloud’s Census.

[Illustration: FIG. 1278.]

Fig. 1278.--Wicanapsu-owin, Wears-human-fingers as earrings. The Oglala
Roster.

The place for the fingers to be worn is indicated by the line
terminating in a loop.

The Indian accumulated no wealth except in things useful during his
life. His ornaments were made from shells which in their natural shape
are innumerable; from the skins of animals which require only skill
to take and dress them; and from stone and copper, demanding only
strength to procure and transport them. The value of an Indian ornament
is in the skill, care and patience required in making it. Thus the
wampum-bead became of intrinsic value, similar in that to gold and
silver in civilization; the stone carefully wrought into the fashion of
a pipe became the emblem of authority and the instrument of worship;
and copper, slowly and toilfully delved and fashioned with the rudest
of tools and appliances, became almost a fetich of superstition. So
likewise the quill of the porcupine, worked into a design in embroidery
with the most exquisite care, was an ornament fit for warriors and
chiefs. But on the cradle or basket-nest for the expected or new-born
child, upon the gown or woman’s dress of the favorite daughter, and upon
the moccasins and trappings for the growing son, hand and head and heart
were employed for months and even years.

The Dakotan bride, swayed by the yearning of expectant maternity,
perhaps also by ambition to excel in the sole permitted mode of its
display, adorned her lodge with ornamented cradles, each new one
becoming in design more beautiful and intricate than the last, until her
yearning was answered, when the cradles not needed were exchanged for
horses and ornaments, which became the endowment of the new-born child.

Some note should be made of the sense of correspondence and contrast
of colors which the Dakota, at least, exhibits; the rules which he
originates and observes forming that which is called artistic taste.
The Indian’s use of colors corresponds more nearly than that of most
barbarians with that common in high civilization, except that he
perceives so little distinction between blue and green that but one name
generally suffices for both colors. It is remarkable that among the
wilder and plains tribes of Dakotas dead colors in beads are preferred
and arranged with good effect, and that among these, specially, the use
of neutral tints is common. Probably both of these results were produced
from the old and exclusive employment of clays for pigments--clays of
almost all colors and shades being found in the country over which the
Dakotas roamed.

The peculiarities of dress or undress would seem to have first struck
the people of the eastern hemisphere as well adapted to pictorial
representation. Singularly enough to modern ideas, the braccæ or
trousers were to the Romans the symbol of barbarism, whereas now the
absence of the garments, called even “indispensable,” has the same
significance. Maj. C. R. Conder (_d_) gives this good lesson literally
“a propos de bottes:”

    A curious peculiarity of dress also serves to indicate the
    racial connection. In Cappadocia and in Anatolia the monuments
    represent figures with a boot or shoe curled up in front. An
    Assyrian representation of an Armenian merchant shows the same
    boot. Sir C. Wilson first compared it with the boot now worn by the
    peasantry of Asia Minor. Perrot compares it with the cavalry boot
    worn in Syria and with what we call a Turkish slipper. The Etruscans
    wore a similar shoe called calceus repandus by the Romans. On the
    monuments at Karnak the Hittites are represented wearing the same
    shoe, and although it is not of necessity a mark of race, it is
    still curious that this curly-toed boot was common to the various
    Turanian peoples of Syria, Asia Minor, Armenia, and Italy.

[Illustration: FIG. 1279. Weapons.]

Schoolcraft (_t_) gives the characters on the left hand of Fig. 1279 as
two Ojibwa war clubs, and the right-hand character in the same figure is
represented in a Wyoming petroglyph as a bow.

Many other weapons distinctive to their draughtsmen are shown in this
paper.

[Illustration: FIG. 1280. Australian wommeras and clubs.]

It may be well to insert here Fig. 1280, showing the wommeras and clubs
of the Australians, taken from Curr (_d_), not only on account of their
forms but of the pictorial designs on some of them, which should be
compared with those of the Moki and other Indian tribes.

A large number of pictographic figures distinguishing bodies of Indians
by different mode of head dress have already been given. Some additional
detail may be added about the Absaroka who have in this regard been
imitated by the Hidatsa and Arikara.

They wear horse hair taken from the tail, attached to the back of their
heads and allowed to hang down their backs. It is arranged in eight or
ten strands, each about as thick as a finger and laid parallel with
spaces between them of the width of a single strand. Pine gum is then
mixed with red ocher or vermilion and by means of other hair, or fibers
of any kind laid crosswise, the strands are secured and around each
intersection of hair a ball of gum is plastered to hold it in place,
secured to the real growth of hair on the back of the head. About four
inches further down a similar row of gum balls and cross strings is
placed, and so on down to the end. The Indians frequently incorporate
the false hair with their own so as to lengthen the latter without any
marked evidence of the deception. Nevertheless the transverse fastenings
with their gum attachments are present. In picture-writing this is shown
upon the figure of a man by parallel lines drawn downward from the back
of the head, intersected by cross lines, the whole appearing like small
squares or a piece of net. See Figs. 484 and 485, supra.

A quaint account of social designation by the arrangement of the hair
among the Northeastern Algonquins is recorded in the Jesuit Relations of
1639, pp. 44-5:

    When a girl or woman favors some one who seeks her, she cuts the
    hair in the fashion adopted by the maidens of France, hanging over
    the forehead, which is an ugly style as well in this country as in
    France; St. Paul forbidding women to show their hair. The women here
    wear their hair in bunches at the back of the head, in the form of a
    truss, which they decorate with beads when they have them. If, after
    marrying some one, a woman leaves him without cause, or if, being
    promised and having accepted some present, she fails to keep her
    word, the presumptive husband sometimes cuts her hair, which renders
    her very despicable and prevents her from getting another spouse.

There is a differentiation of this usage among the Pueblos generally,
who, when accurate and particular in delineation, designate the women of
that tribe by a huge coil of hair over either ear. This custom prevails
also among the Coyotèro Apaches, the women wearing the hair in a coil to
denote a virgin, while the coil is absent in the case of a married woman.

Regarding the apparent subject matter of pictographs an obvious
distinction may be made between hunting and land scenes such as would
be familiar to interior tribes and those showing fishing and aquatic
habits common to seaboard and lacustrine peoples. Similar and more
perspicuous modes of discrimination are available. The general scope of
known history, traditions, and myths may also serve in identification.
Known habits and fashions of existing or historically-known tribes have
the same application, e. g., the portrayal on a drawing of a human face
of labrets or nose rings limits the artist to defined regions, and then
other considerations may further specify the work.

When the specific pictorial style of distinctive peoples is ascertained
its appearance on rocks may give evidence of their habitat and
migrations, and on the other hand their authorship of the petroglyphs
being received as a working hypothesis, the latter may be confirmed and
the characters interpreted through the known practices and habits of the
postulated authors.

SECTION 3.

AMBIGUOUS CHARACTERS WITH ASCERTAINED MEANING.

Under this heading specimens of the card catalogue before mentioned
are presented. The characters would not probably be recognized for
the objects they are intended to represent and many of them might be
mistaken for attempts to delineate other objects. A much larger number
of similar delineations are to be found under other headings in this
work, especially in Chap. XIII on Totems, titles, and names.

[Illustration: FIG. 1281.--Turtle. Maya.]

Prof. C. Thomas (_c_) gives _a_, _b_, _c_, and _d_, in Fig. 1281 as
representing the turtle.

That they do so is shown by the head of the animal, _e_, taken from
the Cortesian Codex. This is one of the many examples in which
the significance of drawings can be ascertained from a series of
conventionalized forms. Other instances are given in the present paper,
and more in the works of Mr. W. H. Holmes, published in several of the
Annual Reports of the Bureau of Ethnology.

[Illustration: FIG. 1282.--Armadillo. Yucatan.]

Fig. 1282 is given in the last cited volume and page as the symbol of
the armadillo of Yucatan.

[Illustration: FIG. 1283.--Dakota drawings.]

The drawings of which Fig. 1283 presents copies were made by Dakota
tribesmen: _a_, fox; _b_, black fox; _c_, wolf; _d_, black deer; _e_,
beaver; _f_, spotted horse; _g_, porcupine; _h_, white hawk; _i_, bald
eagle; _k_, crow; _l_, swallow; _m_ and _n_, war bonnet; _o_, leggins;
_p_, gun; _q_, pipe.

[Illustration: FIG. 1284.--Ojibwa drawings.]

The characters in Fig. 1284 are Ojibwa drawings. With the exception of
the last one they are copies of selected sketches made by Gaga Sindebi
at White Earth, Minn., in 1891, as parts of a Midē' song.

_a_, a wolf. The dark chest markings and the large tail are in imitation
of those parts of the timber wolf. The coyote is not now found in the
region where the author of the song lives; but is more particularly a
prairie animal.

_b_, a wolf. The pronounced jaw indicates his carnivorous nature.

_c_, a badger. Although the form resembles that of the bear the
difference is shown by the darkened body to imitate the gray fur.

_d_, a bear.

_e_, a bear. This style of drawing is not common, it being rather short
and stout, while the legs and ears are unusually pronounced.

_f_, the figure of a bear manido, to which is attached a feather
denoting the mythic character of the animal.

_g_, the figure represents a “lean bear,” as is specified by the
appearance of the ribs showing his lean condition.

_h_, a lizard. The ribs are ridges, which are found upon some forms of
_Siredon_, one species of which occurs in the ponds and small lakes of
Minnesota.

_i_, a toad.

_k_, a raccoon. The bands of color are indicated in the drawing.

_l_, a porcupine. Resembles some forms of the sacred bear manido as the
latter is sometimes drawn.

_m_, the crane. The three round spots over the head represent three
songs sung by the midē' to the crane manido.

_n_, the thunder-bird or eagle, having four heads. This character
appears to be unique, as it has at no time been noticed upon any of the
numerous midē' records in the possession of the Bureau of Ethnology.

_o_, the character represents a man using the rattle, as in the ceremony
of incantation. The projections above the head denote his superior
powers.

_p_, a midē', holding in his right hand a bear’s paw medicine bag, and
in his left hand an arrow. The character resembles similar drawings to
denote vessels in which herbs are boiled and from the top of which vapor
is issuing.

_q_, a midē' medicine sack. The character appears like similar drawings
of the otter; in the present instance, however, the ornamentation upon
the skin shows it to be not a living animal.

_r_, a beaver’s tail, from Schoolcraft (_y_). Many other illustrations
of this general nature are given by Mr. Schoolcraft, nearly all colored
according to his fancy.

CHAPTER XXII.

CONTROVERTED PICTOGRAPHS.

No large amount of space need be occupied in the mention of detected
pictographic frauds, their present and future importance being small,
but much more than is now allowed would be required for the full
discussion of controverted cases.

There is little inducement, beyond the amusement derived from hoaxing,
to commit actual frauds in the fabrication of petroglyphs. It must,
however, be remembered that coloration and carving of a deceptive
character are sometimes produced by natural causes, e. g., pictured
rocks on the island of Monhegan, Maine, figured by Schoolcraft (_z_),
are classed in “Science” VI, No. 132, p. 124, as freaks of surface
erosion. Mica plates were found in a mound at Lower Sandusky, Ohio,
which, after some attempts at interpretation, proved to belong to the
material known as graphic or hieroglyphic mica, the discolorations
having been caused by the infiltration of mineral solution between the
laminæ.

The instances where inscribed stones from mounds have been ascertained
to be forgeries or fictitious drawings are to be explained as sometimes
produced by simple mischief, sometimes by craving for personal
notoriety, and in other cases by schemes either to increase the
marketable value of land supposed to contain more of the articles or to
sell those exhibited.

With regard to more familiar and more portable articles, such as
engraved pipes, painted robes, and like curios, it is well known that
the fancy prices paid for them by amateurs have stimulated their
unlimited manufacture by Indians at agencies who make a business of
sketching upon ordinary robes or plain pipes the characters in common
use by them, without regard to any real event or person, and selling
them as significant records. Some enterprising traders have been known
to furnish the unstained robes, plain pipes, paints, and other materials
for the purpose, and simply pay a skillful Indian for his work, when the
fresh antique or imaginary chronicle is delivered.

As the business of making and selling archæologic frauds has become so
extensive in Egypt and Palestine, it can be no matter of surprise that
it has been attempted by enterprising people of the United States, about
whom the wooden-nutmeg imputation still clings. The Bureau of Ethnology
has discovered several centers of the manufacture of antiquities.

It was once proclaimed that six inscribed copper plates had been found
in a mound near Kinderhook, Pike county, Illinois, which were reported
to bear a close resemblance to Chinese. This resemblance seemed not
to be extraordinary when it was ascertained that the plate had been
engraved by the village blacksmith, copied from the lid of a Chinese
tea-chest.

The following recent notice of a case of alleged fraud is quoted from
Science, Vol. III, No. 58, March 14, 1884, page 334:

    Dr. N. Roe Bradner exhibited [at the Academy of Natural
    Sciences, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania] an inscribed stone found
    inside a skull taken from one of the ancient mounds at Newark,
    Ohio, in 1865. An exploration of the region had been undertaken,
    in consequence of the finding of stones bearing markings somewhat
    resembling Hebrew letters, in the hope of finding other specimens
    of a like character. The exploration was supposed to have been
    entirely unproductive of such objects until Dr. Bradner had found
    the engraved stone, now exhibited, in a skull which had been given
    to him.

This was supplemented by an editorial note in No. 62 of the same
publication, page 467, as follows:

    A correspondent from Newark, Ohio, warns us that any inscribed
    stones said to originate from that locality may be looked upon as
    spurious. Years ago certain parties in that place made a business of
    manufacturing and burying inscribed stones and other objects in the
    autumn, and exhuming them the following spring in the presence of
    innocent witnesses. Some of the parties to these frauds afterwards
    confessed to them; and no such objects, except such as were
    spurious, have ever been known from that region.

The correspondent of Science probably remembered the operations of
David Wyrick, of Newark, who, to prove his theory that the Hebrews were
the mound-builders, discovered in 1860 a tablet bearing on one side a
truculent “likeness” of Moses with his name in Hebrew, and on the other
a Hebrew abridgment of the ten commandments. A Hebrew bible afterwards
found in Mr. Wyrick’s private room threw some light on the inscribed
characters.

A grooved stone ax or maul, first described by the late Dr. John Evans,
of Pemberton, New Jersey, was reproduced by Dr. Wilson (_a_). Several
characters are cut in the groove and on the blade. They are neither
Runic, Scandinavian, nor Anglo-Saxon. It was found near Pemberton, New
Jersey, prior to 1859. Dr. E. H. Davis, who saw the stone, does not
regard the inscription as ancient. The characters had been retouched
before he saw them.

A grooved stone ax or maul, sent to Col. Whittlesey in 1874, from Butler
county, Ohio, about the size of the Pemberton ax, was covered with
English letters so fresh as to deceive no one versed in antiquities. The
purport of this inscription is that in 1689 Capt. H. Argill passed there
and secreted two hundred bags of gold near a spring.

It was claimed that an inscribed stone had been plowed up on the eastern
shore of Grand Traverse bay, Michigan, and an imperfect cast of it
was among the collections of the state of Michigan at the Centennial
Exhibition. The original is or was in the cabinet of the Kent county
Institute, Grand Rapids, Michigan. It is imperfectly executed, probably
with a knife, and evidently of recent make, in which Greek, Bardic, and
fictitious letters are jumbled together without order.

In 1875 a stone maul was discovered in an ancient mine pit near Lake
Desor, Isle Royal, Lake Superior, on which were cut several lines that
were at first regarded as letters.

An instructive paper by Mr. Wm. H. Holmes “On Some Spurious Mexican
Antiquities and their Relation to Ancient Art,” is published in the
Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1886, Pt. 1, pp. 319-334.

SECTION 1.

THE GRAVE CREEK STONE.

An inscribed stone found in Grave creek mound, near the Ohio river,
in 1838, has been the subject of much linguistic contention among
persons who admitted its authenticity. Twenty-four characters on it
have been considered by various experts to be alphabetic, and one is
a supposed hieroglyphic sign. Mr. Schoolcraft says that twenty-two
of the characters are alphabetic, but there has been a difference of
opinion with regard to their origin. One scholar finds among them four
characters which he claims are ancient Greek; another claims that four
are Etruscan; five have been said to be Runic; six, ancient Gaelic;
seven, old Erse; ten, Phenician; fourteen, old British; and sixteen,
Celtiberic. M. Levy Bing reported at the Congress of Americanists at
Nancy, in 1875, that he found in the inscription twenty-three Canaanite
letters, and translated it: “What thou sayest, thou dost impose it, thou
shinest in thy impetuous clan and rapid chamois.” (!) M. Maurice Schwab
in 1857 rendered it: “The Chief of Emigration who reached these places
(or this island) has fixed these statutes forever.” M. Oppert, however,
gave additional variety by the translation, so that all tastes can be
suited: “The grave of one who was assassinated here. May God to avenge
him strike his murderer, cutting off the hand of his existence.”

Col. Chas. Whittlesey (_a_) gives six copies of the Grave creek stone,
all purporting to be facsimiles, which have been published and used in
the elaborate discussions held upon its significance. Of these, three
are here reproduced with Col. Whittlesey’s remarks, as follows:

[Illustration: FIG. 1285.--Grave creek stone.]

Copy No. 1 is reproduced as Fig. 1285, drawn by Capt. Eastman.

    Capt. Seth Eastman was a graduate and teacher of drawing at West
    Point. He was an accomplished draftsman and painter detailed by
    the War Department to furnish the illustrations for “Schoolcraft’s
    Indian Tribes,” published by the Government. This copy was made in
    his official capacity, with the stone before him, and therefore
    takes the first rank as authority. There are between the lines
    twenty-two characters, but one is repeated three times and another
    twice leaving only twenty. The figure, if it has any significance,
    is undoubtedly pictorial.

[Illustration: FIG. 1286.--Grave creek stone.]

Copy No. 3, now Fig. 1286, was used by Monsieur Jomard at Paris, 1843.

    From this copy M. Jomard considered the letters to be Lybian, a
    language derived from the Phenician. At the right of the upper line
    one is omitted and another bears no resemblance to the original.
    The fifth character of the second line is equally defective and
    objectionable. The second, fifth, and sixth of the lower line are
    little better. In the rude profile of a human face beneath an eye
    has been introduced and the slender cross lines attached to it have
    assumed the proportions of a dagger or sword. For the linguist or
    ethnologist this copy is entirely worthless.

[Illustration: FIG. 1287.--Grave creek stone.]

Copy No. 4, now Fig. 1287, was sent to Prof. Rafn, Copenhagen, 1843.

    This is so imperfect and has so many additions that it is little
    better than a burlesque upon the original. No one will be surprised
    that the learned Danish antiquarian could find in it no resemblance
    to the Runic, with which he was thoroughly familiar.

A mere collocation of letters from various alphabets is not an alphabet.
Words can not be formed or ideas communicated by that artifice. When a
people adopts the alphabetical signs of another it adopts the general
style of the characters and more often the characters in detail. Such
signs had already an arrangement into syllables and words which had a
vocalic validity as well as known significance. A jumble of letters from
a variety of alphabets bears internal evidence that the manipulator
did not have an intelligent meaning to convey by them, and did not
comprehend the languages from which the letters were selected. In the
case of the Grave creek inscription the futile attempts to extract
a meaning from it on the theory that it belongs to an intelligent
alphabetic system show that it holds no such place. If it is genuine
it must be treated as pictorial and ideographic, unless, indeed, it is
cryptographic, which is not indicated.

SECTION 2.

THE DIGHTON ROCK.

In this connection some allusion must be made to the learned discussions
upon the Dighton rock before mentioned, p. 86. The originally Algonquian
characters were translated by a Scandinavian antiquary as an account
of the party of Thorfinn, the Hopeful. A distinguished Orientalist
made out clearly the word “melek” (king). Another scholar triumphantly
established the characters to be Scythian, and still another identified
them as Phenician. But this inscription has been so manipulated that it
is difficult now to determine the original details.

An official report made in 1830 by the Rhode Island Historical Society
and published by the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries, in
“Antiquitates Americanæ,” by C. C. Rafn (_e_), presents the best account
known concerning the Dighton rock and gives copies made from time to
time of the inscription, which are here reproduced, Pl. LIV. The text is
condensed as follows, but in quoting it the statement that the work was
not done by the Indians is without approval.

[Illustration: BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY TENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. LIV

I. _Dr. Danforth’s Drawing 1680_

II. _Dr. Cotton Mather’s 1712_

III. _Dr. Greenwood’s 1730_

IV. _Mr. Stephen Sewell’s 1768_

V. _Mr. James Winthrop’s 1788_

VI. _Mr. Kendall’s 1807_

VII. _Mr. Job Gardner’s 1812_

VIII. _Dr. Baylies and Mr. Goodwin’s 1790_

IX. _The Rhode Island Historical Society’s 1830_

DIGHTON ROCK.]

    It is situated about 6-1/2 miles south of Taunton, on the east
    side of Taunton river, a few feet from the shore, and on the west
    side of Assonet neck, in the town of Berkley, county of Bristol, and
    commonwealth of Massachusetts; although probably from the fact of
    being generally visited from the opposite side of the river, which
    is in Dighton, it has always been known by the name of the Dighton
    Writing Rock. It faces northwest toward the bed of the river, and is
    covered by the water 2 or 3 feet at the highest, and is left 10 or
    12 feet from it at the lowest tides; it is also completely immersed
    twice in twenty-four hours. The rock does not occur in situ, but
    shows indubitable evidence of having occupied the spot where it
    now rests since the period of that great and extensive disruption
    which was followed by the transportation of immense bowlders to,
    and a deposit of them in, places at a vast distance from their
    original beds. It is a mass of well characterized, fine grained
    graywacke. Its true color, as exhibited by a fresh fracture, is a
    bluish gray. There is no rock in the immediate neighborhood that
    would at all answer as a substitute for the purpose for which the
    one bearing the inscription was selected, as they are aggregates
    of the large conglomerate variety. Its face, measured at the base
    is 11-1/2 feet, and in height it is a little rising 5 feet. The