Hoffman in Transactions of the Anthropological Society, Washington, II,
1883, pages 128-132.
The limits of this paper do not allow of presenting a list of the
characters in the pictographs which have become known. It may be
properly demanded, however, that some of the characters in the
petroglyph, Figure 1, should be explained. The following is a list of
those which were interpreted to Mr. Gilbert, as mentioned on page 29
_supra_.
[Illustration: FIG. 156.]
[Illustration: FIG. 157.]
Figure 156 is an inclosure, or pen, in which ceremonial dances are
performed. Figure 157 is a head-dress used in ceremonial dances.
[Illustration: FIG. 158.]
Figure 158 shows different representations of houses.
[Illustration: FIG. 159.]
[Illustration: FIG. 160.]
Figure 159 sketches the frames or sticks used in carrying wood on the
back. Figure 160 shows different forms of arrows.
[Illustration: FIG. 161.]
Figure 161 represents the blossoms of melons, squashes, etc.
[Illustration: FIG. 162.]
[Illustration: FIG. 163.]
Figure 162 shows three ways in which lightning is represented. Figure
163 represents clouds.
[Illustration: FIG. 164.]
Figure 164 represents clouds with rain descending.
[Illustration: FIG. 165.]
Figure 165 shows various forms of stars.
[Illustration: FIG. 166.]
Figure 166 shows various representations of the sun.
[Illustration: FIG. 167.]
Figure 167 shows various representations of sunrise.
It is of interest in this connection that in the pictorial notation
of the Laplanders the sun bears its usual figure of a man’s head,
rayed, as reported in Schoolcraft, _op. cit._ I, 426. See drawings in
Scheffer’s Hist. of Lapland, London ed., 1704.
It may be desirable also to note, to avoid misconception, that where,
through this paper, mention is made of particulars under the headings
of Customs, Religious, etc., which might be made the subject of
graphic illustration in pictographs, and for that reason should be
known as preliminary to the attempted interpretation of the latter,
the suggestion is not given as a mere hypothesis. Such objective marks
and conceptions of the character indicated which can readily be made
objective, are in fact frequently found in pictographs and have been
understood by means of the preliminary information to which reference
is made. When interpretations obtained through this line of study are
properly verified they can take places in the card-catalogue little
inferior to those of interpretations derived directly from aboriginal
pictographers.
HOMOMORPHS AND SYMMORPHS.
It has been already mentioned that characters substantially the
same, or homomorphs, made by one set of people, have a different
signification among others. Differing forms for the same general
conception or idea are also noticed. These may be termed symmorphs.
Some examples under these titles are noted as follows, not for the
purpose of giving an even approximately complete list, but merely to
show the manner in which they may be compared and sometimes confused
with similar characters, some of which appear in other parts of this
paper.
[Illustration: FIG. 168.]
Figure 168 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. 169.]
Figure 169 signifies earth lodges among the Hidatsa. The circles
resemble 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,
Figure 47, page 147.
[Illustration: FIG. 170.]
Figure 170 represents buildings erected by white men; the character is
generally used by the Hidatsa to designate Government buildings and
traders’ stores.
[Illustration: FIG. 171.]
Figure 171 is the Hidatsati, the home of the Hidatsa. Inclosure with
earth lodges within.
The Arikara sometimes simply mark dots or spots to signify men; when
in connection with small crescents to denote horses. The numerical
strength of a war party is sometimes shown in this manner, as in Figure
172.
[Illustration: FIG. 172.]
Figure 173 was drawn for dead man by the Arikara. Cf. “nothing there,”
page 168.
[Illustration: FIG. 173.]
Figure 174. In records of personal events the two lines above the head
of the fallen enemy denote among the Hidatsa that the person to whom
the exploit refers was the second to strike the body.
[Illustration: FIG. 174.]
Figure 175 shows the third person to strike the enemy, as drawn by the
Hidatsa.
[Illustration: FIG. 175.]
Figure 176 means a scalp taken. Hidatsa.
[Illustration: FIG. 176.]
Figure 177 signifies, in Hidatsa drawing, the man who struck the enemy,
and who took his gun.
[Illustration: FIG. 177.]
The following specimens from the writer’s card collection are presented
as having some individual interest:
Figure 178 was drawn by a Dakota Indian, at Mendota, Minnesota, and
represents a man holding a scalp in one hand, while in the other is
the gun, the weapon used in the destruction of the enemy. The short
vertical lines below the periphery of the scalp indicate hair. The line
crossing the leg of the Indian is only an indication of the ground upon
which the figure is supposed to stand.
[Illustration: FIG. 178.]
Figure 179 is taken from the winter count of
Battiste Good for the year 1840-’41. He names it
“Came-and-killed-five-of-Little-Thunder’s-brothers winter” and
“Battiste-alone-returns winter.” He explains that the five were killed
in an encounter with the Panis. Battiste Good was the only one of the
party to escape. The capote is shown, and signifies war, as in several
other instances of the same record. The five short vertical lines below
the arrow signify that five were killed.
[Illustration: FIG. 179.]
Figure 180 is taken from Mrs. Eastman’s Dahcotah, or Life and Legends
of the Sioux, New York, 1849, p. xxvii, and shows a Dakota method of
recording the taking of prisoners. Nos. 1 and 3 are the prisoners; No.
1 being a female, as denoted by the presence of mammæ, and No. 3 a
male. No. 2 is the person making the capture. It is also noted that the
prisoners are without hands, to signify their helplessness.
[Illustration: FIG. 180.]
In this connection the following quotation is taken 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.”
[Illustration: FIG. 181.--Circle of men. Dakota.]
Figure 181 is taken from the winter count of Battiste Good for the
year 1851-’52. In the year 1851-’52, the first issue of goods was made
to the Indians, and the character represents a blanket surrounded by
a circle to show how the Indians sat awaiting the distribution. The
people are represented by small lines running at right angles to the
circle.
[Illustration: FIG. 182.--Shooting from river banks. Dakota.]
Figure 182 is also from Battiste Good. An encounter is represented
between two tribes, each on the banks of a river, from which arrows
were fired across the water at the opposing party. The vertical lines
represent the banks, while the opposing arrows denote a fight or an
encounter.
[Illustration: FIG. 183.--Panther. Haida.]
The drawing, Figure 183, 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.
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. 184.--Wolf head. Haida.]
The feet of the accompanying Figure 184 cannot 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.
The figure is reproduced from The Northwest Coast of America, being
results of recent ethnological researches from the collections of the
Royal Museums at Berlin. (Trans. from German.) New York, Pl. 7, Fig. 3.
The accompanying illustration, Figure 185, represents a knife from
Africa, which bears upon both sides of the blade incised characters of
the human form, strikingly similar to those found among the Ojibwa. The
lines running upward from the head are identical with an Ojibwa form of
representing a meda, or Shaman, while the hour-glass form of body is
also frequently found, though generally used to designate a woman, the
lower part of the body representing the skirt. In the present instance,
it may have allusion to the peculiar skirt-like dress often worn by the
men among the tribes of Northern Africa.
[Illustration: FIG. 185.--Drawings on an African knife.]
The lines extending from the middle of the body downward to below the
skirt and terminating in an irregular knob somewhat resemble the Pueblo
method of designating sex, the male being shown by a small cross, and
the female by a simple, short, vertical line attached to the perinæum.
The upper character, in B, in addition to the line and circle extending
downward from the lower extremity, shows a bird’s leg and toes at
either side. This is also, according to Schoolcraft, an Ojibwa method
of depicting a person or being who is endowed with the power of flight
into the upper regions, hence one of superior knowledge.
The history of the knife here figured is received from Mr. Thomas M.
Chatard, of the National Museum, who in turn obtained it from his
father, Mr. F. E. Chatard, Baltimore, Maryland, who writes that it
was obtained at Cape Mesurado, Africa, in November, 1822, where the
natives had attacked a recently established colony. The Africans were
repulsed, and the knife was subsequently picked up on the battle-field
and brought to America by the late William Seton, an officer of the
United States Navy.
CONVENTIONALIZING.
The course of conventionalizing is noticeable in pictographs as well
as in gesture-signs, on the one hand, and, on the other, as it appears
in all forms of graphic art. The analysis of such conventions in form
could be pursued at great length with regard to the pictographs now
known in the same manner as has been done with success by Dr. Harrison
Allen in his work “An analysis of the Life-form in Art,” Philadelphia,
1875. Some suggestions may be obtained from the present paper,
especially from examples given under the headings of Ideographs, page
219, and Homomorphs and Symmorphs, page 239. See also conventionalized
sign for Ponka in Winter Count No. I for 1778-79, on page 131, and
for Mandan in the same count for 1783-84, on the same page; also the
conventional sign for Cheyenne, Figure 78, page 173; also the device
for starvation, Figure 144, page 220, as conventionalized in Figure
145, page 221. The limits of this paper will only allow of submitting
in addition the following conventionalized forms of the human figure,
in some cases being merely marks arbitrarily used to represent humanity:
[Illustration: FIG. 186.]
Figure 186 signifies men among the Arikara. The characters are used
in connection with horse-shoes, to denote “mounted men.” In other
pictographs such spots or dots are merely numerical.
[Illustration: FIG. 187.]
Figure 187 is drawn by the Kiatéxamut branch of the Innuits for man. It
is an abbreviated form and rare.
[Illustration: FIG. 188.]
Figure 188, drawn by the Blackfeet, signifies “Man--dead.” This is from
a pictograph in Wind River Mountains. See Jones’s Northwestern Wyoming,
etc., _op. cit._
[Illustration: FIG. 189.]
Figure 189 is the Kiatéxamut Innuit drawing for man. This figure is
armless; generally represents the person addressed.
[Illustration: FIG. 190.]
Figure 190 is also a Kiatéxamut Innuit drawing for man. The figure
makes the gesture for _negation_.
[Illustration: FIG. 191.]
Figure 191, from a Californian pictograph, is a man, also gesturing
_negation_.
[Illustration: FIG. 192.]
Figure 192 is another Californian pictograph for man, making the same
gesture.
[Illustration: FIG. 193.]
Figure 193, from Schoolcraft, I, Pl. 59, No. 91, is the Ojibwa “symbol”
for disabled man.
[Illustration: FIG. 194.]
Figure 194 is the Kiatéxamut Innuit drawing for Shaman.
[Illustration: FIG. 195.]
Figure 195, used by the Kiatéxamut Innuit, represents man supplicating.
The five figures, 196 to 200, are reproduced from Schoolcraft, Vol.
I, Pl. 58, opp. p. 408. The Numbers attached are those given by that
author:
[Illustration: FIG. 196.]
Figure 196, No. 6, is the Ojibwa representative figure for man.
[Illustration: FIG. 197.]
Figure 197, No. 10, is used by the Ojibwa to denote a spirit or man
enlightened from on high, having the head of the sun.
[Illustration: FIG. 198.]
Figure 198, No. 20, is drawn by the Ojibwa for a “wabeno” or Shaman.
[Illustration: FIG. 199.]
Figure 199, No. 30, is the Ojibwa “symbol” for an evil or one-sided
“meda” or higher grade Shaman.
[Illustration: FIG. 200.]
Figure 200, No. 29, is the Ojibwa general “symbol” for a meda.
[Illustration: FIG. 201.]
Figure 201 is drawn by the Hidatsa for man.
[Illustration: FIG. 202.]
Figure 202, from Schoolcraft, I, Pl. 58, No. 3, is an Ojibwa drawing of
a headless body.
[Illustration: FIG. 203.]
Figure 203, from Schoolcraft, I, Pl. 58, No. 2, is another Ojibwa
figure for a headless body, perhaps female.
[Illustration: FIG. 204.]
Figure 204, contributed by Mr. Gilbert Thompson, is a drawing for man,
made by the Moki in Arizona.
[Illustration: FIG. 205.]
Figure 205, reproduced from Schoolcraft, I, Pl. 64, opposite page 424,
is a drawing from the banks of the River Yenesei, Siberia, by Von
Strahlenberg, in his historical and geographical description of the
northern and eastern parts of Europe, Asia, etc. London, 1738.
The similarity to characters on Figure 185 is obvious.
[Illustration: FIG. 206.]
Figure 206, also from Strahlenberg, and quoted in Schoolcraft, Vol. I,
Pl. 66, Fig. 4, opp. p. 342, was found in Siberia, and is identical
with the character which, according to Schoolcraft, is drawn by
the Ojibwa to represent speed and the power of superior knowledge
by exaltation to the regions of the air, being, in his opinion, a
combination of bird and man.
It is to be noticed that some Ojibwa recently examined regard the
character merely as a human figure with outstretched arms, and fringes
pendant therefrom. It has, also, a strong resemblance to some of the
figures in the Dakota Winter Counts (those for 1854-’55 and 1866-’67,
pages 121 and 124, respectively), in which there is no attempt
understood to signify any thing more than a war-dress.
[Illustration: FIG. 207.]
Figure 207, according to Schoolcraft, Vol. I, Pl. 58, No. 58, is the
Ojibwa drawing symbolic for an American.
ERRORS AND FRAUDS.
No large amount of space need be occupied in the mention of recognized
pictographic frauds, their importance being small, but much more than
is now allowed would be required for the discussion of controverted
cases.
There is little inducement, beyond a disposition to hoax, to commit
actual frauds in the fabrication of rock-carvings. The instances where
inscribed stones from mounds have been ascertained to be forgeries or
fictitious drawings have been about equally divided between simple
mischief and an attempt either to increase the marketable value of some
real estate, supposed to contain more, or to sell the specimens.
With regard to the much more familiar and more portable material of
engraved pipes, painted robes and like curios, it is well known to all
recent travelers in the West who have had former experience that the
fancy prices paid by amateurs for those decorations have stimulated
their wholesale manufacture by Indians at agencies (locally termed
“coffee-coolers”), 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 curious records.
This pictorial forgery would seem to show a gratifying advance of
the Indians in civilization, but it is feared that the credit of the
invention is chiefly due to some enterprising traders who 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.
Six inscribed copper plates were said to have 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 so
extraordinary when it was ascertained that the plate had been engraved
by the village blacksmith, copied from the lid of a Chinese tea-chest.
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 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.
As the business of making and selling archæological frauds has become
so extensive in Egypt and Palestine, it can be no matter of surprise
that it has been attempted by the enterprising people of the United
States. The Bureau of Ethnology has discovered several centers of that
fraudulent industry.
Without further pursuing the subject of mercenary frauds, an example
may be mentioned which was brought forth during the researches of
the present writer and his assistant, Dr. Hoffman, which is probably
as good a case of a modern antique in this line as can be presented.
Figure 208 is a copy of a drawing taken from an Ojibwa pipe-stem,
obtained by Dr. Hoffman from an officer of the United States Army, who
had procured it from an Indian in Saint Paul, Minnesota. On a later
and more minute examination, it appeared that the pipe-stem had been
purchased at a store in Saint Paul, which had furnished a large number
of similar objects, so large as to awaken suspicion that they were in
the course of daily manufacture. The figures and characters on the
pipe-stem were drawn in colors. In the present figure, which is without
colors, the horizontal lines represent blue and the vertical red,
according to the heraldic scheme several times used in this paper. The
outlines were drawn in a dark neutral tint, in some lines approaching
black; the triangular characters, representing lodges, being also in
a neutral tint, or an ashen hue, and approaching black in several
instances. The explanation of the figures, made before there was any
suspicion of their real character, is as follows:
[Illustration: FIG. 208.--Specimen of imitated pictograph.]
The first figure is that of a bear, representing the individual to whom
the record pertains. The three hearts above the line, according to an
expression in gesture language, signifies a brave heart; increased
numbers indicating _much_ or _many_, _i. e._, a large brave heart.
The second figure, a circle inclosing a triradiate character, refers
to the personal totem. The character in the middle resembles, to some
extent, the pictograph sometimes found to represent stars, though in
the latter the lines center upon the disks and not at a common point.
The seven triangular characters represent the lodges of a village to
which the individual to whom reference is made belongs.
The serpentine line immediately below these signifies a stream or
river, near which the village is located.
The two persons holding guns in their left hands, together with another
having a spear, appear to be the companions of the speaker, all of whom
are members of the turtle gens, as shown by that reptile.
The curve from left to right is a representation of the sky, the sun
having appeared upon the left or eastern horizon when the transaction
below mentioned was enacted. In an explanation by gesture, or by
pictograph, the speaker always faces the south, or conducts himself
as if he did so, and begins on the left side to convey the idea of
morning, if day; the hand, or line, is drawn all the way from the
eastern horizon to the western. The above, then, represents the morning
when a female--headless body of a woman--a member of the crane gens,
was killed.
The figure of a bear below is the same apparently as number one, though
turned to the right. The heart is reversed to denote sadness, grief,
remorse, as expressed in gesture-language, and to atone for the misdeed
committed in the proceeding the pipe is brought and offering made to
the “Great Spirit.”
Altogether, the act depicted appears to have been accidental, the woman
belonging to the same tribe, as can be learned from the gens of which
she was a member. The regret or sorrow signified in the bear, next to
the last figure, corresponds with that supposition, as such feelings
would not be congruous to the Indian in the case of an enemy.
The point of interest in this pictograph is, that the figures are
very skillfully copied from the numerous characters of the same kind
representing Ojibwa pictographs, and given by Schoolcraft. The
arrangement of these copied characters is precisely that which would be
natural in the similar work of Indians. In fact, the groups constitute
a thoroughly genuine pictograph, and afford a good illustration of the
manner in which a record can be made. The fact that it was made and
sold under false representations is its objectionable feature.