shows the designs adopted by the Mojave Indians for painting the body.
These designs consist of transverse lines extending around the body,
arms, and legs, or horizontal lines or different parts may partake of
different designs. Clay is now generally used.
Everard F. im Thurn (_h_) describes the painting of the Indians of
Guiana as follows:
The paint is applied either in large masses or in patterns. For
example, a man, when he wants to dress well, perhaps entirely coats
both his feet up to the ankles with a crust of red; his whole trunk
he sometimes stains uniformly with blue-black, more rarely with red,
or covers it with an intricate pattern of lines of either color;
he puts a streak of red along the bridge of his nose; where his
eyebrows were till he pulled them out he puts two red lines; at the
top of the arch of his forehead he puts a big lump of red paint, and
probably he scatters other spots and lines somewhere on his face.
The women, especially among the Ackawoi, who use more body-paint
than other ornament, are more fond of blue-black than of red; and
one very favorite ornament with them is a broad band of this, which
edges the mouth, and passes from the corners of that to the ears.
Some women especially affect certain little figures, like Chinese
characters, which look as if some meaning were attached to them, but
which the Indians are either unable or unwilling to explain.
Kohl (_a_) says of the Indians met by him around Lake Superior that “The
young men only paint--no women. When they become old they stop and cease
to pluck out their beards which are an obstacle in painting.” It is
probable that the custom of plucking the hairs originated in the attempt
to facilitate face and body painting.
Herndon (_b_) gives the following report from the valley of the Amazon:
Met a Conibo on the beach. This man was evidently the dandy of
his tribe. He was painted with a broad stripe of red under each eye;
three narrow stripes of blue were carried from one ear, across the
upper lip to the other--the two lower stripes plain, and the upper
one bordered with figures. The whole of the lower jaw and chin were
painted with a blue chain-work of figures, something resembling
Chinese figures.
According to Dr. J. J. von Tschudi (_b_):
The uncivilized Indians of Peru paint their bodies, but not
exactly in the tattoo manner; they confine themselves to single
stripes. The Sensis women draw two stripes from the shoulder, over
each breast, down to the pit of the stomach; the Pirras women paint
a band in a form of a girdle round the waist, and they have three of
a darker color round each thigh. These stripes, when once laid on,
can never be removed by washing. They are made with the unripe fruit
of one of the Rubiacaceæ. Some tribes paint the face only; others,
on the contrary, do not touch that part; but bedaub with colors
their arms, feet, and breasts.
F. J. Mouat, M. D., in Jour. Roy. Geogr. Soc., (_a_) says that Andaman
Islanders rub red earth on the top of the head, probably for the purpose
of ornamentation. This fashion is similar to that of some North American
Indian tribes which rub red pigment on the parting of the hair.
Marcano (_e_) says:
The present Piaroas of Venezuela are in the habit of painting
their bodies, but by a different process. They make stamps out of
wood, which they apply to their skins after covering them with
coloring matter.
[Illustration: FIG. 982.--Piaroa color stamps.]
Fig. 982 shows examples of these stamps. The most noteworthy thing
about them is that they reproduce the types of certain petroglyphs,
particularly of those of the upper Cuchivero (see Figs. 152 and 153,
supra).
The Piaroas either copied the models they found carved on the
rocks by peoples who preceded them, or they are aware of their
meaning and preserved the tradition of it. The former hypothesis is
the only tenable one. Not being endowed with inventive faculties,
it seems more natural that they should simply have copied the only
models they found. The Indians of French Guiana paint themselves in
order to drive away the devil when they start on a journey or for
war, whence Crevaux concludes that the petroglyphs must have been
carved for a religious purpose. But painting is to the Piaroas a
question of ornamentation and of necessity. It is a sort of garment
that protects them against insects, and which, applied with extra
care, becomes a fancy costume to grace their feasts and meetings.
It is to be noted that at least one instance is found of the converse
of the Piaroa practice, by which the face-marks are used as the designs
of pictographs on inanimate objects. The Serranos, near Los Angeles,
California, formerly cut lines upon the trees and posts marking
boundaries of land, these lines corresponding to those adopted by the
owner as facial decorations.
A suggestion appropriate to this branch of the topic is presented in
the answer communicated in a personal conversation of a Japanese lady
who was asked why she blackened her teeth: “Any dog has white teeth!”
An alteration of the physical appearance is itself a distinction, and
the greater the difference between the decorated person and the want
of decoration in others the greater the distinction. Modern milliners,
dressmakers, tailors and hatters, and their patrons pursue the same ends
of fashionable distinction which are exhibited in rivalry for priority
and singularity. These arbitrary fluctuations of fashion, which are seen
equally in the Mandan and the millionaire, the Pueblan and the Parisian,
are to be considered with reference to the supposed tribal significance
of colors before mentioned. So far as they originated in fashion they
changed with fashion, and the studies made in the preparation of this
paper tend to a disbelief in their distinctness and stability. The
conservatism of religious and of other ceremonial practices and of
social customs preserved, however, a certain amount of consistency and
continuity.
IDEOCRASY OF COLORS.
It has often been asserted that there was and is an intrinsic
significance in the several colors. A traditional recognition of this
among the civilizations connected with modern Europe is shown by the
associations of death and mourning with black, of innocence and peace
with white, danger with red, and epidemic disease officially with
yellow. A comparison of the diverse conceptions attached to the colors
will show great variety in their several attributions.
The Babylonians represented the sun and its sphere of motion by gold,
the moon by silver, Saturn by black, Jupiter by orange, Mars by red,
Venus by pale yellow, and Mercury by deep blue. Red was anciently and
generally connected with divinity and power both priestly and royal. The
tabernacle of the Israelites was covered with skins dyed red, and the
gods and images of Egypt and Chaldea were of that color, which to this
day is the one distinguishing the Roman Pontiff and the cardinals.
In ancient art each color had a mystic sense or symbolism, and its
proper use was an essential consideration. With regard to early
Christian art Mrs. Clement (_a_) furnishes the following account:
White is worn by the Saviour after his resurrection; by the
Virgin in representations of the Assumption; by women as the emblem
of chastity; by rich men to indicate humility; and by the judge as
the symbol of integrity. It is represented sometimes by silver or
the diamond, and its sentiment is purity, virginity, innocence,
faith, joy, and light.
Red, the color of the ruby, speaks of royalty, fire, divine
love, the holy spirit, creative power, and heat. In an opposite
sense it symbolized blood, war, and hatred. Red and black combined
were the colors of Satan, purgatory, and evil spirits. Red and white
roses are emblems of love and innocence or love and wisdom, as in
the garland of St. Cecilia.
Blue, that of the sapphire, signified heaven, heavenly love and
truth, constancy and fidelity. Christ and the Virgin Mary wear the
blue mantle; St. John a blue tunic.
Green, the emerald, the color of spring, expressed hope and
victory.
Yellow or gold was the emblem of the sun, the goodness of God,
marriage and fruitfulness. St. Joseph and St. Peter wear yellow.
Yellow has also a bad signification when it has a dirty, dingy hue,
such as the usual dress of Judas, and then signifies jealousy,
inconstancy, and deceit.
Violet or amethyst signified passion and suffering or love and
truth. Penitents, as the Magdalene, wear it. The Madonna wears it
after the crucifixion, and Christ after the resurrection.
Gray is the color of penance, mourning, humility, or accused
innocence.
Black with white signified humility, mourning, and purity of
life. Alone, it spoke of darkness, wickedness, and death, and
belonged to Satan. In pictures of the Temptation Jesus sometimes
wears black.
The associations with the several colors above mentioned differ widely
from those in modern folk-lore; for instance, those with green and
yellow, the same colors being stigmatized in the old song that “green’s
forsaken and yellow’s forsworn.”
The Hist. de Dieu, by Didron (_d_), contains the following:
The hierarchy of colors could well, in the ideas of the Middle
Ages, have been allied at the same time to symbolism. The most
brilliant color is gold, and here it is given to the greatest
saints. Silver, color of the moon, which is inferior to the sun, but
its companion, however, should follow; then red, or the color of
fire, attribute of those who struggle against passion, and which is
inferior to the two metals, gold and silver, to the sun and moon,
of which it is but an emanation; next green, which symbolizes hope,
and which is appropriate to married people; lastly, the uncertain
yellowish color, half white and half yellow, a modified color, which
is given to saints who were formerly sinners, but who have succeeded
in reforming themselves and are made somewhat bright in the sight of
God by penitence.
A note in the Am. Journal of Psychology, Vol. I, November, 1887, p. 190,
gives another list substantially as follows:
Yellow, the color of gold and fire, symbolizes reason.
Green, the color of vegetable life, symbolizes utility and labor.
Red, the color of blood, symbolizes war and love.
Blue, the color of the sky, symbolizes spiritual life, duty, religion.
COLOR IN CEREMONIES.
The colors attributed to the cardinal points have been the subject
of much discussion. Some of these special color schemes of the North
American Indians are now mentioned.
Mr. James Stevenson, in an address before the Anthropological Society
of Washington, D. C.; Dr. Washington Matthews, U. S. Army, in the Fifth
Ann. Rep. of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 449; and Mr. Thomas V. Keam, in
a MS. contribution, severally report the tribes mentioned below as using
in their ceremonial dances the respective colors designated to represent
the four cardinal points, viz:
N. S. E. W.
Stevenson--Zuñi Yellow. Red. White. Black.
Matthews--Navajo Black. Blue. White. Yellow.
Keam--Moki White. Red. Yellow. Blue.
Mr. Stevenson, in his paper on the Ceremonial of Hasjelti Dailjis,
in the Eighth Ann. Rep. of the Bureau of Ethnology, agrees with Dr.
Matthews regarding the ceremonial scheme of the Navajo colors symbolic
of the cardinal points, as follows: “The eagle plumes were laid to the
east, and near by them white corn and white shell; the blue feathers
were laid to the south, with blue corn and turquoise; the hawk feathers
were laid to the west, with yellow corn and abalone shell; and to the
north were laid the whippoorwill feathers, with black beads and corn of
all the several colors.”
In A Study of Pueblo Architecture, by Mr. Victor Mindeleff, in the
Eighth Ann. Rep. of the Bureau of Ethnology, the prayers of consecration
by the Pueblos are addressed thus:
To the west: Siky’ak oma’uwu Yellow cloud.
To the south: Sa’kwa oma’uwu Blue cloud.
To the east: Pal’a oma’uwu Red cloud.
To the north: Kwetsh oma’uwu White cloud.
Mr. Frank H. Cushing, in Zuñi Fetiches, Second Ann. Rep., Bureau of
Ethnology, pp. 16-17, gives the following:
In ancient times, while yet all beings belonged to one family,
Po-shai-ang-k’ia, the father of our sacred bands, lived with his
children (disciples) in the City of the Mists, the middle place
(center) of the medicine societies of the world. When he was about
to go forth into the world he divided the universe into six regions,
namely, the North (Direction of the swept or barren place); the
West (Direction of the Home of the Waters); the South (Direction of
the Place of the Beautiful Red); the East (Direction of the Home of
Day); the Upper Regions (Direction of the Home of the High); and the
Lower Regions (Direction of the Home of the Low).
In the center of the great sea of each of these regions stood a
very ancient sacred place--a great mountain peak. In the North was
the Mountain Yellow, in the West the Mountain Blue, in the South the
Mountain Red, in the East the Mountain White, above the Mountain
All-color, and below the Mountain Black.
We do not fail to see in this clear reference to the natural
colors of the regions referred to--to the barren North and its
auroral hues, the West with its blue Pacific, the rosy South, the
white daylight of the east, the many hues of the clouded sky, and
the black darkness of the “caves and holes of earth.” Indeed these
colors are used in the pictographs and in all the mythic symbolism
of the Zuñis to indicate the directions or regions respectively
referred to as connected with them.
Mr. A. S. Gatschet (_a_), in Proc. Am. Philos. Soc., gives the symbolic
colors of the Isleta Pueblo for the points of the compass, as “white for
the east; from there they go to the north, which is black; to the west,
which is blue; and to the south, which is red.”
Mr. James Mooney, in Seventh Ann. Rep., Bureau Ethnology, p. 342, says
that the symbolic color system of the Cherokees is:
East--red--success; triumph.
North--blue--defeat; trouble.
West--black--death.
South--white--peace; happiness.
In the ceremonies of the Indians of the plains it is common that the
smoke of the sacred pipe should be turned first directly upward, second
directly downward, and then successively to the four cardinal points,
but without absolute agreement among the several tribes as to the order
of that succession. In James’ Long (_i_), it is reported that in a
special ceremony of the Omaha regarding the buffalo the first whiff of
smoke was directed to them, next to the heavens, next to the earth,
and then successively to the east, west, north, and south. The rather
lame explanation was given that the east was for sunrise, the west for
sunset, the north for cold country, and the south for warm country.
The Count de Charencey, in Des Couleurs considérés comme symboles des
Pointes de l’Horizon, etc., and in Ages ou Soleils, gives as the result
of his studies that in Mexico and Central America the original systems
were as follows:
_Quaternary system._ _Quinary system._
East--Yellow. South--Blue.
North--Black. East--Red.
West--White. North--Yellow.
South--Red. West--White.
Center--Black.
Mr. John Crawford (_a_) says:
In Java the divisions of the horizon and the corresponding
colors were named in the following order: first, white and the east;
second, red and the south; third, yellow and the west; fourth, black
and the north; and fifth, mixed colors and the focus or center.
Boturini (_a_) gives the following arrangement of the “symbols of the
four parts or angles of the world,” comparing it with that of Gemelli:
_Gemelli._ _Boturini._
1. Tochtli--South. 1. Tecpatl--South.
2. Acatl--East. 2. Calli--East.
3. Tecpatl--North. 3. Tochtli--North.
4. Calli--West. 4. Acatl--West.
SYMBOLS OF THE FOUR ELEMENTS.
_Gemelli._ _Boturini._
1. Tochtli--Earth. 1. Tecpatl--Fire.
2. Acatl--Water. 2. Calli--Earth.
3. Tecpatl--Air. 3. Tochtli--Air.
4. Calli--Fire. 4. Acatl--Water.
Herrera (_a_) speaks only of the year symbols and colors, and, although
he does not directly connect them, indicates his understanding in regard
thereto by the order in which he mentions them:
They divided the year into four signs, being four figures; the
one of a house, another of a rabbit, the third of a cane, the fourth
of a flint, and by them they reckoned the year as it passed on. *
* * They painted a sun in the middle from which issued four lines
or branches in a cross to the circumference of the wheel, and they
turned so that they divided it into four parts and the circumference
and each of them moved with its branch of the same color, which were
four--green, blue, red, and yellow.
From this statement Prof. Cyrus Thomas, in Notes on certain Maya and
Mexican Manuscripts, Third Ann. Rep., Bureau of Ethnology, concludes
that Herrera’s arrangement would presumably be as follows:
Calli--Green.
Tochtli--Blue.
Acatl--Red.
Tecpatl--Yellow.
Combining these several lists it would appear that Calli, color green,
was Fire and West or Earth and East; Tochtli, color blue, was Earth and
South or Air and North; Acatl, color red, was Water and East or Water
and West; Tecpatl, color yellow, was Air and North or Fire and South.
The foregoing notes leave the symbolic colors of the cardinal points
in a state of confusion, and on calm reflection no other condition
could be expected. Taking the idea of the ocean blue, for instance, and
recognizing the impressive climatic effects of the ocean, the people
examined may be in any direction from the ocean and to each of them its
topographic as well as color relation differs. If it shall be called
blue, the color blue may be north, south, east, or west. So as to the
concepts of heat and cold, however presented in colors by the fancy,
heat being sometimes red and sometimes yellow, cold being sometimes
considered as black by the manifestation of its violent destruction of
the tissues and sometimes being more simply shown as white, the color
of the snow. Also the geographic situation of the people must determine
their views of temperature. The sun in tropical regions may be an object
of terror, in Arctic climes of pure beneficence, and in the several
seasons of more temperate zones the sun as fire, whether red or yellow,
may be destructive or life-giving. Regarding the symbols of the cardinal
points it seems that there is nothing intrinsic as to colors, but that
the ideograms connected with the topic are local and variant. As the
ancient assignments of color to the cardinal points are not established
and definite among people who have been long settled in their present
habitat, the hope of tracing their previous migration by that line of
investigation may not be realized.
The following account of the degree posts of the Grand Medicine Society
of the Ojibwa is condensed from an article by Dr. Hoffman in the Am.
Anthropologist for July, 1889:
In constructing the inclosure in which the Midē' priests
practice the rites and ceremonies of initiation, a single post, from
4 to 5 feet in height and about 8 inches thick, is planted at a
point opposite the main entrance, and about three-fourths the entire
distance of the interior from it. This post is painted red, with a
band of green about the top, of the width of a palm.
The red and green colors are used to designate the Midē'
society, but for what reason is not positively known. The green
appears to have some connection with the south, the sources of
heat and abundance of crops; the thunder-bird also comes from that
direction in the springtime, bringing rain, which causes the grass
and fruits to grow, giving an abundance of food.
For the second degree two posts are erected within the
inclosure, the first being like that for the first degree, the
second being planted nearer the main entrance, though not far from
the opposite end of the structure; this post is painted red and is
covered with white spots made by applying white clay with the finger
tip. These spots are symbolical of the migis shell, the sacred
emblem of the Grand Medicine Society.
The third degree contains three posts, the two preceding ones
being used, to which a third is added and planted in a line with
them; this post is painted black.
In the fourth degree the additional post is really a cross, a
crosspiece of wood being attached near the top; the lower part of
the upright piece is squared, the side on the east being painted
white; on the south, green; on the west, red; and on the north,
black. The white is the source of light facing the direction of the
rising sun, the green, apparently the source of warmth, rains, and
abundance of crops, while the north is black, and pertains to the
region from which come cold, disease, and desolation. The red is
placed upon the western side, but there is a diversity of opinion
regarding its significance. The most plausible theory appears to
relate to the “road of the dead,” referred to in the ritual of the
Ghost Society, as the path upon which the departed shadow partakes
of the gigantic strawberry which he finds. The upper portion of the
cross is white, upon which are placed irregularly red spots.
In the same article is the following account of face coloring in the
Midē' degrees:
In connection with the colors of the degree posts, there is a
systematic arrangement of facial ornamentation, each style to be
characteristic of one of the four degrees, as well as the degree of
the Ghost Society.
According to the White Earth (Minnesota) method, the arrangement
is as follows:
First degree. One red stripe across the face from near the ears
across the tip of the nose.
Second degree. One stripe as above and another across the eyes,
temples, and root of the nose.
Third degree. The upper half of the face painted green and the
lower half red.
Fourth degree. The forehead and the left side of the face from
the outer canthus of the eye downward is painted green; four spots
of vermilion are made with the tip of the finger upon the forehead
and four upon the green surface of the left cheek.
According to Sikassige, a Mille Lacs Midē' priest, the
ornamentation practiced during his youth was as follows:
First degree. A broad band of green across the forehead and a
narrow stripe of vermilion across the face just below the eyes.
Second degree. A narrow stripe of vermilion across the temple,
eyelids, and the root of the nose, a short distance above which is a
similar stripe of green, then another of vermilion, and above this
again one of green.
Third degree. Red and white spots are daubed all over the face,
the spots averaging three-fourths of an inch each in diameter.
Fourth degree. Two forms are admissible; in the former the face
is painted red, with a stripe of green extended diagonally across it
from the upper part of the left temporal region to the lower part
of the right cheek. In the latter the face is painted red with two
short, horizontal parallel green bars across the forehead.
Either of these may be adopted as a sign of mourning by a man
whose deceased son had been intended for the priesthood of the Grand
Medicine Society.
The religious and ceremonial use of the color red by the New Zealanders
is mentioned by Taylor (_d_):
Closely connected with religion, was the feeling they
entertained for the Kura, or Red Paint, which was the sacred color;
their idols, Pataka, sacred stages for the dead, and for offerings
or sacrifices, Urupa graves, chief’s houses, and war canoes, were
all thus painted.
The way of rendering anything tapu was by making it red. When
a person died, his house was thus colored; when the tapu was laid
on anything, the chief erected a post and painted it with the kura;
wherever a corpse rested, some memorial was set up, oftentimes the
nearest stone, rock, or tree served as a monument; but whatever
object was selected, it was sure to be made red. If the corpse were
conveyed by water, wherever they landed a similar token was left;
and when it reached its destination, the canoe was dragged on shore,
thus distinguished, and abandoned. When the hahunga took place,
the scraped bones of the chief, thus ornamented, and wrapped in a
red-stained mat, were deposited in a box or bowl, smeared with the
sacred color, and placed in a tomb. Near his final resting place a
lofty and elaborately carved monument was erected to his memory;
this was called he tiki, which was also thus colored.
In former times the chief anointed his entire person with red
ocher; when fully dressed on state occasions, both he and his
wives had red paint and oil poured upon the crown of the head and
forehead, which gave them a gory appearance, as though their skulls
had been cleft asunder.
Mr. S. Gason reports in Worsnop, op. cit.:
On the Cooper, Herbert, and Diamentina rivers of the North there
are no paintings in caves, but in special corroborees the bodies of
the leading dancers are beautifully painted with every imaginable
color, representing man, woman, animals, birds, and reptiles, the
outlines being nearly faultless, and in proportion, independent of
the blending of the colors.
These paintings take about seven or eight hours’ hard tedious
work for two men, one in front, the other at the back of the man
who is to be painted, and when these men who are painted display
themselves, surrounded by bright fires and rude torches, it has an
enchanting effect to the others. After the ceremony is over, the
paintings are allowed to be examined, and the artists congratulated
or criticised.
At the other ceremonies, after returning from “Bookatoo” (red
ocher expedition), they paint a few of their dancers with all the
colors of the rainbow, the outlines showing all the principal
species of snakes. They are well drawn and colored, and take many
hours of labor to complete.
These paintings of snakes are done for the purpose of having a
good harvest of snakes. The women are not allowed to attend at this
ceremony, as it is one of their strict secret dances.
A few notes of other ceremonial and religious uses of color are
presented.
Capt. John G. Bourke (_f_) says that the Moki employ the colors in
prayers--yellow for pumpkins, green for corn, and red for peaches.
Black and white bands are typical of rain, and red and blue bands, of
lightning.
In James’s Long (_k_), it is mentioned of the Omaha that the boy
who goes to fast on the hill top to see his guardian spirit, as
a preparation rubs his body over with whitish clay, but the same
ceremonial among the Ouenebigonghelins near Hudson bay is described by
Bacqueville de la Potherie (_d_), with the statement that the postulant
paints his face black.
Peter Martyr (_a_) says the natives of the Island of Hispaniola [Haiti]
when attending a festival at the religious edifice, go in a procession
having their bodies and faces painted in black, red, and yellow colors.
Some had feathers of the parrot and other birds, with which they
decorated themselves. The women had no decoration.
Pénicaut’s Relation, A. D. 1704, in Margry (_f_), gives an account of
decorations of the victims who die with the grand chief, or Sun of the
Natchez. Their faces were painted vermilion, as the author says, “lest
they by paleness should show their fear.” Though the practice may have
thus originated as a mere expedient, red thus used would become in time
a sacrificial color.
But the color red can not always be deduced from such an origin. It
is connected with the color of fire and of blood. The Romans on great
festivals painted the face of Jupiter Capitolinus with vermilion. They
painted in the same way all the statues of the gods, demi-gods, heroes,
fauns, and satyrs. Pan is described by Virgil in Ecl. X, line 27:
Pan, deus Arcadiæ venit, quem vidimus ipsi
Sanguineis ebuli baccis minioque rubentem.
These verses are rendered with spirit by R. C. Singleton, Virgil in
English Rhythm, London, 1871, though the translator wrote “cinnabar”
instead of “red lead” and might as well have used the correct word,
“minium,” which has the same prosodial quantity as cinnabar.
Pan came, the god of Arcady, whom we
Ourselves beheld, with berries bloody red
Of danewort, and with cinnabar aglow.
In Chapman’s translation of Homer’s hymn to Pan the god is again
represented stained with red, but with the original idea of blood.
A lynx’s hide, besprinkled round about
With blood, cast on his shoulders.
By imitation of greatness and the semblance of divinity the faces of
generals when they rode in triumph, e. g., Camillus as mentioned by
Pliny, quoting Verrius, were painted red.
On the tree which supports the Vatican figure of the Apollo Belvedere
are traces of an object supposed to be the στέμμα δελφικόν, which was
composed of bushy tufts of Delphian laurel bound with threads of red
wool into a series of knots and having at each end a tassel. This is
an old sign of consecration and is possibly connected with the
traditional gipsy sign of mutual binding in love signified by a red
knot, as mentioned in a letter from Mr. Charles G. Leland.
The Spaniards distinguished red as the color par excellence, and among
many of the savage and barbaric peoples red is the favorite and probably
once was the sacred color.
COLOR RELATIVE TO DEATH AND MOURNING.
Charlevoix (_a_) says of the Micmacs that “their mourning consisted in
painting themselves black and in great lamentations.”
Champlain (_f_), in 1603, described the mourning posts of the
northeastern Algonquian tribes as painted red.
Keatings’ Long (_g_) tells that the Sac Indians blackened themselves
with charcoal in mourning and during its continuance did not use any
vermilion or other color for ornamentation.
Some of the Dakota tribes blackened the whole face with charcoal for
mourning, but ashes were also frequently employed.
Col. Dodge (_a_) says that the Sioux did not use the color green in
life, but that the corpses were wrapped in green blankets. The late Rev.
S. D. Hinman, who probably was, until his death within the last year,
the best authority concerning those Indians, contradicts this statement
in a letter, declaring that the Sioux frequently use the color green in
their face-painting, especially when they seek to disguise themselves,
as it gives so different an expression. If it is not used as generally
as blue or yellow the reason is that it is seldom found in the clays
which were formerly relied upon and therefore it required compounding.
Also they do not use green as painting or designation for the dead, but
red, that being their decoration for the “happy hunting ground.” But the
color for the mourning of the survivors is black.
Thomas L. McKenny (_a_) says the Chippeway men mourn by painting their
faces black.
The Winnebago men blacken the whole face with charcoal in mourning. The
women make a round black spot on both cheeks.
Dr. Boas, in Am. Anthrop. (_a_), says of Snanaimuq, a Salish tribe:
The face of the deceased is painted red and black. After the
death of husband or wife the survivor must paint his legs and his
blanket red. For three or four days he must not eat anything; then
three men or women give him food, and henceforth he is allowed to
eat.
In Bancroft (_d_) it is mentioned that the Guatemalan widower dyed his
body yellow.
Carl Bock (_b_) describes the mourning solemnities in Borneo as being
marked chiefly by white, the men and women composing the mourning
processions being enveloped in white garments, and carrying white flags
and weapons and ornaments, all of which were covered with white calico.
A. W. Howitt (_h_) says of the Dieri of Central Australia:
A messenger who is sent to convey the intelligence of a death
is smeared all over with white clay. On his approach to the camp
the women all commence screaming and crying most passionately. * *
* Widows and widowers are prohibited by custom from uttering a word
until the clay of mourning has worn off, however long it may remain
on them. They do not, however, rub it off, as doing so would be
considered a bad omen. It must absolutely wear off of itself. During
this period they communicate by means of gesture language.
A. C. Haddon (_b_) tells that among the western tribes of Torres strait
plastering the body with gray mud was a sign of mourning.
Elisée Reclus (_c_) says: “In sign of mourning the Papuans daub
themselves in white, yellow, or black, according to the tribes.”
D’Albertis (_d_) reports that the women of New Guinea paint themselves
black all over on the death of a relation, but that there are degrees of
mourning among the men, e. g., the son of the deceased paints his whole
body black, but other less related mourners may only paint the face more
or less black. In Vol. II, p. 9, a differentiation is shown, by which in
one locality the women daubed themselves from head to foot with mud. The
same author says, in the same volume, p. 378, that the skulls preserved
in their houses are always colored red and their foreheads frequently
marked with some rough design.
In Armenia, as told in The Devil Worshipers of Armenia, in Scottish
Geog. Mag., VIII, p. 592, widows dress in white.
In Notes in East Equatorial Africa, Bull. Soc. d’Anthrop. de Brux.
(_b_), it is told that in the region mentioned the women rub flour over
their bodies on the death or departure of the husband.
Sir G. Wilkinson (_a_) writes that the ancient Egyptians in their
mourning ceremonies wore white fillets, and describes the same use of
the color white in the funeral processions painted on the walls of
Thebes.
Dr. S. Wells Williams (_a_) reports of the Chinese mourning colors that
“the mourners are dressed entirely in white or wear a white fillet
around the head. In the southern districts half-mourning is blue,
usually exhibited in a pair of blue shoes and a blue silken cord woven
in the queue, instead of a red one; in the northern provinces white is
the only mourning color seen.”
Herr von Brandt, in the Ainos and Japanese, Journal of the Anthrop.
Inst. G. B. and I. (_e_), tells that the coffins of the deceased Mikados
were covered with red, that is, with cinnabar.
COLORS FOR WAR AND PEACE.
These colors, respecting the Algonquian Indians, are mentioned in 1763,
as published in Margry, to the effect that red feathers on the pipe
signify war, and that other colors [each of which may have a modifying
or special significance] mean peace.
W. W. H. Davis (_b_) recounts that “in 1680 the Rio Grande Pueblos
informed the Spanish officers that they had brought with them two
crosses, one painted red, which signified war, and the other white,
which indicated peace, and they might take their choice between the two.”
Capt. de Lamothe Cadillac (_b_), writing in the year 1696 of the
Algonquians of the Great Lake region near Mackinac, etc., describes
their decorations for war as follows:
On the day of departure the warriors dress in their best. They
color their hair red; they paint their faces red and black with much
skill and taste, as well as the whole of their bodies. Some have
headdresses with the tail feathers of eagles or other birds; others
have them decorated with the teeth of wild beasts, such as the wolf
or tiger [wild cat]. Several adorn their heads, in lieu of hats,
with helmets bearing the horns of deer, roebuck, or buffalo.
Schoolcraft (_r_) says that blue signifies peace among the Indians of
the Pueblo of Tesuque.
The Dakota bands lately at Grand river agency had the practice of
painting the face red from the eyes down to the chin when going to war.
The Absaroka or Crow Indians generally paint the forehead red when on
the warpath. This distinction of the Crows is also noted by the Dakota
in recording pictographic narratives of encounters with the Crows.
Haywood (_e_) says of the Cherokees:
When going to war their hair is combed and annointed with bear’s
grease and the red root, _Sanguinaria canadensis_, and they adorn
it with feathers of various beautiful colors, besides copper and
iron rings, and sometimes wampum or peak in the ears; and they paint
their faces all over as red as vermilion, making a circle of black
about one eye and another circle of white about the other.
H. H. Bancroft (_e_) tells that when a Modoc warrior paints his face
black before going into battle it means victory or death, and that he
will not survive a defeat. In the same volume, p. 105, he says that when
a Thlinkit arms himself for war he paints his face and powders his hair
a brilliant red. He then ornaments his head with a white eagle feather
as a token of stern, vindictive determination.
Mr. Dorsey reports that when the Osage men go to steal horses from the
enemy they paint their faces with charcoal. [Possibly this may be for
disguise, on the same principle that burglars use black crape.] The same
authority gives the following description of the Osage paint for war
parties:
Before charging the foe the Osage warriors paint themselves
anew. This is called the death paint. If any of the men die with
this paint on them the survivors do not put on any other paint.
All the gentes on the “Left” side use the “fire paint,” which
is red. It is applied by them with the left hand all over the face.
And they use prayers about the fire: “As the fire has no mercy, so
should we have none.” Then they put mud on the cheek, below the left
eye, as wide as two or more fingers. The horse is painted with some
of the mud on the left cheek, shoulder, and thigh.
The following extract is from Belden (_b_):
The sign paints used by the Sioux Indians are not numerous, but
very significant. When the warriors return from the warpath and have
been successful in bringing back scalps, the squaws, as well as the
men, paint with vermilion a semicircle in front of each ear. The bow
of the arc is toward the nose and the points of the half-circle on
the top and bottom of the ear; the eyes are then reddened and all
dance over the scalps.
John Lawson (_a_) says of the North Carolina Indians:
When they go to war * * * they paint their faces all over red,
and commonly make a circle of black about one eye and another circle
of white about the other, while others bedaub their faces with
tobacco-pipe clay, lampblack, black lead, and divers other colors,
etc.
De Brahm, in documents connected with the History of South Carolina
(_a_), reports that the Indians of South Carolina “painted their
faces red in token of friendship and black in expression of warlike
intentions.”
Rev. M. Eells (_a_) says of the Twana Indians of the Skokomish
reservation that when about to engage in war “they would tamanamus in
order to be successful and paint themselves with black and red, making
themselves as hideous as possible.”
The U. S. Exploring Expedition (_b_), referring to a tribe near the
Sacramento river, tells that the chief presented them with a tuft of
white feathers stuck on a stick about 1 foot long, which was supposed to
be a token of friendship.
Dr. Boas, in Am. Anthrop. (_b_), says of the Snanaimuq that before
setting out on war expeditions they painted their faces red and black.
Peter Martyr (_b_) says of the Ciguaner Indians:
The natives came out of the forest painted and daubed with
spots. For it is their custom, when they go to war, to daub
themselves from the face to the knee with black and scarlet or
purple color in spots, which color they [obtain] from some curious
fruits resembling “Pyren,” which they plant and cultivate in their
gardens with the greatest care. Similarly they also cause the hair
to grow in a thousand very curious shapes, if it is not by nature
long or black enough, so that they look not otherwise than if the
similar devil or hellish Circe came running out of hell.
Curr (_c_) tells that the Australians whitened themselves with white
clay when about to engage in war. Some African tribes, according to Du
Chaillu, also paint their faces white for war.
Haddon (_c_) says of the western tribe of Torres straits:
When going to fight the men painted their bodies red, either
entirely so or partially, perhaps only the upper portion of the body
and the legs below the knees, or the head and upper part of the body
only. The body was painted black all over by those who were actually
engaged in the death dance.
Du Chaillu (_c_) tells that among the Scandinavians there were peace and
war shields, the former white and the latter red. When the white was
hoisted on a ship it was a sign for the cessation of hostility, in the
same manner that a flag of the same color is now used to procure or mark
a truce. The red shield displayed on a masthead or in the midst of a
body of men was the sign of hostility.
COLOR DESIGNATING SOCIAL STATUS.
The following extract is translated, from Peter Martyr (_c_):
For the men are in body long and straight, possess a vivid and
natural complexion which compares somewhat with a red and genuine
flesh color. Their whole body and skin is lined over with sundry
paints and curious figures, which they consider as a handsome
ornament and fine decoration, and the uglier a man’s painting or
lining over is the prettier he considers himself to be, and is also
regarded as the most noble among their number.
Mr. Dorsey reports of the Osages that all the old men who have been
distinguished in war are painted with the decorations of their
respective gentes. That of the Tsicu wactake is as follows: The face
is first whitened all over with white clay; then a red spot is made on
the forehead and the lower part of the face is reddened; then with the
fingers the man scrapes off the white clay, forming the dark figures by
letting the natural color of the face show through.
H. H. Bancroft (_f_), citing authorities, says the central Californians
(north of San Francisco bay) formerly wore the down of Asclepias (?)
(white) as an emblem of royalty; and in the same volume, p. 691, it is
told that the natives of Guatemala wore red feathers in their hats, the
nobles only wearing green ones.
The notes immediately following are about the significant use of color,
not readily divisible into headings.
Belden (_c_) furnishes the following remarks:
The Yanktons, Sioux, Santees, and Cheyennes use a great deal
of paint. A Santee squaw paints her face the same as a white woman
does, only with less taste. If she wishes to appear particularly
taking she draws a red streak half an inch wide from ear to ear,
passing it over the eyes, the bridge of the nose, and along the
middle of the cheek. When a warrior desires to be left alone he
takes black paint or lampblack and smears his face; then he draws
zigzag lines from his hair to his chin by scraping off the paint
with his nails. This is a sign that he is trapping, is melancholy,
or in love.
A Sioux warrior who is courting a squaw usually paints his eyes
yellow and blue and the squaw paints hers red. I have known squaws
to go through the painful operation of reddening the eye-balls,
that they might appear particularly fascinating to the young men.
A red stripe drawn horizontally from one eye to the other means
that the young warrior has seen a squaw he could love if she would
reciprocate his attachment.
As narrated by H. H. Bancroft, the Los Angeles county Indian girls paint
the cheeks sparingly with red ocher when in love. This also prevails
among the Arikara, at Fort Berthold, Dakota.
La Potherie (_e_) says that the Indian girls of a tribe near Hudson
bay, when they have arrived at the age of puberty, at the time of
its sign, daub themselves with charcoal or a black stone, and in far
distant Yucatan, according to Bancroft (_h_), the young men restricted
themselves to black until they were married, indulging afterwards in
varied and bright colored figures.
The color green is chiefly used symbolically as that of grass, with
reference to which Father De Smet’s MS. on the dance of the Tinton Sioux
contains these remarks: “Grass is the emblem of charity and abundance;
from it the Indians derive the food for their horses and it fattens the
wild animals of the plains, from which they derive their subsistence.”
Brinton (_d_) gives the following summary:
Both green and yellow were esteemed fortunate colors by the
Cakchiquels, the former as that of the flourishing plant, the latter
as that of the ripe and golden ears of maize. Hence, says Coto, they
were also used to mean prosperity.
The color white, _zak_, had, however, by far the widest
metaphorical uses. As the hue of light, it was associated with day,
dawn, brightness, etc.
Marshall (_b_) gives as the explanation why certain gracious official
documents are sealed with green that the color expresses youth, honor,
beauty, and especially liberty.
H. M. Stanley (_a_) gives the following use of white as a sign of
innocence: “Qualla drew a piece of pipeclay and marked a broad white
band running from the wrist to the shoulder along each arm of Ngalyema,
as a sign to all men present that he was guiltless.”
H. Clay Trumbull (_a_) says:
The Egyptian amulet of blood friendship was red, as representing
the blood of the gods. The Egyptian word for “red” sometimes stood
for “blood.” The sacred directions in the Book of the Dead were
written in red; hence follows our word “rubrics.” The rabbis say
that, when persecution forbade the wearing of the phylacteries
with safety, a red thread might be substituted for this token of
the covenant with the Lord. It was a red thread which Joshua gave
to Rahab as a token of her covenant relations with the people of
the Lord. The red thread, in China, to-day, binds the double cup,
from which the bride and bridegroom drink their covenant draught
of “wedding wine,” as if in symbolism of the covenant of blood.
And it is a red thread which, in India, to-day, is used to bind a
sacred amulet around the arm or the neck. * * * Upon the shrines in
India the color red shows that worship is still living there; red
continues to stand for blood.
Mr. Mooney, in the Seventh Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology, shows
that to the Cherokee the color blue signifies grief or depression of
spirits, a curious parallel to the colloquial English phrase “has the
blues” and wholly opposite to the poetical symbol of blue for hope.
The notes above collected on the general topic of color symbolism might
be indefinitely extended. Those presented, however, are typical and
perhaps sufficient for the scope of the present work. In regarding
ideography of colors the first object is to expunge from consideration
all merely arbitrary or fanciful decorations, which is by no means easy,
as ancient customs, even in their decadence or merely traditional,
preserve a long influence. But as a generalization it seems that all
common colors have been used in historic times for nearly all varieties
of ideographic expression by the several divisions of men, and that
they have differed fundamentally in the application of those colors.
Yet there was an intelligent origin in each one of those applications
of color. With regard to mourning the color black is now considered
to be that of gloom. It was still earlier expressed by casting ashes
or earth over the head and frame, and possibly the somber paint was
adopted for cleanliness, the concept being preserved and indeed
intensified by durable blackness instead of the mere transient dinginess
of dirt, although the actual defilement by the latter is thereby only
symbolized. This gloom is the expression of the misery of the survivors,
perhaps of their despair as not expecting any happiness to the dead
or any hope of a meeting in another world. Other lines of thought are
shown by blue, considered as the supposed sky or heavenly home of the
future, and by green, as suggesting renewal or resurrection, and those
concepts determine the mourning color of some peoples. Red or yellow may
only refer to the conceptions of the colors of flames, and therefore
might simply be an objective representation of the disposition of the
corpse, which very often was by cremation. But sometimes these colors
are employed as decoration and display to proclaim that the dead go
to glory. White, used as frequently by the populations of the world
as other funeral colors, may have been only to assert the purity and
innocence of the departed, an anticipation of the flattering obituary
notices or epitaphs now conventional in civilized lands.
With regard to the color red, it may be admitted that it originally
represents blood; but it may be, and in fact is, used for the
contradictory concepts of war and peace. It is used for war as
suggesting the blood of the enemy, for peace and friendship to signify
the blood relation or blood covenant, the strongest tie of love and
friendship.
So it would seem that, while colors have been used ideographically,
the ideas which determined them were very diverse and sometimes their
application has become wholly conventional and arbitrary. A modern
military example may be in point which has no connection with the
well-known squib of an English humorist. One of the officers of the
U. S. Army of the last generation when traveling in Europe was much
disgusted to observe that a green uniform was used in some of the armies
for the corps of engineers and for branches of the service other
than rifles or tirailleurs. He insisted that the color naturally and
necessarily belongs to the Rifles, because the soldiers of that arm
when clad with that color were most useful as skirmishers in wooded
regions. This reason for the selection of green for the riflemen who
composed a part of the early army of the United States is correct, but
in the necessity for the distinction of special uniforms for the several
component parts of a military establishment, whether in Europe or
America, the original and often obsolete application of color was wholly
disregarded and colors were selected simply because they were not then
appropriated by other branches of the service. So in the late formation
of the signal corps of the U. S. Army, the color of orange, which had
belonged to the old dragoons, was adopted simply because it was a good
color no longer appropriated.
With these changes by abandonment and adoption comes fashion, which has
its strong effect. It is even exemplified where least expected, i. e.,
in Stamboul. Every one knows that the descendants of the Prophet alone
are entitled to wear green turbans, but a late Sultan, not being of the
blood of Mohammed, could not wear the color, so the emirs who could do
so carefully abstained from green in his presence and the color for the
time was unfashionable.
As the evolution of clothing commenced with painting and tattooing, it
may be admitted that what is now called fashion must have had its effect
on the earlier as on the later forms of personal decoration. Granting
that there was an ideographic origin to all designs painted on the
person, the ambition or vanity of individuals to be distinctive and to
excel must soon have introduced varieties and afterward imitations of
such patterns, colors, or combinations as favorably struck the local
taste. The subject therefore is much confused.
An additional suggestion comes from the study of the Mexican codices. In
them color often seems to be used according to the fancy of the scribe.
Compare pages 108 and 109 of the Codex Vaticanus, in Kingsborough, Vol.
II, with pages 4 and 5 of the Codex Telleriano Remensis, in part 4 of
Kingsborough, Vol. I, where the figures and their signification are
evidently the same, but the coloration is substantially reversed.
A comparison of Henry R. Schoolcraft’s published coloration with the
facts found by the recent examination of the present writer is set forth
with detail on page 202, supra.
In his copious illustrations colors were exhibited freely and with
stated significance, whereas, in fact, the general rule in regard to
the birch-bark rolls is that they were never colored at all; indeed,
the bark was not adapted to coloration. His colors were painted on and
over the true scratchings, according to his own fancy. The metaphorical
coloring was also used by him in a manner which, to any thorough student
of the Indian philosophy and religions, seems absurd. Metaphysical
significance is attached to some of the colored devices, or, as he
calls them, symbols, which could never have been entertained by a
people in the stage of culture of the Ojibwa, and those devices, in
fact, were ideograms or iconograms.
SECTION 4.
GESTURE AND POSTURE SIGNS DEPICTED.
Among people where a system of ideographic gesture signs has prevailed
it would be expected that their form would appear in any mode of
pictorial representation used with the object of conveying ideas or
recording facts. When a gesture sign had been established and it became
necessary or desirable to draw a character or design to convey the same
idea, nothing could be more natural than to use the graphic form or
delineation which was known and used in the gesture sign. It was but one
more step, and an easy one, to fasten upon bark, skins, or rocks the
evanescent air pictures of the signs.
In the paper “Sign language among the North American Indians,” published
in the First Ann. Rep. of the Bureau of Ethnology, a large number
of instances were given of the reproduction of gesture lines in the
pictographs made by those Indians, and they appeared to be most frequent
when there was an attempt to convey subjective ideas. It was suggested,
therefore, that those pictographs which, in the absence of positive
knowledge, are the most difficult of interpretation were those to which
the study of sign-language might be applied with advantage. The topic
is now more fully discussed. Many pictographs in the present work, the
meaning of which is definitely known from direct sources, are noted in
connection with the gesture-signs corresponding with the same idea,
which signs are also understood from independent evidence or legitimate
deduction.
Dr. Edkins (_c_) makes the following remarks regarding the Chinese
characters, which are applicable also to the picture-writing of the
North American Indians, and indeed to that of all peoples among whom it
has been cultivated:
The use of simple natural shapes, such as the mouth, nose, eye,
ear, hand, foot, as well as the shape of branches, trees, grass,
caves, holes, rivers, the bow, the spear, the knife, the tablet, the
leaf--these formed, in addition to pictures of animals, much of the
staple of Chinese ideographs.
Attention should be drawn to the fact that the mouth and the
hand play an exceptionally important part in the formation of the
symbols.
Men were more accustomed then than now to the language of signs
by the use of these organs. Perhaps three-twentieths of the existing
characters are formed by their help as one element.
This large use of the mouth and hand in forming characters is,
as we may very reasonably suppose, only a repetition of what took
place when the words themselves were made.
There is likely to be a primitive connection between
demonstratives and names for the hand, because the hand is used in
pointing.
Fig. 983 is a copy of a colored petroglyph on a rock in the valley of
Tule river, California, further described on page 52, et seq., supra.
_a_, a person weeping. The eyes have lines running down to the breast,
below the ends of which are three short lines on either side. The arms
and hands are in the exact position for making the gesture for rain. See
_h_ in Fig. 999, meaning eye-rain, and also Fig. 1002. It was probably
the intention of the artist to show that the hands in this gesture
should be passed downward over the face, as probably suggested by the
short lines upon the lower end of the tears. It is evident that sorrow
is portrayed.
[Illustration: FIG. 983.--Rock painting. Tule river, California.]
_b_, _c_, _d_, six persons apparently making the gesture for “hunger”
by passing the hands towards and backward from the sides of the body,
suggesting a gnawing sensation. The person, _d_, shown in a horizontal
position, may possibly denote a “dead man,” dead of starvation, this
position being adopted by the Ojibwa, Blackfeet, and others as a common
device to represent a dead body. The varying lengths of head ornaments
denote different degrees of status as warriors or chiefs.
_e_, _f_, _g_, _h_, _i_. Human forms of various shapes making gestures
for negation, or more specifically “nothing, nothing here,” a natural
and universal gesture made by throwing one or both hands outward toward
either side of the body. The hands are extended, and, to make the action
apparently more emphatic, the extended toes are also shown on _e_, _f_,
_g_, and _i_. The several lines upon the leg of _i_ probably indicate
trimmings upon the leggings.
The character at _j_ is strikingly similar to the Alaskan pictographs
(see _b_ of Fig. 460), indicating self with the right hand, and the left
pointing away, signifying to go.
_k._ An ornamented head with body and legs. It may refer to a Shaman,
the head being similar to the representations of such personages by the
Ojibwa and Iroquois.
Similar drawings occur at a distance of about 10 miles southeast of this
locality as well as at other places toward the northwest, and it appears
probable that the pictograph was made by a portion of a tribe which had
advanced for the purpose of selecting a new camping place, but failed
to find the quantities of food necessary for sustenance, and therefore
erected this notice to inform their followers of their misfortune and
determined departure toward the northwest. It is noticeable that the
picture is so placed upon the rock that the extended arm of _j_ points
toward the north.
The following examples are selected from a large number that could
be used to illustrate those gesture signs known to be included in
pictographs. Others not referred to in this place may readily be noticed
in several parts of the present paper where they appear under other
headings.
[Illustration: FIG. 984.--Coward.]
Fig. 984.--Afraid-of-him. Red-Cloud’s Census. The following is the
description of a common gesture sign used by the Dakotas for afraid,
fear, coward:
Crook the index, close the other fingers, and, with its back upward,
draw the right hand backward about a foot, from 18 inches in front of
the right breast. Conception, “Drawing back.”
[Illustration: FIG. 985.--Coward.]
Fig. 985.--Afraid-of-him. Red-Cloud’s Census. This is obviously the same
device without clear depiction of the arm, which is explained by the
preceding.
[Illustration: FIG. 986.--Little-Chief.]
Fig. 986.--Little-Chief. Red-Cloud’s Census. A typical gesture sign for
chief is as follows:
Raise the forefinger, pointed upwards, in a vertical direction and then
reverse both finger and motion; the greater the elevation the “bigger”
the chief. In this case the elevation above the head is slight, so the
chief is “little.”
[Illustration: FIG. 987.--Hit.]
Fig. 987.--The Dakotas went out in search of the Crows in order to
avenge the death of Broken-Leg-Duck. They did not find any Crows, but,
chancing on a Mandan village, captured it and killed all the people in
it. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1787-’88.
The mark on the tipi is not the representation of a hatchet or tomahawk,
but is explained by the gesture sign for “hit by a bullet from a gun,”
made by the Dakotas as follows:
With the hands in the position of the completion of the sign for
discharge of a gun, draw the right hand back from the left, that is,
in toward the body; close all the fingers except the index, which is
extended, horizontal, back toward the right, pointing straight outward,
and is pushed forward against the center of the stationary left hand
with a quick motion. Conception, “Bullet comes to a stop. It struck.”
[Illustration: FIG. 988.--Cow.]
Fig. 988.--The first stock cattle were issued to them. American-Horse’s
Winter Count, 1875-’76. The figure represents a cow surrounded by
people. A common gesture sign distinguishing the cattle brought by
Europeans from the buffalo is as follows:
Make sign for buffalo, then extend the left forefinger and draw the
extended index across it repeatedly at different places. Literally,
spotted buffalo.
[Illustration: FIG. 989.--Two.]
Fig. 989.--Kills-two. Red-Cloud’s Census. In this figure only the
suggestion of number is in point. Two fingers are extended.
[Illustration: FIG. 990.--Sign for Dakota.]
Fig. 990.--Four Crow Indians killed by the Minneconjou Dakotas.
The-Swan’s Winter Count, 1864-’65.
The four heads and necks are shown. The pictograph shows the tribe of
the conquerors and not that of the victims. The gesture sign for Dakota
is as follows:
Forefinger and thumb of right hand extended (others closed) are drawn
from left to right across the throat as though cutting it. The Dakotas
have been named the “cut-throats” by some of the surrounding tribes.
[Illustration: FIG. 991.--Noon.]
Fig. 991.--Noon. Red-Cloud’s Census. A Dakotan gesture sign for noon is
as follows:
Make a circle with the thumb and index for sun, and then hold the hand
overhead, the outer edge uppermost.
[Illustration: FIG. 992.--Hard.]
Fig. 992.--Hard. Red-Cloud’s Census. This is the representation of a
stone hammer and coincides with the Dakotan gesture sign for hard as
follows:
Same as the sign for stone, which is: With the back of the arched right
hand strike repeatedly in the palm of the left, held horizontal, back
outward, at the height of the breast and about a foot in front; the ends
of the fingers point in opposite directions. Refers to the time when the
stone hammer was the hardest pounding instrument the Indians knew.
[Illustration: FIG. 993.--Moon.]
Fig. 993.--Little-Sun. Red-Cloud’s Census. The moon is expressed both in
gestural and oral language as sun-little.
[Illustration: FIG. 994.--Old-Cloud.]
Fig. 994.--Old-Cloud. Red-Cloud’s Census. Cloud is drawn in blue in the
original; old is signified by drawing a staff in the hand of the man.
The Dakotan gesture for old is described as follows:
With the right hand held in front of right side of body, as though
grasping the head of a walking-stick, describe the forward arch
movement, as though a person walking was using it for support. “Decrepit
age dependent on a staff.”
[Illustration: FIG. 995.--Call-for.]
Fig. 995.--Call-for. Red-Cloud’s Census. The gesture for come or to call
to one’s self is shown in this figure. This is similar to that prevalent
among Europeans, and so requires no explanation.
[Illustration: FIG. 996.--Wise-Man.]
Fig. 996.--The-Wise-Man was killed by enemies.
Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1797-’98. The following gesture sign
explains this figure:
Touch the forehead with the right index and then make the sign for big
directly in front of it. Conception, “Big brain.”
In this as in other delineations of gesture the whole of the sign could
not be expressed, but only that part of it which might seem to be the
most suggestive.
[Illustration: FIG. 997.--Sign for pipe.]
Fig. 997 is taken from the winter count of Battiste Good and is drawn to
represent the sign for pipe, which it is intended to signify. The sign
is made by placing the right hand near the upper portion of the breast,
the left farther forward, and both held so that the index and thumb
approximate a circle, as if holding a pipe-stem. The remaining fingers
are closed.
The point of interest in this character is that, instead of drawing a
pipe, the artist drew a human figure making the sign for pipe, showing
the intimate connection between gesture-signs and pictographs. The pipe,
in this instance, was the symbol of peace.
[Illustration: FIG. 998.--Searches-the-Heavens.]
Fig. 998.--Mahpiya-wakita, Searches-the-Heavens; from the Oglala Roster.
The cloud is drawn in blue, the searching being derived from the
expression of that idea in gesture by passing the extended index of
one hand (or both) forward from the eye, then from right to left, as
if indicating various uncertain localities before the person, i. e.,
searching for something. The lines from the eyes are in imitation of
this gesture.
WATER.
[Illustration: FIG. 999.--Water symbols.]
The Chinese character for to give water is _a_, in Fig. 999, which may
be compared with the common Indian gesture to drink, to give water,
viz: “Hand held with the tips of fingers brought together and passed
to the mouth, as if scooping up water” (see Fig. 1000), obviously from
primitive custom, as with Mojaves, who still drink with scooped hands,
throwing the water to the mouth.
[Illustration: FIG. 1000.--Gesture sign for drink.]
Another common Indian gesture sign for water to drink--I want to
drink--is: “Hand brought downward past the mouth with loosely extended
fingers, palm toward the face.” This appears in the Mexican character
for drink, _b_, in Fig. 999, taken from Pipart (_a_). Water, i. e.,
the pouring out of water with the drops falling or about to fall, is
shown in Fig. 999, _c_, taken from the same author (_b_), being the
same arrangement of them as in the Indian gesture-sign for rain, shown
in Fig. 1002, the hand, however, being inverted. Rain in the Mexican
picture-writing is sometimes shown by small circles inclosing a dot, as
in the last two designs, but not connected together, each having a short
line upward marking the line of descent. Several other pictographs for
rain are given below.
[Illustration: FIG. 1001.--Water, Egyptian.]
With the gesture sign for drink may be compared Fig. 1001, the Egyptian
goddess Nu in the sacred sycamore tree, pouring out the water of life
to the Osirian and his soul represented as a bird, in Amenti, from a
funereal stelē in Cooper’s Serpent Myths (_b_).
The common Indian gesture for river or stream--water--is made by passing
the horizontal flat hand, palm down, forward and to the left from the
right side in a serpentine manner.
The Egyptian character for the same is _d_ in Fig. 999, taken from
Champollion’s Dictionary (_b_). The broken line is held to represent the
movement of the water on the surface of the stream. When made with one
line less angular and more waving it means water. It is interesting to
compare with this the identical character in the syllabary invented by a
West African negro, Mormoru Doalu Bukere, for water, _e_, in Fig. 999,
mentioned by Dr. Tylor (_b_).
The abbreviated Egyptian sign for water as a stream is _f_, in Fig. 999,
taken from Champollion, loc. cit., and the Chinese for the same is as in
_g_, same figure.
In the picture writing of the Ojibwa the Egyptian abbreviated character,
with two lines instead of three, appears with the same signification.
[Illustration: FIG. 1002.--Gesture for rain.]
The Egyptian character for weep, _h_, in Fig. 999, i. e., an eye with
tears falling, is also found in the pictographs of the Ojibwa, published
by Schoolcraft (_o_), and is also made by the Indian gesture of drawing
lines by the index repeatedly downward from the eye, though perhaps more
frequently made by the full sign for rain--made with the back of the
hand downward from the eye--“eye rain.” The sign is as follows, as made
by the Shoshoni, Apache, and other Indians: Hold the hand (or hands) at
the height of and before the shoulder, fingers pendent, palm down, then
push it downward a short distance, as shown in Fig. 1002. That for heat
is the same, with the difference that the hand is held above the head
and thrust downward toward the forehead; that for to weep is made by
holding the hand as in rain, and the gesture made from the eye downward
over the cheek, back of the fingers nearly touching the face.
[Illustration: FIG. 1003.--Water sign. Moki.]
The upper design in Fig. 1003, taken from the manuscript catalogue of
T.V. Keam, is water wrought into a meandering device, which is the
conventional generic sign of the Hopitus. The two forefingers are joined
as in the lower design in the same figure.
In relation to the latter, Mr. Keam says: “At the close of the religious
festivals the participants join in a parting dance called the ‘dance of
the linked finger.’ They form a double line, and crossing their arms in
front of them they lock the forefingers of either hand with those of
their neighbors, in both lines, which are thus interlocked together, and
then dance, still interlocked by this emblematic grip, singing their
parting song. The meandering designs are emblems of this friendly dance.”
CHILD.
The Arapaho sign for _child_, _baby_, is the forefinger in the mouth, i.
e., a nursing child, and a natural sign of a deaf-mute is the same. The
Egyptian figurative character for the same is seen in Fig. 1004 _a_. Its
linear form is _b_, same figure, and its hieratic is _c_, Champollion
(_c_).
These afford an interpretation to the ancient Chinese form for _son_,
_d_ in same figure, given in Journ. Royal Asiatic Society, I, 1834,
p. 219, as belonging to the Shang dynasty, 1756-1112 B. C., and the
modern Chinese form, _e_, which, without the comparison, would not
be supposed to have any pictured reference to an infant with hand or
finger at or approaching the mouth, denoting the taking of nourishment.
Having now suggested this, the Chinese character for _birth_, _f_ in
same figure, is understood as a parallel expression of a common gesture
among the Indians, particularly reported from the Dakota, for _born_,
_to be born_; viz, place the left hand in front of the body a little
to the right, the palm, downward and slightly arched, then pass the
extended right hand downward, forward, and upward, forming a short curve
underneath the left, as in Fig. 1005 _a_. This is based upon the curve
followed by the head of the child during birth, and is used generically.
The same curve, when made with one hand, appears in Fig. 1005 _b_.
It may be of interest to compare with the Chinese _child_ the Mexican
abbreviated character for _man_, Fig. 1004 _g_, found in Pipart (_c_).
The character on the right is called the abbreviated form of the one by
its side.
[Illustration: FIG. 1004.--Symbols for child and man.]
The Chinese character for _man_ is Fig. 1004 _h_, and may have the same
obvious conception as a Dakota sign for the same signification: “Place
the extended index pointing upward and forward before the lower portion
of the abdomen.”
[Illustration: FIG. 1005.--Gestures for birth.]
A typical sign made by the Indians for _no_, _negation_, is as follows:
The hand extended or slightly curved is held in front of the body, a
little to the right of the median line; it is then carried with a rapid
sweep a foot or more farther to the right.
The sign for _none_, _nothing_, sometimes used for simple negation,
is made by throwing both hands outward from the breast toward their
respective sides.
[Illustration: FIG. 1006.--Negation.]
With these compare the two forms of the Egyptian character for no,
negation, the two upper characters of Fig. 1006 taken from Champollion
(_d_). No vivid fancy is needed to see the hands indicated at the
extremities of arms extended symmetrically from the body on each side.
Also compare the Maya character for the same idea of negation, the
lowest character of Fig. 1006, found in Landa (_a_). The Maya word for
negation is “_ma_,” and the word “_mak_,” a six-foot measuring rod,
given by Brasseur de Bourbourg in his dictionary, apparently having
connection with this character, would in use separate the hands as
illustrated, giving the same form as the gesture made without the rod.
Another sign for _nothing_, _none_, made by the Comanche is: Flat
hand thrown forward, back to the ground, fingers pointing forward and
downward. Frequently the right hand is brushed over the left thus thrown
out.
[Illustration: FIG. 1007.--Hand.]
Compare the Chinese character for the same meaning, the upper character
of Fig. 1007. This will not be recognized as a hand without study of
similar characters, which generally have a cross-line cutting off
the wrist. Here the wrist bones follow under the crosscut, then the
metacarpal bones, and last the fingers, pointing forward and downward.
Leon de Rosny (_a_) gives the second and third characters in Fig. 1007
as the Babylonian glyphs for “hand,” the upper being the later and the
lower the archaic form.
[Illustration: FIG. 1008.--Signal of discovery.]
Fig. 1008 is reproduced from an ivory drill-bow (U. S. Nat. Mus., No.
24543) from Norton sound, Alaska. The figure represents the gesture sign
or signal of discovery. In this instance the game consists of whales,
and the signal is made by holding the boat paddle aloft and horizontally.
[Illustration: FIG. 1009.--Pictured gestures. Maya.]
Fig. 1009, reproduced from Fig. 365, p. 308, Sixth Ann. Rep. Bureau
of Ethnology, is a copy of Pl. 53 of the Dresden Codex, and is a good
example of the use of gestures in the Maya graphic system. The main
figure in the upper division of the plate, probably that of a deity or
ruler, holds his right hand raised to the level of the head, with the
index prominently separated from the other fingers. This is the first
part of a sign common to several of the Indian tribes of North America
and signifies affirmation or assent. The Indians close the fingers other
than the index more decidedly than in the plate and, after the hand
has reached its greatest height, shake it forward and down, but these
details, which indeed are not essential, could not well be indicated
pictorially. The human figure in the lower division is kneeling and
holds both hands easily extended before the body, palms down and index
fingers straight, parallel, and separated from the other fingers, which
are flexed or closed. This in its essentials is a common Indian gesture
sign for “the same,” “similar,” and also for “companion.” A sign nearly
identical is used by the Neapolitans to mean “union” or “harmony.” If
the two divisions of the plate are supposed to be connected, it might be
inferred through the principles of gesture language that the kneeling
man was praying to the seated personage for admission to his favor and
companionship, and that the latter was responding by a dignified assent.
[Illustration: FIG. 1010.--Pictured gestures. Guatemala.]
Dr. S. Habel (_e_) thus describes Fig. 1010, a sculpture in Guatemala:
The upper half represents the head, arms, and part of the breast
of a deity, apparently of advanced age, as indicated by the wrinkles
in the face. The right arm is bent at the elbow, the finger tips of
the outstretched hand apparently touching the region of the heart;
the left upper arm is drawn up, the elbow being almost as high as
the shoulder, and the fore arm and hand hanging at nearly right
angles. From the head and neck issue winding staves, to which not
only knots or nodes are attached, but also variously-shaped leaves,
buds, flowers, and fruits. Apparently these are symbols of speech,
replacing our letters and expressing the mandate of the deity.
The lower part represents an erect human figure with the face
turned up toward the deity imploring, and from the mouth emanates
a staff with nodes variously arranged. The appeal is still
further intensified by the raising of the right hand and arm. A
human head partly covers the head of the figure, from which hang
variously-shaped ribbons, terminating in the body and tail of a
fish. Above the right wrist is a double bracelet, apparently formed
of small square stones. The left hand is covered, gauntlet-like,
by a human skull, and the wrist is ornamented by a double scaly
bracelet. The waist is encircled by a stiff projecting girdle, which
differs from the general style of this ornament by having attached
to it on the side a human head, with another human head suspended
from it. From the front of the girdle emanate four lines, which
ascend towards the deity, uniting at the top. They seem to symbolize
the emotions of the person, not expressed by words. From behind the
image issue flames.
CHAPTER XIX.
CONVENTIONALIZING.
Before writing was invented by a people there were attempts in its
direction which are mentioned in other chapters of this paper. Human
forms were drawn pictorially in the act of making gesture signs and
in significant actions and attitudes and combinations of them. Other
natural objects, as well as those purely artificial, which represented
work or the result of work, were also drawn with many differing
significations. When any of these designs had become commonly adopted on
account of its striking fitness or even from frequent repetition with a
special signification, it became a conventional term of thought-writing,
with substantially the same use as when, afterward, the combinations
of letters of an alphabet into words became the arbitrary signs of
sound-writing. While the designs thus became conventional terms, their
forms became more and more abbreviated or cursive until in many cases
the original concept or likeness was lost. Sometimes when a specimen of
the original form is preserved, its identity in meaning with the current
form can be ascertained by correlation of the intermediate shapes.
The original ideography is often exhibited by exaggeration. For
instance, a loud voice has been sometimes indicated by a human face with
an enormous mouth. Hearing, among the Peruvians, was early expressed
by a man with very large ears; then by a head with such ears, and
afterwards by the form of the ears without the head. Soon such forms
became so conventionalized as to be practically ideographic writing.
In the same manner a numeral cipher has become the representation of a
mathematical quantity, a written musical note shows a kind and degree
of sound, and other pictured signs give values of weights and measures.
All of these signs express ideas independent of any language and may be
understood by peoples speaking all diversities of language.
So also the idea of smallness and subjection may be conveyed by drawing
an object in an obviously diminished size, of which examples are given
in this chapter. Another expedient, illustrations of which also appear,
is by repetition and combination, with reference to which the following
condensed remarks of James Summers (_a_) are in point:
The earliest Chinese characters were pictorial; but pictures
could not be made which would clearly express all ideas. One of the
means devised to express concepts that could not be indicated by a
simple sketch, was to combine two or more familiar pictures. For
instance, a man with a large eye represents “seeing;” two men, “to
follow;” three men, “many;” two men on the ground, “sitting.”
All other means failing, the present great mass of characters
was formed by a principle from which the class is called “phonetic;”
because in the characters classed under it, while one part (called
the “radical”) preserves its meaning, the other part (called the
“phonetic” or “primitive”) is used to give its own sound to the
whole figure. This part does sometimes, however, convey also its
symbolic meaning as well as its sound.
But while the original mode of expressing ideas required various
devices, when an idea had become established in pictography there always
appeared an attempt to simplify the figure and reduce it in size, so as
to require less space in the drafting surface and also to lessen the
draftsman’s labor. This was more obvious in the degree in which the
figure was complicated and of frequent employment.
For convenience the subject is divided into: 1. Conventional devices. 2.
Syllabaries and alphabets.
SECTION 1.
CONVENTIONAL DEVICES.
PEACE.
Among the North American Indians and in several parts of the world
where, as among the Indians, the hand-grasp in simple salutation has not
been found, the junction of the hands between two persons of different
tribes is the ceremonial for union and peace, and the sign for the same
concept is exhibited by the two hands of one person similarly grasped as
an invitation to, or signification of, union and peace. The ideogram of
clasped hands to indicate peace and friendship is found in pictographs
from many localities. The exhibition and presentation of the unarmed
hand may have affected the practice, but the concept of union by linking
is more apparent.
[Illustration: FIG. 1011.]
Fig. 1011.--The Dakotas made peace with the Cheyenne Indians. The-Swan’s
Winter Count, 1840-’41. Here the hands shown with fingers extended, and
therefore incapable of grasping a weapon, are approaching each other.
The different coloration of the arms indicates different tribes. The
device on the right is a rough form of the forearm of the Cheyenne
marked as mentioned several times in this work.
[Illustration: FIG. 1012.]
Fig. 1012.--The Dakotas made peace with the Pawnees. American-Horse’s
Winter Count, 1858-’59. The man on the left is a Pawnee.
[Illustration: FIG. 1013.]
Fig. 1013.--A Mandan and a Dakota met in the middle of the Missouri
River, each swimming halfway across. They shook hands there and made
peace. The-Flame’s Winter Count, 1791-’92.
Mulligan, post interpreter at Fort Buford, says that this was at Fort
Berthold, and is an historic fact; also that the same Mandan long
afterwards, killed the same Dakota.
[Illustration: FIG. 1014.]
Fig. 1014.--The Omahas came and made peace to get their people whom the
Dakotas held as prisoners. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1804-’05. The
attitudes and expressions are unusually artistic. The uniting line may
only intensify the idea of a treaty resulting in peace, but perhaps
recognizes the fact that the Omaha (on the left) and Dakota belong to
the same Siouan stock. The marks on the Omaha are not tribal, but refer
to the prisoners--the marks of their bonds.
[Illustration: FIG. 1015.]
Fig. 1015.--The Dakotas made peace with the Crows at Pine Bluff.
American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1816-’17. The arrow shows they had been
at war. The Indian at the left is a Crow. The distinctive and typical
arrangement of the hair of the several tribes in this and the preceding
figure are worthy of note.
[Illustration: FIG. 1016.]
Fig. 1016.--The Dakotas made peace with the Pawnees. Cloud-Shield’s
Winter Count, 1814-’15. The man with the marked forehead, blue in the
original, is a Pawnee, the other is a Dakota, whose body is smeared with
clay. The four arrows show that they had been at war, and the clasped
hands denote peace.
[Illustration: FIG. 1017.]
Fig. 1017.--They made peace with the Gros Ventres. American-Horse’s
Winter Count, 1803-’04. But one arrow is shown, indicating that the
subject in question was war, but that it was not waged at the time, as
would have been shown by two opposed arrows.
[Illustration: FIG. 1018.]
Fig. 1018.--Dakotas made peace with the Crow Indians. The-Swan’s Winter
Count, 1851-’52. Here the representatives of the two tribes show their
pipes crossed, indicating exchange as is expressed by a common gesture
sign.
[Illustration: FIG. 1019.]
Fig. 1019.--Made peace with Gen. Sherman and others at Fort Laramie.
The-Swan’s Winter Count, 1867-’68. This is the adoption of the white
man’s flag, as the paramount symbol on recognition of which peace was
made.
WAR.
[Illustration: FIG. 1020.]
Fig. 1020.--The Dakotas were at war with the Cheyennes. American-Horse’s
Winter Count, 1834-’35. The Cheyenne is the man with stripes on
his arm. The two arrows shot in opposite directions form one of the
conventional symbols for war.
[Illustration: FIG. 1021.]
Fig. 1021 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.” He explains that the five were killed in an encounter with
the Pawnees. The capote or headdress, always but not exclusively worn
by Dakota war parties, is shown, and is the special symbol of war as
also given in several other places in the same record. The five short
vertical lines below the arrow signify that five were killed.
[Illustration: FIG. 1022.]
Fig. 1022.--War-Eagle. Red-Cloud’s Census. This figure shows a highly
abbreviated conventional symbol. The pipe used in the ceremonial manner
explained on page 539 et seq. means war and not peace, and the single
eagle feather stands for the entire bird often called the war-eagle.
The adoption of a mat or mattress as an emblem of war or a military
expedition is discussed and illustrated, supra, p. 553, Fig. 782.
In the Jesuit Relation for 1606, p. 51, it is narrated that “The Huron
and Northern Algonkin chiefs, when their respective war parties met the
enemy, distributed among their warriors rods which they carried for the
purpose, and the warriors stuck them in the earth as a token that they
would not retreat any more than the rods would.”
In their pictographs the rods became represented by strokes which were
not only numerical, but signified warriors.
CHIEF.
[Illustration: FIG. 1023.--Chief-Boy.]
Fig. 1023.--Naca-haksila, Chief-Boy. From the Oglala Roster. The large
pipe held forward with the outstretched hand is among the Oglalas the
conventional device for chief. This is explained elsewhere by the
ceremonies attendant on the raising of war parties, in which the pipe
is conspicuous. That the human figure is a boy is indicated by the
shortness of the hair and the legs.
[Illustration: FIG. 1024.--War Chief. Passamaquoddy.]
Fig. 1024, drawn by a Passamaquoddy Indian, shows the manner of
representing a war chief by that tribe:
It signifies a chief with 300 braves. The relative magnitude of the
leading human figure indicates his rank. In this particular compare
Figs. 137, 138, and 142. The device is common in the Egyptian glyphs.
Dr. Worsnop, op. cit., makes the following remarks about a similar
device in Australia:
At Chasm island, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, indenting
Australia, the third person of a file of thirty-two painted on the
rock was twice the height of the others, and held in his hand
something resembling the waddy, or wooden sword, of the natives
of Port Jackson, and was probably intended to represent a chief.
They could not as with us, indicate superiority by clothing or
ornament, since they wear none of any kind, and therefore, with the
addition of a weapon similar to the ancients, they seem to have
made superiority of persons the principal emblem of superior power,
of which, indeed power is usually a consequence in the very early
stages of society.
The exhibition of horns as a part of the head dress, or pictorially
displayed as growing from the head, is generally among the tribes of
Indians an emblem of power or chieftancy. It is distinctly so asserted
by Schoolcraft, vol. I, p. 409, as regards the Ojibwa, and by Lafitau,
vol. II, 21, both authors presenting illustrations. The same concept
was ancient and general in the eastern hemisphere. The images of gods
and heads of kings were thus adorned, as at a later day were the crests
of the dukes of Brittany. Some writers have suggested that this symbol
was taken from the crescent moon, others that it referred to the vigor
of the bull. Col. Marshall (_a_), however, gives an instance of special
derivation. He says that the Todas, when idle, involuntarily twist and
split branches of twigs and pieces of cane into the likeness of buffalo
horns, because they dream of buffalo, live on and by it, and their whole
religion is based on the care of the cow.
COUNCIL.
[Illustration: FIG. 1025.]
Fig. 1025 is taken from the Winter Count of Battiste Good for the
year 1851-’52. In that year the first issue of goods was made to the
Dakotas, 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. 1026.]
Fig. 1026.--The-Good-White-Man returned and gave guns to the Dakotas.
American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1799-1800. The circle of marks represents
the people sitting around him, the flint-lock musket the guns.
[Illustration: FIG. 1027.]
Fig. 1027.--Council at Spotted-Tail agency. The-Flame’s Winter Count,
1875-’76. Here the circle composed of short lines pointing to the center
takes the conventional form frequently used to designate a council.
[Illustration: FIG. 1028.]
Fig. 1028.--Surrounds-them. Red-Cloud’s Census. This figure is
introduced in this place to show the distinction made by an
antagonistic “surround” and the peaceable ring depicted immediately
before.
[Illustration: FIG. 1029.]
Fig. 1029.--The Dakotas had a council with the whites on the Missouri
river below the Cheyenne agency, near the mouth of Bad creek. They had
many flags which the Good-White-Man gave them with their guns, and they
erected them on poles to show their friendly feelings. American-Horse’s
Winter Count, 1805-’06. This was perhaps their meeting with the Lewis
and Clarke expedition. The curved line is drawn to represent the council
lodge, which they made by opening several tipis and uniting them at
their sides to form a semicircle. The small dashes are for the people.
This is a compromise between the Indian and the European mode of
designating an official assemblage.
PLENTY OF FOOD.
[Illustration: FIG. 1030.]
Fig. 1030.--The Dakotas have an abundance of buffalo meat.
Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1856-’57. This is shown by the full drying
pole on which it was the usage after successful hunts to hang the pieces
of meat to be dried for preservation.
[Illustration: FIG. 1031.]
Fig. 1031.--The Oglalas had an abundance of buffalo meat and shared it
with the Brulés, who were short of food. American-Horse’s Winter Count,
1817-’18. The buffalo hide hung on the drying pole, with the buffalo
head above it, indicates an abundance of meat, as in the preceding
figure.
[Illustration: FIG. 1032.]
Fig. 1032 is taken from Battiste Good’s Winter Count for the year
1745-’46, in which the drying-pole is as usual supported by two forked
sticks or poles. This is a variant of the two preceding figures.
[Illustration: FIG. 1033.]
Fig. 1033.--Immense quantities of buffalo meat. The-Swan’s Winter Count,
1845-’46. This is another form of drying-pole in which a tree is used
for one of the supports. The pieces of meat would not be recognized as
such without explanation by the preceding figures.
[Illustration: FIG. 1034.]
Fig. 1034 is taken from the Winter Count of Battiste Good for the
year 1703-’04. The forked stick being one of the supports of the
drying pole or scaffold, indicates meat. The irregular circular
object means “heap,” i. e., large quantity, buffalo having been
very plentiful that year. The buffalo head denotes the kind of meat
stored. This is an abbreviated form of the device before presented, and
affords a suggestive comparison with some Egyptian hieroglyphics and
Chinese letters, both in their full pictographic origin and in their
abbreviation.
[Illustration: FIG. 1035.]
Fig. 1035.--The Dakotas had unusual quantities of buffalo. The-Swan’s
Winter Count, 1816-’17. This representation of a buffalo hide or side
is another sign for abundance of meat, and is the most abbreviated and
conventional of all, with the same significance, in the collections now
accessible.
[Illustration: FIG. 1036.]
Fig. 1036.--The Dakotas had unusual abundance of buffalo. The-Swan’s
Winter Count, 1861-’62. This is another mode of expressing the same
abundance. The buffalo tracks, shown by the cloven hoofs, are coming up
close to the tipi.
[Illustration: FIG. 1037.]
Fig. 1037.--They had an abundance of corn, which they got at the Ree
villages. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1823-’24.
The symbol shows the maize growing, and also is the tribal sign for
Arikara or Ree.
FAMINE.
[Illustration: FIG. 1038.]
Fig. 1038.--The Dakotas had very little buffalo meat, but plenty of
ducks in the fall. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1811-’12. The bare,
drying pole is easily interpreted, but the reversed or dead duck would
not be understood without explanation.
[Illustration: FIG. 1039.]
Fig. 1039.--Food was very scarce and they had to live on acorns.
Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1813-’14. The tree is intended for an oak
and the dots beneath it for acorns.
[Illustration: FIG. 1040.]
Fig. 1040.--A year of famine. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1787-’88.
They, i. e., the Dakotas, lived on roots, which are represented in front
of the tipi.
[Illustration: FIG. 1041.]
Fig. 1041.--They could not hunt on account of the deep snow, and were
compelled to subsist on anything they could get, as herbs (pézi) and
roots. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1790-’91.
[Illustration: FIG. 1042.]
Fig. 1042.--They had to sell many mules and horses to get food, as they
were starving. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1868-’69. White-Cow-Killer
calls it “Mules-sold-by-hungry-Sioux winter.” The figure is understood
as a conventionalized sign by reference to the historic fact
mentioned. The line of union between the horses’ necks shows that the
subject-matter was not a horse trade, but that both of the animals, i.
e., many, were disposed of.
[Illustration: FIG. 1043.]
Fig. 1043.--Kingsborough (_l_) gives the pictograph recording that “In
the year of One Rabbit and A. D. 1454 so severe a famine occurred that
the people died of starvation.” It is reproduced in Fig 1043.
STARVATION.
[Illustration: FIG. 1044.]
Fig. 1044.--Many horses were lost by starvation, as the snow was so deep
they couldn’t get at the grass. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1865-’66.
[Illustration: FIG. 1045.]
Fig. 1045, from the record of Battiste Good for the year 1720-’21,
signifies starvation, denoted by the bare ribs. This design is
abbreviated and conventionalized among the Ottawa and Pottawatomi
Indians. Among the latter a single line only is drawn across the breast,
shown in Fig. 1046. This corresponds also with one of the Indian
gesture-signs for the same idea.
[Illustration: FIG. 1046.]
See also the Abnaki sign of starvation, a pot upside down, in Fig. 456,
supra.
HORSES.
[Illustration: FIG. 1047.]
Fig. 1047.--They caught many wild horses south of the Platte river.
American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1811-’12. This figure shows a horse in
the process of being caught by a lasso.
[Illustration: FIG. 1048.]
Fig. 1048.--Many wild horses caught. The-Flame’s Winter Count, 1812-’13.
[Illustration: FIG. 1049.]
Fig. 1049.--Dakotas first used a lasso for catching wild horses.
The-Swan’s Winter Count, 1812-’13. In these two figures the lasso is
shown without the animal, thus becoming the conventional sign for wild
horse.
[Illustration: FIG. 1050.]
Fig. 1050.--Crow Indians stole 200 horses from the Minneconjou Dakotas,
near Black Hills. The-Swan’s Winter Count, 1849-’50. This figure is
inserted to show in the present connection the lunules, which signify
unshod horses. The Indians never shod their ponies, and the hoof marks
may be either of wild horses, herds of which formerly roamed the
prairies, or the common horses brought into subjection.
[Illustration: FIG. 1051.]
Fig. 1051.--Blackfeet Dakotas stole some American horses having shoes
on. Horseshoes seen for the first time. The-Swan’s Winter Count,
1802-’03. The horseshoe here depicted is the conventional sign for the
white man’s horse.
HORSE STEALING.
[Illustration: FIG. 1052.]
Fig. 1052.--Runs-off-the-Horse. Red-Cloud’s Census. “Runs off” in the
parlance of the plains means stealing.
[Illustration: FIG. 1053.]
Fig. 1053.--Runs-off-the-Horse. Red-Cloud’s Census. This figure explains
the one preceding. The man has in his hand a lariat or perhaps a lasso.
[Illustration: FIG. 1054.]
Fig. 1054.--Drags-the-Rope. Red-Cloud’s Census. This is a variant of
the last figure, without, however, the exhibition of anything, such as
tracks, to indicate horses.
[Illustration: FIG. 1055.]
Fig. 1055.--Dog, an Oglala, stole seventy horses from the Crows.
American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1822-’23. Each of the seven tracks stands
for ten horses. A lariat, which serves the purpose among others of a
long whip, and is usually allowed to trail on the ground, is shown in
the man’s hand.
[Illustration: FIG. 1056.]
Fig. 1056.--Sitting-Bear, American-Horse’s father, and others, stole
two hundred horses from the Flat Heads. American-Horse’s Winter Count,
1840-’41. A trailing lariat is in the man’s hand.
[Illustration: FIG. 1057.]
Fig. 1057.--Brings-lots-of-horses. Red-Cloud’s Census. This is a further
step in conventionalizing. The lariat is but slightly indicated as
connected with the horse track on the lower left-hand corner.
[Illustration: FIG. 1058.]
Fig. 1058.--The Utes stole all of the Brulé horses. Cloud-Shield’s
Winter Count, 1874-’75. The mere indication of a number of horse tracks
without any qualifying or determinative object means that the horses are
run off or stolen. This becomes the most conventionalized form of the
group.
[Illustration: FIG. 1059.]
Fig. 1059.--Steals-Horses. Red-Cloud’s Census. In this figure the horse
tracks themselves are more rude and conventionalized.
The Prince of Wied mentions, op. cit., p. 104, that in the Sac and Fox
tribes the rattle of a rattlesnake attached to the end of the feather
worn on the head signifies a good horse stealer. The stealthy approach
of the serpent, accompanied with latent power, is here clearly indicated.
[Illustration: FIG. 1060.]
Fig. 1060.--Making-the-Hole stole many horses from a Crow tipi. Such is
the translation in Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1849-’50. The man is
cutting the hole with a knife. Through the orifice thus made he obtains
access to the horse. But it is more probable that the single tipi
represents a village into which the horse-thief effected an entrance and
ran off the horses belonging to it.
KILL AND DEATH.
[Illustration: FIG. 1061.]
Fig. 1061.--Male-Crow, an Oglala, was killed by the Shoshoni.
American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1844-’45. The bow in contact with the
head of the victim is frequently the conventional sign for “killed by an
arrow.” This is not drawn in the Winter Counts on the same principle
as the touching with a lance or coup stick, elsewhere mentioned in this
paper, but is generally intended to mean killed, and to specify the
manner of killing, though in fact before the use of firearms the “coup”
was often counted by striking with a bow.
[Illustration: FIG. 1062.]
Fig. 1062.--Kills-in-tight-place. Red-Cloud’s Census. This man has
evidently been enticed into an ambush, to which his tracks lead.
[Illustration: FIG. 1063.]
Fig. 1063.--Uncpapas kill two Rees. The-Flame’s Winter Count, 1799-1800.
The object over the heads of the two Rees, projecting from the man
figure, is a bow, showing the mode of death. The hair of the Arickaras
is represented. This is clearly conventional and would not be understood
from the mere delineation.
[Illustration: FIG. 1064.]
Fig. 1064.--Kills-by-the-camp. Red-Cloud’s Census. The camp is shown by
the tipi, and the idea of “kill” by the bow in contact with the head of
the victim.
[Illustration: FIG. 1065.]
Fig. 1065.--Kills-Two. Red-Cloud’s Census. Here is the indication of
number by upright lines united by a horizontal line, as designating the
same occasion and the same people, two of whom are struck by the coup
stick.
[Illustration: FIG. 1066.]
Fig. 1066.--Feather-Ear-Rings was killed by the Shoshoni.
American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1842-’43. The four lodges and the many
blood-stains intimate that he was killed in a battle when four lodges of
Shoshoni were killed. Again appears the character for successful gunshot
wound, before explained in connection with Fig. 987.
[Illustration: FIG. 1067.]
Fig. 1067.--Kills-the-Bear. Red-Cloud’s Census. Here there appears to
be a bullet mark in the middle of the paw representing the middle of
the whole animal. The idea of death may be indicated by the reverse
attitude of the paws, which are turned up, corresponding with the slang
expression “toes up,” to indicate death.
[Illustration: FIG. 1068.]
Fig. 1068.--They killed a very fat buffalo bull. American-Horse’s
Winter Count, 1835-’36. This figure is introduced to show an ingenious
differentiation. The rough outline of the buffalo’s forequarters is
given sufficiently to show that the arrow penetrates to an unusual
depth, which indicates the mass of fat, into the region of the buffalo’s
respiratory organs, and therefore there is a discharge of blood not only
from the point of entrance of the arrow, but from the nostrils of the
animal. No device of an analogous character is found among five hundred
of the Dakotan pictographs studied, so that the designation of abnormal
fat is made evident.
[Illustration: FIG. 1069.]
Fig. 1069.--They killed many Gros Ventres in a village which they
assaulted. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1832-’33. The single scalped
head shows the killing. This conventional sign is so common as hardly to
require notice.
[Illustration: FIG. 1070.--Killed. Dakota.]
Fig. 1070, taken from Mrs. Eastman’s Dakota (_e_), shows the Dakota
pictograph for “killed”: _a_ is a woman and _b_ a man killed, and _c_
and _d_ a boy and girl killed.
[Illustration: FIG. 1071.--Life and death. Ojibwa.]
Fig. 1071, taken from Copway (_g_), gives two characters which severally
represent life and death, the black disk representing death and the
simple circle life.
[Illustration: FIG. 1072.--Dead. Iroquois.]
In Doc. Hist. N. Y. (_d_), is the illustration now copied as Fig. 1072
with the statement that it shows the fashion of painting the dead among
the Iroquois; the first two are men and the third is a woman, who is
distinguished only by the waistcloth that she wears.
The device is further explained by the following paragraphs from the
same volume, on p. 6, which add other details:
When they have lost any men on the field of battle they paint
the men with the legs in the air and without heads, and in the same
number as they have lost; and to denote the tribe to which they
belonged, they paint the animal of the tribe of the deceased on its
back, the paws in the air, and if it be the chief of the party that
is dead, the animal is without the head.
If there be only wounded, they paint a broken gun which,
however, is connected with the stock, or even an arrow, and to
denote where they have been wounded, they paint the animal of the
tribe to which the wounded belong with an arrow piercing the part
in which the wound is located; and if it be a gunshot they make the
mark of the ball on the body of a different color.
[Illustration: FIG. 1073.--Dead man. Arikara.]
Fig. 1073.--This is drawn by the Arikara for “dead man” and perhaps
suggests the concept of nothing inside, i. e., no life, with a stronger
emphasis than given to “lean” in Fig. 903, supra. It must be noted,
however, that the Hidatsa draw the same character for “man” simply.
La Salle, in 1680, wrote that when the Iroquois had killed people they
made red strokes with the figure of a man drawn in black with bandaged
eyes. As this bandaging was not connected with the form of killing, it
may be conjectured that it ideographically meant death--the light of
life put out.
For other devices to denote “Kill,” see Figs. 93 and 94.
SHOT.
In this group the figures show obvious similarity yet seem to be
graphic, or at least ideographic, but on examining the text of the
several records conventionality is developed.
[Illustration: FIG. 1074.]
Fig. 1074.--Shot-at. Red-Cloud’s Census. Here is shown the discharge of
guns and lines of passage of the bullets, one of which is graphically
displayed passing the neck of the human figure, but without either
graphic mark of wound or the conventional sign for “hit” or “it struck.”
He was shot at by many enemies, but was not hit.
[Illustration: FIG. 1075.]
Fig. 1075.--Shot. Red-Cloud’s Census. There is no doubt that this man, a
Dakota, was actually shot with an arrow.
[Illustration: FIG. 1076.]
Fig. 1076.--Shot-at-his-horse. Red-Cloud’s Census. Here again are the
flashes made by the discharge of guns and the horse tracks showing
horses, but no specific indication of hitting. The mark within the
right-hand horse track may be compared with the passing bullet in Fig.
1074. The horse was shot at but not hit.
[Illustration: FIG. 1077.]
Fig. 1077.--Shot-his-horse. Red-Cloud’s Census. This figure is to be
correlated with the last one, as it shows actual hitting and blood
flowing from the wound.
[Illustration: FIG. 1078.]
Fig. 1078.--Shot-in-front-the-lodge. Red-Cloud’s Census. Without
explanation derived from the context this figure would not be
understood. The right hand character means several bows united. Between
these and the tipi is the usual device for blood flowing vertically
downwards, meaning a fatal shot, and the device displayed horizontally
and touching the tipi means that the man shot belonged to that tipi or
lodge, in front of which he was shot.
COMING RAIN.
[Illustration: FIG. 1079.--Coming rain.]
Mr. Keam in his MS. describes Fig. 1079 as two forms of the symbol of
Aloseka, which is the bud of the squash. The form seen in the upper part
of the figure, drawn in profile, is also used by the Moki to typify the
east peak of the San Francisco mountains, the birthplace of the Aloseka;
when the clouds circle, it presages the coming rain. In the rock
carvings the curving profile is further conventionalized into straight
lines and assumes the lower form.
The collection of characters given in Figs. 1080 and 1081 are selected
from a list published by Maj. C. R. Conder (_b_). That list includes
all the Hittite designs distinctly deciphered which are so far known,
and they are divided by the author into two plates, one giving the
“Hittite emblems,” as he calls them, “of known sound,” and which are
all compared with the Cypriote, and some with the cuneiform, Egyptian,
and other characters; and the other comprising the “Hittite emblems of
uncertain sound.” The collection is highly suggestive for comparison of
the significance of many forms commonly appearing in several lands and
also as a study of conventionalizing. In these respects its presentation
renders it unnecessary to dwell as much as would otherwise be required
upon the collections of Egyptian and cuneiform characters, with which
students are more familiar and which teach substantially the same
lessons.
HITTITE EMBLEMS OF KNOWN SOUND.
[Illustration: FIG. 1080.--Hittite emblems of known sound.]
_a_, a crook. Cypriote _u_.
_b_, apparently a key. Cypriote _ke_. Compare the cuneiform emblem _ik_,
“to open.”
_c_, a tiara. Cypriote _ko_; Akkadian _ku_, “prince;” Manchu _chu_,
“lord.”
_d_, another tiara, apparently a variant of _c_.
_e_, hand and stick. Cypriote _ta_, apparently a causative prefix, like
the Egyptian determinative; Chinese _ta_, “beat.”
_f_, an herb. Cypriote _te_; Akkadian _ti_, “live;” Turkish _it_,
“sprout;” _ot_, “herb.”
_g_, the hand grasping. Cypriote _to_. Compare the Egyptian, cuneiform
and Chinese signs for “touch,” “take,” “have.” Akkadian _tu_, “have.”
_h_, apparently a branch. Cypriote _pa_. Compare Akkadian _pa_, “stick”
(Lenormant).
_i_, apparently a flower. Cypriote _pu_. Compare the Akkadian emblem
_pa_, apparently a flower. Akkadian _pu_, “long;” Tartar _boy_, “long,”
“growth,” “grass;” Hungarian _fu_, “herb.”
_j_, a cross. Cypriote _lo_; Carian _h_.
_k_, a yoke. Cypriote _lo_ and _le_; Akkadian _lu_, “yoke.”
_l_ probably represents rain. Compare the Egyptian, Akkadian, and
Chinese emblems for “rain,” “storm,” “darkness.”
_m_ seems to represent drops of water equivalent to the last. Cypriote
_re_.
_n_, possibly the “fire-stick.” Cypriote _ri_. Occurs as the name of a
deity. Akkadian _ri_, “bright,” the name of a deity.
_o_, two mountains. Cypriote _me_ or _mi_. The emblem for “country.”
_p_ resembles the cuneiform sign for “female.”
_q_, this is the sign of opposition in cuneiform, in Chinese and
Egyptian. Cypriote _mu_ or _no_ (_nu_, “not”).
_r_, a pot. Cypriote _a_ or _ya_. Compare the Akkadian _a_, “water.”
_s_, a snake. Perhaps the Cypriote _ye_.
_t_, apparently a sickle. Cypriote _sa_. Compare the Tartar _sa_, _se_,
“knife.”
_u_, the open hand. Cypriote _se_. Akkadian _sa_, “give.” Tartar _saa_,
“take.”
_v_ resembles the cuneiform and Chinese emblem for “breath,” “wind,”
“spirit.” Cypriote _zo_ or _ze_. Occurs as the name of a god. Akkadian
_zi_, “spirit.”
_w_ resembles the Chinese, cuneiform, and Egyptian emblem for heaven.
Akkadian _u_. It may be compared with the Carian letter _u_ or _o_.
_x_, the foot, used evidently as a verb, and resembles the cuneiform
_du_. Probably may be sounded as in Akkadian and used for the passive
(_du_, “come” or “become”).
HITTITE EMBLEMS OF UNCERTAIN SOUND.
[Illustration: FIG. 1081.--Hittite emblems of uncertain sound.]
_y_, a serpent. Occurs in the name of a god.
_z_, perhaps a monument. It recalls the Cypriote _ro_.
_aa_, apparently a monument.
_bb_, probably the sun (_ud_ or _tam_).
_cc_, apparently a house.
_dd_, perhaps the sole of the foot.
_ee_, a donkey’s head. Probably the god Set.
_ff_, a ram’s head. Probably with the sound _gug_ or _guch_ and the
meaning “fierce,” “mighty.”
_gg_, a sheep’s head. Probably _lu_ or _udu_.
_hh_, a dog or fox head.
_ii_, a lion’s head. Only on seals.
_jj_, a demon’s head. Used specially in a text which seems to be a magic
charm.
_kk_, two legs. Resembles the cuneiform _dhu_, and means probably “go”
or “run.”
_ll_, two feet. Probably “stand;” or “send,” as in Chinese.
_mm_, apparently an altar.
_nn_, perhaps a bundle or roll.
_oo_, apparently a knife or sword; perhaps _pal_.
_pp_, apparently a tree.
_qq_, apparently the sacred artificial tree of Asshur.
_rr_, a circle. Compare the cuneiform _sa_, “middle.”
_ss_, twins. As in Egyptian.
_tt_ resembles the Chinese emblem for “small.”
_uu_, a pyramid or triangle.
_vv_, apparently a hand or glove, pointing downwards. Possibly _tu_ or
_dun_ for “down.”
_ww_, apparently a ship, like the cuneiform _ma_. Appears only on seals.
_xx_, only once found on the Babylonian bowl, and seems to represent the
inscribed bowl itself.
SECTION 2.
SYLLABARIES AND ALPHABETS.
It is worthy of observation that the Greeks used the same word, γράφειν,
to mean drawing and writing, suggesting their early identity.
Drawing was the beginning of writing, and writing was a conventionalized
drawing. The connection of both with gesture signs has been noticed
above. A gesture sign is a significant but evanescent motion, and a
drawing is produced by a motion which leaves significant marks. When
man became proficient in oral language, and desired to give permanence
to his thoughts, he first resorted to the designs of picture-writing,
already known and used, to express the sounds of his speech.
The study of different systems of writing--such as the Chinese, the
Assyrian, and the Egyptian--shows that no people ever invented an
arbitrary system of writing or originated a true alphabet by any
fixed predetermination. All the known graphic systems originated in
picture-writing. All have passed through the stage of conventionalism
to that commonly called the hieroglyphic, while from the latter,
directly or after an intermediate stage, sprang the syllabary which
used modifications of the old ideograms and required a comparatively
small number of characters. Finally, among the more civilized of ancient
races the alphabet was gradually introduced as a simplification of the
syllabary, and still further reduced the necessary characters.
The old ideograms were, or may be supposed to have been, intelligible
to all peoples without regard to their languages. In this respect they
resembled the Arabic and Roman numerals which are understood by many
nations of diverse speech when written while the sound of the words
figured by them is unintelligible. Their number, however, was limited
only by the current ideas, which might become infinite. Also each idea
was susceptible of preservation in different forms, and might readily
be misinterpreted; therefore the simplicity and precision of alphabetic
writing amply compensated for its exclusiveness.
The high development of pictorial writing in Mexico and Central America
is well known. Some of these peoples had commenced the introduction of
phonetics into their graphic system, especially in the rendering of
proper names, which probably also was the first step in that direction
among the Egyptians. But Prof. Cyrus Thomas (_b_) makes the following
remark upon the Maya system, which is of general application:
It is certain, and even susceptible of demonstration, that a
large portion, perhaps the majority, of the characters are symbols.
The more I study these characters the stronger becomes the
conviction that they have grown out of a pictographic system similar
to that common among the Indians of North America. The first step in
advance appears to have been to indicate, by characters, the gesture
signs.
It is not possible now to discuss the many problems contained in the
vast amount of literature on the subject of the Mexican and Central
American writing, and it is the less necessary because much of the
literature is recent and easily accessible. With regard to the Indian
tribes north of Mexico, it is not claimed that more than one system of
characters resembling a syllabary or alphabet was invented by any of
them. The Cherokee alphabet, so called, was adopted from the Roman by
Sequoya, also called George Gist, about A. D. 1820, and was ingenious
and very valuable to the tribe, but being an imitation of an old
invention it has no interest in relation to the present topic. The same
is manifestly true regarding the Cree alphabet, which was of missionary
origin. The exception claimed is that commonly, but erroneously, called
the Micmac hieroglyphics. The characters do not partake of the nature of
hieroglyphs, and their origin is not Micmac.
THE MICMAC “HIEROGLYPHICS.”
The Micmac was an important tribe, occupying all of Nova Scotia,
Cape Breton island, Prince Edward island, the northern part of New
Brunswick, and the adjacent part of the province of Quebec, and ranging
over a great part of Newfoundland. According to Rev. Silas T. Rand,
op. cit., Megum is the singular form of the name which the Micmacs
use for themselves. Rev. Eugene Vetromile (_a_) translates “Micmacs”
as “secrets practicing men,” from the Delaware and old Abnaki word
_malike_, “witchcraft,” and says the name was given them on account of
their numerous jugglers; but he derives Mareschite, which is an Abnaki
division, from the same word and makes it identical with Micmac. The
French called them Souriquois, which Vetromile translates “good canoe
men.” They were also called Acadians, from their habitat in Acadie, now
Nova Scotia.
The first reference in literature with regard to the spontaneous use by
Indians of the characters now called the “Micmac hieroglyphs” appears
in the Jesuit Relations of the year 1652, p. 28. In the general report
of that year the work of Father Gabriel Druillettes, who had been a
missionary to the Abnaki (including under this term the Indians of
Acadia, afterwards distinguished as Micmacs), is dwelt upon in detail.
His own words, in a subordinate report, appear to have been adopted
in the general report of the Father Superior, and, translated, are as
follows:
Some of them wrote out their lessons in their own manner. They
made use of a small piece of charcoal instead of a pen, and a
piece of bark instead of paper. Their characters were novel, and
so _particuliers_ [individual or special] that one could not know
or understand the writing of the other; that is to say, that they
made use of certain marks according to their own ideas as of a local
memory to preserve the points and the articles and the maxims which
they had remembered. They carried away this paper with them to study
their lesson in the repose of the night.
No further remark or description appears.
It is interesting to notice that the abbé J. A. Maurault, (_a_) after
his citation of the above report of Father Druillettes, states in a
footnote translated as follows:
We have ourselves been witnesses of a similar fact among
the Têtes-de-Boule Indians of the River St. Maurice where we
had been missionaries during three years. We often saw during
our instructions or explanations of the catechism that the
Indians traced on pieces of bark, or other objects very singular
hieroglyphs. These Indians afterward passed the larger part of
the following night in studying what they had so written, and in
teaching it to their children or their brothers. The rapidity with
which they by this manner learnt their prayers was very astonishing.
The Indians called by the Abbé Maurault the Têtes-de-Boule or Round
Heads, are also known as Wood Indians, and are ascertained to have been
a band of the Ojibwa, which shows a connection between the practice of
the Ojibwa and that of the Micmacs, both being of the Algonquian stock,
to mark on bark ideographic or other significant inscriptions which
would assist them to memorize what struck them as of special interest
and importance, notably religious rites. Many instances are given in the
present paper, and the spontaneous employment of prayer sticks by other
persons of the same stock is also illustrated in Figs. 715 and 716.
The next notice in date is by Père Chrétien Le Clercq (_a_), a member
of the Recollect order of Franciscans who landed on the coast of Gaspé
in 1675, learned the language of the Micmacs and worked with them
continuously for several years.
It would appear that he observed and took advantage of the pictographic
practice of the Indians, which may have been continued from that
reported by Father Druillettes a few years earlier with reference to
the same general region, or may have been a separate and independent
development in the tribe with which Father Le Clercq was most closely
connected.
His quaint account is translated as follows:
Our Lord inspired me with this method the second year of my
mission, when, being greatly embarrassed as to the mode in which I
should teach the Indians to pray, I noticed some children making
marks on birch bark with coal, and they pointed to them with their
fingers at every word of the prayer which they pronounced. This
made me think that by giving them some form which would aid their
memory by fixed characters, I should advance much more rapidly
than by teaching on the plan of making them repeat over and over
what I said. I was charmed to know that I was not deceived, and
that these characters which I had traced on paper produced all the
effect I desired, so that in a few days they learned all their
prayers without difficulty. I cannot describe to you the ardor with
which these poor Indians competed with each other in praiseworthy
emulation which should be the most learned and the ablest. It
costs, indeed, much time and pains to make all they require, and
especially since I enlarged them so as to include all the prayers of
the church, with the sacred mysteries of the trinity, incarnation,
baptism, penance, and the eucharist.
There is no description whatever of the characters.
[Illustration: FIG. 1082.--Title page of Kauder’s Micmac Catechism.]
The next important printed notice or appearance of the Micmac characters
is in the work of Rev. Christian Kauder, a Redemptorist missionary, the
title page of which is given in Fig. 1082. It was printed in Vienna
in 1866 and therefore was about two centuries later than the first
recorded invention of the characters. During those two centuries the
French and therefore the Roman Catholic influences had been much of the
time dormant in the habitat of the Micmacs (the enforced exodus of the
French from Acadie being about 1755). Father Kauder was one of the most
active in the renewal of the missions. He learned the Micmac language,
probably gathered together such “hieroglyphs” on rolls of bark as had
been preserved, added to them parts of the Greek and Roman alphabet and
other designs, and arranged the whole in systematic and grammatic form.
After about twenty years of work upon them he procured their printing
in Vienna. A small part of the edition, which was the first printed,
reached the Micmacs. The main part, shipped later, was lost at sea in
the transporting vessel.
[Illustration: FIG. 1083.--The Lord’s Prayer in Micmac hieroglyphics.]
Fig. 1083 shows the version of the Lord’s Prayer, published by Dr. J. G.
Shea (_a_) in his translation of Le Clercq’s First Establishment of the
Faith in New France, this and the preceding figure being taken from the
Bibliography of the Languages of the N. A. Indians by Mr. J. C. Pilling,
of the Bureau of Ethnology.
The publication of Father Kauder was a duodecimo in three parts:
Catechism, 144 pages; religious reflections, 109 pages; and hymnal, 208
pages. They are very seldom found bound together, and a perfect copy of
either of the parts or volumes is rare. On a careful examination of the
hieroglyphs, so called, it seems evident that on the original substratum
of Micmac designs or symbols, each of which represented mnemonically a
whole sentence or verse, a large number of arbitrary designs have been
added to express ideas and words which were not American, and devices
were incorporated with them intended to represent the peculiarities
of the Micmac grammar as understood by Kauder, and it would seem of a
universal grammar antedating Volapük. The explanation of these additions
has never been made known. Kauder died without having left any record or
explanation of the plan by which he attempted to convert the mnemonic
characters invented by the Indians into what may be considered an
exposition of organized words (not sounds) in grammatical form. An
attempt which may be likened to this was made by Bishop Landa in his
use of the Maya characters, and one still more in point was that of the
priests in Peru, mentioned in connection with Figs. 1084 and 1085, infra.