Another curious fact, very interesting to prove, is that this

great development of the worship of the cross before the coming

of Christ seems to coincide with the absence of idols and indeed

of any representation of living objects. Whenever such objects

appear, it may be said that the crosses become more rare and finally

disappear altogether. The cross has then been, in remote antiquity,

long before Christ, the sacred emblem of a religious sect which

repudiated idolatry.

The author, with considerable naiveté, has evidently determined that

the form of the cross was significant of a high state of religious

culture, and that its being succeeded by effigies, which he calls idols,

showed a lapse into idolatry. The fact is simply that, next after one

straight line, the combination of two straight lines forming a cross is

the easiest figure to draw, and its use before art could attain to the

drawing of animal forms, or their representation in plastic material,

is merely an evidence of crudeness or imperfection in designing. It

is worthy of remark that Dr. Schliemann, in his “Troja,” page 107,

presents as his Fig. 38 a much more distinct cross than that given

by M. de Mortillet, with the simple remark that it is “a geometrical

ornamentation.”

Probably no cause has more frequently produced archeologic and

ethnologic blunders than the determination of Christian explorers

and missionaries to find monograms of Christ in every monument or

inscription where the cross figure appears. The early missionaries to

America were obliged to explain the presence of this figure there by a

miraculous visit of an apostle, St. Thomas being their favorite. Other

generations of the same good people were worried in the same manner

by the cross pattée or Thor hammer of the Scandinavians, and by the

conventionalized clover leaf of the Druids. This figure often has been

a symbol and as often an emblem or a mere sign, but it is so common in

every variety of application that actual evidence is necessary to show

in any special case what is its real significance.

* * * * *

Gen. G. P. Thruston (_a_) gives the following account of Pl. LI, which

suggests several points of comparison with figures under other headings

in this paper:

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

THRUSTON TABLET, TENNESSEE.]

There has been discovered in Sumner county, Tennessee, near the

stone graves and mounds of Castalian springs, a valuable pictograph,

the ancient engraved stone which we have taken the liberty to

entitle a Group of Tennessee Mound Builders.

This engraved stone, the property of the Tennessee Historical

Society, is a flat, irregular slab of hard limestone, about 19

inches long and 15 inches wide. It bears every evidence of very

great age. * * * The stone was found on Rocky creek, in Sumner

county, and was presented, with other relics, to the Tennessee

Historical Society about twelve years ago. * * *

It is evidently an ideograph of significance, graven with a

steady and skillful hand, for a specific purpose, and probably

records or commemorates some important treaty or public or tribal

event. * * * Indian chiefs fully equipped with the insignia of

office, are arrayed in fine apparel. Two leading characters

are vigorously shaking hands in a confirmatory way. The banner

or shield, ornamented with the double serpent emblem and other

symbols, is, doubtless, an important feature of the occasion. Among

the historic Indians, no treaty was made without the presence or

presentation of the belt of wampum. This, the well-dressed female of

the group appears to grasp in her hand, perhaps as a pledge of the

contract. The dressing of the hair, the remarkable scalloped skirts,

the implements used, the waistbands, the wristlets, the garters, the

Indian leggings and moccasins, the necklace and breastplates, the

two banners, the serpent emblem, the tattoo stripes, the ancient

pipe, all invest this pictograph with unusual interest. * * * The

double serpent emblem or ornament upon the banner may have been

the badge or totem of the tribe, clan, or family that occupied

the extensive earthworks at Castalian springs in Sumner county,

near where the stone was found. The serpent was a favorite emblem

or totem of the Stone Grave race of Tennessee, and is one of the

common devices engraved on the shell gorgets taken from the ancient

cemeteries. * * * The circles or sun symbol ornaments on the banners

and dresses are the figures most frequently graven on the shell

gorgets found near Nashville.

The following summary of the translation, kindly furnished by Mr. Pom

K. Soh of an article, “Pictures of Dokatu or so-called bronze bell,” by

Mr. K. Wakabayashi (_a_), in the Bulletin of the Tōkyō Anthropological

Society, refers to Pl. LII. The author saw the bell described at the

town of Takoka, Japan, in August, 1891. The “pictures” on it were

fourteen in number, cast in the metal of the bell, each one occupying a

separate compartment and running around the bell in several bands. The

author took rubbings of the pictures, lithographs of which are published

as illustrations of his article, and from these the eight pictures

now presented in actual size are selected, the remainder being of the

same general character, and some of them nearly identical with those

selected. The information obtained is that the bell, which is iron and

not bronze, was procured before, and perhaps long before, the present

century from Jisei, in the village of Sasakura in the state of Yetsin,

and had been excavated from a mountain at Samki. Copies of the markings

upon it were taken in 1817 to a high authority at Yedo, now Tōkyō. It

is believed that the markings illustrate or are related to a national

story, “Kanden Ko Hitsu,” written by Ban Kokei. A few similar bells or

fragments of them, some being bronze, have been found in various parts

of the Japanese empire. One, which is bronze, height about 3-1/2 feet,

and diameter somewhat more than 1 foot, was dug up in Hanina in the year

A. D. 821.

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

PICTURES ON DŌTAKU, JAPAN.]

The interest of the drawings on Pl. LII, in the present connection,

consists in their remarkable similarity, both in form and apparent

motive, with several of those found in the western continent and

figured in the present work. Thus, _a_ is to be compared with

characters on Figs. 437 and 1227 and others referring to the human form,

the cross, and the dragon-fly; _b_ with Figs. 57, 165 _b_ and 1261 _l_;

the two characters in _c_, respectively, with Fig. 1262; the mantis,

and Fig. 1129, one form of star; _d_ with a common turtle form, as in

Fig. 50; _e_ with Fig. 166, an Ojibwa human form, and also exhibiting

gesture, and Fig. 113 a Brazilian petroglyph; and _f_ with Fig. 657, a

north-eastern Algonquian drawing. The three last-mentioned pictures,

_e_ and _f_ and _g_, exhibit the peculiar internal life organ (often

the conventionalized heart), noticed in Figs. 50, 700, and 701, and it

is to be remarked that the largest quadruped in _g_ has the life organ

connected with the mouth, while the other quadrupeds, and those in

_h_, show no depiction of internal organs. The human figure in _g_ is

noticeable for the American form of bow, and the upper character of _h_

is to be compared with Figs. 104 and 148.

SECTION 3.

COMPOSITE FORMS.

The figures in this group are selected from a larger number in which the

union of two animals of different kinds or that of an animal and another

object indicates the union of the several qualities or attributes

supposed to belong to those animals or objects. The form and use of such

composite figures are familiar from the publication of the inscriptions

on Egyptian monuments and papyri.

[Illustration: FIG. 1239.]

Fig. 1239.--Eagle-Elk. Red-Cloud’s Census. Here are the branching

antlers of the elk and the tail of the eagle.

[Illustration: FIG. 1240.]

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

horse’s mane.

[Illustration: FIG. 1241.]

Fig. 1241.--Eagle-Horse. Red-Cloud’s Census. This is a variant of the

preceding, the change being shown in the tail.

[Illustration: FIG. 1242.]

Fig. 1242.--Eagle-Swallow. Red-Cloud’s Census. The characteristics of

the two birds are obvious.

[Illustration: FIG. 1243.]

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

[Illustration: FIG. 1244.]

Fig. 1244.--Weasel-Bear. Red-Cloud’s Census. With only hasty view the

really characteristic form of the weasel might be mistaken for a rudely

drawn gun.

[Illustration: FIG. 1245.]

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

[Illustration: FIG. 1246.]

Fig. 1246.--Bull-Lance. Red-Cloud’s Census. The object attached to the

bull’s muzzle is the common ornamented lance of the Plains tribes.

[Illustration: FIG. 1247.]

Fig. 1247.--Shield-Bear. Red-Cloud’s Census. The ornamented shield is

borne on the bear’s body.

[Illustration: FIG. 1248.]

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

[Illustration: FIG. 1249.]

Fig. 1249.--Sunka-wanbli, Dog-Eagle; from the Oglala Roster. The

mingling of the attributes of the dog and the eagle with special

reference to swiftness may be suggested.

[Illustration: FIG. 1250.]

Fig. 1250.--Zintkala-wicasa, Bird-Man; also from the Oglala Roster. An

indication of a bird gens is suggested without information, but perhaps

it is only a representation of the usual vision required from and

therefore obtained by boys before reaching manhood.

[Illustration: FIG. 1251.]

Fig. 1251.--Sunkakan-heton, Horse-with-horns; also from the Oglala

Roster. Perhaps this is not intended as a composite animal, but as

a horse possessing special and mystic power, as is indicated by the

gesture sign for wakan, and, as elsewhere in pictographs, by lines

extending from each side of the head. The same sub-chief appears in

Red-Cloud’s Census with the name translated into English as Horned-Horse.

This union of the human figure with that of other animals is of interest

in comparison with the well-known forms of similar character in the art

of Egypt and Assyria.

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

The feet of the accompanying Fig. 1252, reproduced from Bastian (_b_)

on the Northwest Coast of America, can not be seen, being hidden in

the head of the figure beneath. It is squatting, with its hands on its

knees, and has a wolf’s head. Arms, legs, mouth, jaws, nostrils, and

ear-holes are scarlet; eyebrows, irises, and edges of the ears black.

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

The drawing Fig. 1253 was made by Mr. J. G. Swan while on a visit to

the Prince of Wales archipelago, where he found two carved figures with

panthers’ heads, and claws upon the fore feet, and human feet attached

to the hind legs. These mythical animals were placed upon either side of

a corpse which was lying in state, awaiting burial.

The Egyptians represented the evil Typhon by the hippopotamus, the most

fierce and savage of their animals; the hawk was the symbol for power,

and the serpent that for life. Plutarch, in Isis and Osiris, 50, says

that in Hermopolis these symbols were united, a hawk fighting with a

serpent being placed on the hippopotamus, thus accentuating the idea of

the destroyer. The Greeks sometimes substituted the eagle for the hawk,

and pictured it killing a hare, the most prolific of quadrupeds, or

fighting a serpent, the same attribute of destruction being portrayed.

But the eagle when alone meant simply power, as did the hawk in Egypt.

The Scandinavians posited the eagle on the head of their god Thor and

the bull on his breast to express a similar union of attributes.

SECTION 4.

ARTISTIC SKILL AND METHODS.

Dr. Andree (_d_), in Das Zeichnen bei den Naturvölkern, makes the

following remarks, translated with condensation:

The great ability of the Eskimo and their southern neighbors,

the natives of northwest America (Koliushes, Thlinkits, etc.), in

representative art is well known and needs no further insisting.

Among all primitive peoples they have made the greatest advances in

the conventionalization of figures, which indicates long practice

in painting. The totem figures, carved both in stone and in wood

and tattooed on the body, show severe conventionalization and have

perfect heraldic value. Ismailof, one of the earliest Russian

explorers that came in contact with the Koliushes, relates that

European paintings and drawings did not strike them with the least

awe. When a chief was shown portraits of the Russian imperial family

he manifested no astonishment. That chief was accompanied by his

painter, who examined everything very closely, in order to paint

it afterward. He was able in particular “to paint all manner of

objects on wooden tablets and other material (leather),” using blue

iron earth, iron ocher, colored clays, and other mineral colors.

Among these peoples, too, painting is employed as a substitute for

writing, in order to record memorable things.

Far below the artistic achievements of the Eskimo and of the

natives of the American northwest (Haida, Thlinkit, etc.) are those

of the redskins east of the Rocky mountains. They are, however,

very productive in figure drawing; nay, that art has advanced to a

kind of picture writing, which, it is true, is not distinguished by

artistic finish. That “fling” which, depending on good observation

of nature, appears in the drawings of Australians, Bushmen, etc.,

and the good characterization of the figures, are lacking among

the Indians; and though, as is frequently the case, their animals

are better represented than the men, yet they can not compare

with the animal figures of the Eskimo or Bushmen. Dr. Capitan,

who had drawings made by the Omahas shown in 1883 in the Jardin

d’acclimatation of Paris, says concerning them: “It is singular to

note that by the side of very rudimentary representations of human

figures the pictures of horses are drawn with a certain degree of

correctness. If the Indians take pains in anything it is in the

painting of their buffalo skins, which are often worn as mantles.

On red-brown ground are seen black figures, especially of animals;

on others, on white ground, the heroic deeds and life events of

distinguished Indians, represented in black or in other colors.

You see the wounded enemies, the loss of blood, the killed and the

captives, stolen horses, all executed in the peculiar manner of an

art of painting still in the stage of infancy, with earth colors

black, red, green, and yellow. Almost all the Missouri tribes

practice painting on buffalo skins; the most skillful are the

Pawnees, Mandans, Minitaris, and Crows. Among the Mandans, Wied met

individuals who possessed “a very decided talent” for drawing.”

The same author, in the same connection, reasserts the old statement

that there is an established difference in artistic capacity between

the so-called mound-builders and the present Indians, so great that it

either shows a genetic difference between them or that the Indians had

degenerated in that respect. This statement is denied by the Bureau of

Ethnology, but the point to be now considered is whether it is true that

the historic North American Indians are as low in artistic skill as is

alleged.

The French traveler Crevaux, as quoted by Marcano (_g_), says that he

had the happy idea of giving pencils to the Indians, in order to see

whether they were capable of producing the same drawings. The young

Yumi rapidly drew for him sketches of man, dog, tiger; in brief, of

all the animals of the country. Another Indian reproduced all sorts of

arabesques, which he was wont to paint with genipa. Crevaux saw that

these savages, who are accused of being absolutely ignorant of the fine

arts, all drew with extraordinary facility.

The same idea, i. e., of testing the artistic ability of Indians in

several tribes, occurred to the present writer and to many other

travelers, who generally have been surprised at the skill in free-hand

drawing and painting exhibited. It would seem that the Indians had

about the same faults and decidedly more talent than the average

uninstructed persons of European descent who make similar attempts.

An instance of special skill in portrait painting is given by Lossing

(_a_), where a northern tribe in 1812 made a bark picture of Joseph

Barron, a fugitive, to obtain his identification by sending copies of

it to various tribes. The portrait given as an illustration in the work

cited is very distinct and lifelike. This, however, was a special task

prompted by foreign influence. While the Indians had no more knowledge

of perspective than the Japanese, they were unable or indisposed to

attempt the accurate imitation of separate natural objects in which the

Japanese excel. Before European instruction or example they probably

never produced a true picture. Some illustrations in the present work,

which show a continuous series of men, animals, and other objects, are

no more pictures than are the consecutive words of a printed sentence,

both forms, indeed, being alike in the fact that their significance is

expressed by the relation between the separate parts. The illustration

which at a first glance seems to be most distinctively picturesque

is Fig. 659, but it will be noticed that the personages are repeated,

the scene changed, and the time proceeds, so that there is no view of

specified objects at any one time and place.

[Illustration: FIG. 1254.--Moose, Kejimkoojik.]

Fig. 1254 shows two drawings from Kejimkoojik, N. S., reduced to

one-fourth, each supposed to represent a moose, though possibly one

of them is a caribou, and the mode of execution vividly suggests some

of the examples of prehistoric art found in Europe and familiar by

repeatedly published illustrations.

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

Fig. 1255 is the etching of a hand from the Kejimkoojik rocks, reduced

one-half. Its peculiarity consists in the details by which the lines of

the palm and markings on the balls of the thumb and fingers are shown.

If this is the real object of the design it shows close observation,

though it is not suggested that any connection with the pseudo-science

of palmistry is to be inferred.

In connection with this drawing the following translated remarks in

Verhandl. Berlin. Gesellsch. für Anthrop. (_d_), may be noted:

The frequency with which partial representations of the eye are

met with appeared to me so striking that I requested Mr. Jacobson

to ask the Bella Coola Indians whether they had any special idea

in employing the eye so frequently. To my great surprise the

person addressed pointed to the palmar surface of his finger tips

and to the fine lineaments which the skin there presents; in his

opinion a rounded or longitudinal field, such as appears between

the converging or parallel lines, also means an eye, and the reason

of this is that originally each part of the body terminated in an

organ of sense, particularly an eye, and was only afterward made to

retrovert into such rudimentary conditions.

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

GERMAN KNIGHTS AND APACHE WARRIORS.]

The lower character in Pl. LIII is copied from Rudolph Cronau (_c_)

Geschichte der Solinger Klingenindustrie, where it is presented as an

illustration of the knights of the thirteenth century, after a sketch in

a MS. of the year 1220, in the library of the University of Leipsig.

The upper character in the same plate is a copy of a drawing made in

1884 by an Apache Indian at Anadarko, although the insignia of the

riders are more like those used by the Cheyenne than those of the

Apache. A striking similarity will be noticed in the motive of the two

sketches of the mounted warriors and their steeds as well as in their

decorations, from which in Europe the devices called heraldic were

differentiated. Doubtless still better examples could be obtained to

compare the degree of artistic skill attained by the several draftsmen,

but these are used as genuine, convenient, and typical. See also the

Mexican representation of horses and riders under the heading of

meteors, Fig. 1224.

These horses are far less skillfully portrayed than they are by the

Plains tribes, which may be explained by the fact that the Mexicans had

not yet become familiar with the animal.

A story told by Catlin to the general effect that the Siouan stock of

Indians did not understand the drawing of human faces in profile has

been repeated in various forms. The last is by Popoff (_a_):

When Catlin was drawing the profile of a chief named Matochiga,

the Indians around him seemed greatly moved, and asked why he did

not draw the other half of the chief’s face. “Matochiga was never

ashamed to look a white man square in the face.” Matochiga had not

till then seemed offended at the matter, but one of the Indians said

to him sportively, “The Yankee knows that you are only half a man,

and he has only drawn half of your face because the other half is

not worth anything.”

Another variant of the story is that Catlin was accused of practicing

magic, by which the half of the subject’s head should get into his

power, and he was forced to stop his painting and flee for his life.

The explorer and painter who tells the story is not considered to be

altogether free from exaggeration, and he may have invented the tale to

amuse his auditors in his lectures and afterwards his readers, or he may

have been the victim of a practical joke by the Indians, who are fond of

such banter, and the well-known superstitions about sorcerers gaining

possession of anything attached to the person would have rendered their

anger plausible. But certain it is that the people referred to, before

and after and at the time of the visit of Catlin to them, were in the

habit of drawing the human face in profile, and, indeed, much more

frequently than the full or front face. This is abundantly proved by

many pictures in existence at that time and place which have been seen

by this writer, and a considerable number of them are copied in the

present work. Thus much for one of the oft-cited fictions on which the

allegation of the Indian’s stupidity in drawing has been founded.

Another false statement is copied over and over again by authors, to

the effect that from a similar superstition the Indians are afraid to,

and therefore do not, make delineations of the whole human figure.

The present work shows their drawing of front, side, and rear views

of the whole human figure, presenting as each view may allow, all the

limbs and features. This, however, is rare, not from the fear charged,

but because the artists directed their attention, not to iconography,

but to ideography, seizing some special feature or characteristic for

prominence and disregarding or intentionally omitting all that was

unnecessary to their purpose.

On the other hand the Indians have sometimes been unduly praised

for acumen in observation and for skill in their iconography. For

instance, in the lectures of Mr. Edward Muybridge, explaining the

highly interesting photographs of consecutive movements of animals from

which he formulates the novel science of zoöpraxography, the lecturer

attributes to the Indians a scientific and artistic method of drawing

horses in motion which has excelled in that respect all the most famous

painters and sculptors. But Mr. Muybridge bases his statement upon a

small number of Indian drawings, apparently seen by him in Europe, the

characteristics of which do not appear in the many drawings of horses

in the possession of the present writer, a considerable number of which

are published in this work. The position of the legs in the drawings

praised is doubtless fortuitous. The Indian in his delineation of horses

cared little more than to show an animal with the appropriate mane,

tail, and hoofs, and the legs were extended without the slightest regard

to natural motion. The drawing of the Indians closely resembles the

masterly abstractions of the living forms devised by the early heraldic

painters which later were corrupted by an attempt to compromise with

zoölogy, resulting in a clumsy naturalism if not caricature.

A comparison of artistic rather than of pictographic skill may

frequently be made, for instance the art of the Haida in carving, which

shows remarkable similarity to that in Central and South America, and

made public by Habel, op. cit., and H. H. Bancroft (_i_).

The style of drawing is strongly influenced by the material on which

it is made. This topic must receive some consideration here, though

too extensive for full treatment. The substances on which and the

instruments by which pictographs are made in America are discussed in

Chaps. VII and VIII of this work, and the remarks and illustrations

there presented apply generally to other forms of drawing and painting.

Examples of drawing on every kind of material known to the American

aborigines appear in this work. Carving, pecking, and scratching

of various kinds of rock are illustrated, also paintings on skins

and on wood. The Innuit carving on walrus ivory, of which numerous

illustrations are furnished, is notable for its minuteness as well as

distinctness. The substance was precious, the working surface limited,

and the workmanship required time and care. Birch bark, common in the

whole of the northern Algonquian region, was an attractive material. It

was used much more freely and was worked more easily than walrus ivory,

and in two modes, one in which outlines are drawn by any hard-pointed

substance on the inner side of the bark when it is soft and which remain

permanent when dry, the other made by scraping on the rough outer

surface, thus producing a difference in color. Many examples of the

first-mentioned method are shown throughout this work, and of the latter

in Pl. XVI and Fig. 659. Having before them this large collection of

varied illustrations readers can judge for themselves of the effect of

the material in determining the style among people who had substantially

the same concepts.

It is universally admitted that the material used, whether papyrus or

parchment, stone or wood, palm leaves or metal, wax or clay, and the

appropriate instruments, hammer, knife, graver, brush or pen, decided

the special style of incipient artists throughout the world. The Chinese

at first worked with knives on bamboo and stone, and even after they

had obtained paper, ink, and fine hair pencils, the influence of the

old method continued. The cuneiform characters are due to the shape of

the wooden style used to impress the figures on unbaked clay. It may

generally be remarked that in materials having a decided “grain,” of

which bamboo is the most obvious instance, the early stage of art with

its rude implements was forced to work in lines running with the grain.

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

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

these remarks:

The advances made by the Kanakas of New Caledonia in drawing are

illustrated by the bamboo staves covered with engraved drawings,

which they carry about as objects of fashion, somewhat as we do

our walking sticks, and a number of which are preserved in the

ethnographic museum of Paris (Trocadero). They have been described

by E. T. Hamy. In these finely incised drawings ornaments of the

simplest kind (straight lines and zigzag models) are combined

with figures and tree groups. The artistic execution is a rather

primitive one, yet the figures by no means lack character and

vividness. There are seen on the bamboo the pointed-roofed huts of

the chieftains, turtles, fowl, lizards, and between them scenes from

the life of the Kanakas. A man beats his wife, men discharge their

bows, others stand idle in rank and file, adorned with the cylindric

straw hat described by Cook, which at this day has almost entirely

disappeared.

The explanation of many peculiar forms of Indian drawing and painting is

to be found in the stage of mythologic sophiology reached by the several

tribes. For instance, Mr. W. H. Holmes, op. cit., discovered that in

Chiriqui all the decorations originated in life forms of animals,

none being vegetal and none clearly expressive of the human figure or

attempting the portrayal of physiognomy. This peculiarity doubtless

arose from the exclusively zoomorphic character of the religion of

the people. Other mythologic concepts have given a special trend to

the art of other tribes and peoples. This results in conventionalism.

The sculptures of Persia chiefly express the power and glory of the

God-King, and the Egyptian statues are canonical idealizations of

an abstract human being, type of the race. It is to be noticed that

Indians also show conservatism and conventionalization in their ordinary

pictures. Within what may be called a tribal, or more properly stock,

system, every Indian draws in precisely the same manner. The figures

of a man, of a horse, and of every other object delineated are made

by everyone who attempts to make any such figure, with seeming desire

for all the identity of which their mechanical skill is capable, thus

showing their conception and motive to be the same. In this respect

the drawing of the Indians may be likened to that of boys at a public

school, who are always drawing, and drawing the same objects and with

constant repetition of the same errors from one school generation to

another.

In discussing artistic skill only in its relation to picture-writing the

degree of its excellence is not intrinsically important, though it may

be so for comparison and identification. The figures required were the

simplest. Among these were vertical and horizontal straight lines and

their combinations, circles, squares, triangles, a hand, a foot, an ax

or a bow, a boat or a sledge. Both natural and artificial objects were

drawn by a few strokes without elaboration. The fewer the marks the

more convenient was the pictograph, if it fulfilled its object of being

recognized by the reader. The simple fact without esthetic effect was

all that the pictographic artists wanted to show, and when an animal

was represented it was not by imitation of its whole form, but by

emphasis of some characteristic which must be made obvious, even if it

distorted the figure or group and violated every principle of art as now

developed.

CHAPTER XXI.

MEANS OF INTERPRETATION.

The power of determining the authorship of pictographs made on materials

other than rocks, by means of their general style and type, can be

estimated by a comparison of those of the Abnaki, Ojibwa, Dakota, Haida,

Innuit, Shoshoni, Moki, etc., presented in various parts of this paper.

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

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

Wherever a peculiar, complex, and not very obvious figure

occurs in many examples it is legitimate to assume that this had

some ulterior object and meaning. Now this figure, occurring in the

shallow engravings of Guiana, is of such kind. It is not a figure

which an Indian would be likely to invent in an idle moment even

once, for such a man very seldom, probably never, except in these

particular figures, has been known to draw straight lines. Moreover,

even if it were a figure that one Indian might idly invent, it is

certainly highly improbable that this would be copied by many other

Indians in various places. And, lastly, a figure strikingly like

the one in question, if, indeed, it is not identical, occurs in

certain Mexican picture writings. For example, in the Mexican MSS.

[reproduced in Kingsborough, _op. cit._, I, from Sir Thomas Bodley’s

MSS., pp. 22, 23, and from the Selden MSS., also in the Bodleian,

p. 3] several figures occur so like that of the shallow engravings

of Guiana that there can be but little doubt of their connection.

The recurrence of this peculiar figure in these writings is surely

sufficient evidence of the fact that they are not without intention.

If it were possible to obtain a clue to the meaning of the Mexican

figures it might serve as a key to decipher the hieroglyphic

writings of Guiana.

With regard to the study of the individual characters themselves to

identify the delineators of pictographs, the various considerations of

fauna, religion, customs, tribal signs, indeed most of the headings of

this paper, will be applicable.

It is convenient to divide this chapter into: 1. Marked characters of

known significance. 2. Distinctive costumes, weapons, and ornaments. 3.

Ambiguous characters, with ascertained meaning.

SECTION 1.

MARKED CHARACTERS OF KNOWN SIGNIFICANCE.

It is obvious that before attempting the interpretation of pictographs

concerning which no direct information is to be obtained, there should

be a collection, as complete as possible, of known characters, in order

that through them the unknown may be learned. When any considerable

number of objects in a pictograph are actually known the remainder may

be ascertained by the context, the relation, and the position of the

several designs, and sometimes by the recognized principles of the art.

The present writer has been engaged, therefore, for a considerable time

in collating a large number of characters in a card-catalogue arranged

primarily by similarity in forms, and in attaching to each character

any significance ascertained or suggested. As before explained, the

interpretation upon which reliance is mainly based is that which has

been made known by direct information from Indians who themselves were

actually makers of pictographs at the time of giving the interpretation.

Apart from the comparisons obtained by this collation, the only mode of

ascertaining the meaning of the characters, in other words, the only key

yet discovered, is in the study of the gesture sign included in many of

them.

A spiral line frequently seen in petroglyphs is explained by the Dakota

to be a snail shell, and, furthermore, this device is seen in Pl. XX,

and fully described in that connection as used in the recording and

computation of time.

The limits of this paper do not allow of presenting a complete list of

the characters in the pictographs which have become known. But some of

the characters in the petroglyphs, Figs. 1258, 1259, and 1260, which are

not discussed under various headings, supra, should be explained. The

following is a selection of those which were interpreted to Mr. Gilbert.

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

The left hand device of Fig. 1258 is an inclosure, or pen, in which

ceremonial dances are performed. That on the right is a headdress used

in ceremonial dances.

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

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

Fig. 1259 gives sketches of the frames or sticks used in carrying wood

on the back; also shows different forms of arrows.

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

Fig. 1260 represents the blossoms of melons, squashes.

The appearance of objects showing the influence of European civilization

and christianization should always be carefully noted. An instance

where an object of that character is found among a multitude of others

not liable to such suspicion is in the heart surmounted by a cross,

in the upper line of Fig. 437. This suggests missionary teaching and

corresponding date.

Maximilian of Wied (_g_) says:

Another mode of painting their robes by the Dakotas is to

represent the number of valuable presents they have made. By these

presents, which are often of great value, they acquire reputation

and respect among their countrymen. On such robes we observed long

red figures with a black circle at the termination placed close to

each other in transverse rows; they represent whips, indicating the

number of horses given, because the whip belonging to the horse is

always bestowed with the animal. Red or dark-blue transverse figures

indicate cloth or blankets given; parallel transverse stripes

represent firearms, the outlines of which are pretty correctly drawn.

It may be desirable also to note, to avoid misconception, that where,

throughout this work, mention is made of particulars under the headings

of customs, religion, etc., which might be made the subject of graphic

illustration in pictographs, and for that reason should be known

as preliminary to the attempted interpretation of the latter, the

suggestion is not given as a mere hypothesis. Such objective marks

and conceptions of the character indicated which can readily be made

objective, are in fact frequently found in pictographs and have been

understood by means of the preliminary information to which reference

is made. When interpretations obtained through this line of study are

properly verified, they can take places in the card catalogue little

inferior to those of interpretations derived directly from aboriginal

pictographers.

The interpretation by means of gesture-signs has already been discussed,

Chap. XVIII, Sec. 4.

Capt. Carver (_b_) describes how an Ojibwa drew the emblem of his own

tribe as a deer, a Sioux as a man dressed in skins, an Englishman as a

human figure with a hat on his head, and a Frenchman as a man with a

handkerchief tied around his head.

In this connection is the quotation from the Historical Collections of

Louisiana, Part III, 1851, p. 124, describing a pictograph, as follows:

“There were two figures of men without heads, and some entire. The first

denoted the dead and the second the prisoners. One of my conductors told

me on this occasion that when there are any French among either, they

set their arms akimbo, or their hands upon their hips, to distinguish

them from the savages, whom they represent with their arms hanging down.

This distinction is not purely arbitrary; it proceeds from these people

having observed that the French often put themselves in this posture,

which is not used among them.”

It is also said suggestively, by C. H. Read (_f_) in Jour. of the

Anthrop. Inst. of Gr. Br. and I., that in the carvings of the West

African negroes, the typical white man is constantly figured with a

brandy bottle in one hand and a large glass in the other.

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

explanation:

_a._ A beaver.

_b._ A bear.

_c._ A mountain sheep (_Ovis montana_).

_d._ Three wolf heads.

_e._ Three jackass rabbits.

_f._ Cottontail rabbit.

_g._ Bear tracks.

_h._ An eagle.

_i._ Eagle tails.

_j._ A turkey tail.

_k._ Horned toads (_Phryosoma_ sp. ?).

_l._ Lizards.

_m._ A butterfly.

_n._ Snakes.

_o._ A rattlesnake.

_p._ Deer track.

_q._ Three bird tracks.

_r._ Bitterns (wading birds).

]

Instructive particulars regarding pictographs may be discovered in the

delineation of the fauna in reference to its present or former habitat

in the region where the representation of it is found.

As an example of the number and kind of animals pictured as well as of

their mode of representation, the foregoing Fig. 1261, comprising many

of the Moki inscriptions at Oakley Springs, Arizona, is presented by

Mr. G. K. Gilbert. These were selected by him from a large number of

etchings for the purpose of obtaining the explanation, and they were

explained to him by Tubi, an Oraibi chief living at Oraibi, one of the

Moki villages.

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

The large object in Fig. 1262, scratched on the Kejimkoojik rocks, Nova

Scotia, is probably intended for a mantis or “rear-horse,” but strongly

reminds the observer of the monkey forms in the petroglyphs of Central

and South America.

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

Ten Kate (_b_) shows in Fig. 1263 those animal forms which were not

obliterated from the face of the rock of El-Sauce, Sonora; they were

very nearly in the order in which they are represented. The fish at the

upper right hand is 20 centimeters long.

SECTION 2.

DISTINCTIVE COSTUMES, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS.

On examining the relics of ancient peoples or their modern

representatives, the instruments and arms accompanying them and the

clothing upon them mark the social status of the individual. In the

social life of past generations, and still to-day, certain garments

with their adjuncts indicate certain functions. The lawyer, the

mechanic, the priest, and the soldier are easily recognizable. These

garments do not only give general indications, but minute details, so in

looking upon a certain soldier it is known what country he serves, how

many men are under his orders, and how many chiefs are above him. It is

known if he marches on horseback or afoot, if he handles the rifle or

the saber, works the cannon, designs fortifications, or builds bridges.

Also, by looking on his decorated breast, it is shown if he has made

campaigns and participated in historic battles, and whether or not he

has gained distinction. This is told by the color, cut, and ornaments of

his clothes and by the weapon he bears. Some details are also furnished

by the cut of the hair, and even the style of foot-gear. The above

remarks apply to the highest civilization, but all kinds of personal

and class designations by means of distinctive costumes, weapons, and

adornments were and still are most apparent and important among the less

cultured peoples.

The American Indians seldom clothed themselves, except in very cold

weather, save for purposes of ornament. They habitually wore no other

garment than the breech-cloth, but in their ceremonies and social

dances they bedecked themselves with full and elaborate costumes, often

regulated with special punctilio for the occasion. The boreal tribes,

such as the Alaskan, Athapascan, and Chippewayan, who were obliged to

protect themselves for a large part of the year by furs and skins,

developed characteristic forms of dress which in pictography take the

place occupied by painting and tattooing among tribes where the person

was more habitually exposed. Among the southern tribes there was need of

protection against the rays of the sun, as in Mexico, where cotton and

other fibers were used. In general some of the forms of wearing apparel,

if only varieties in the make of moccasins or sandals, designated the

tribe of the wearers, and therefore often became adopted as pictorial

signs. Ceremonial clothing is often elaborately decorated with beads,

porcupine quills, claws and teeth of animals, shells, and feathers. Many

of these garments are further ornamented with paintings of a totemic

or mythologic character, or bear the insignia of the wearer’s rank and

social status. Metal ornaments, such as armlets, bracelets, anklets,

earrings and bells, were also worn, the material and quantity being in

accordance with the wearer’s ability and pecuniary condition. Upon both

social and ceremonial occasions the headgear displayed eagle feathers

and the plumes of other species of birds, and tufts of hair dyed in red

or other colors. Necklaces were made of claws, shells, deer and antelope

hoofs, the teeth of various animals, snake-skins, and even human

fingers.

Immediately following are some of the Dakota designations in the

particulars mentioned:

[Illustration: FIG. 1264.]

Fig. 1264.--Shield. Red Cloud’s Census. The shield here is without

device, though frequently one is painted on the war shields. Such

painting may be the pictograph of the gens or of the personal

designation, or may show the marks of rank.

[Illustration: FIG. 1265.]

Fig. 1265.--Wahacanka, Shield. The Oglala Roster. The marks or bearings

on the shield probably are personal and similar to those commonly called

heraldic, but in this drawing are too minute for accurate blazonry.

[Illustration: FIG. 1266.]

Fig. 1266.--Black-Shield “says his prayers” (in the interpreter’s

phrase; that is, he performed the rites elsewhere explained); and takes

the war-path to avenge the death of two of his sons who had been killed

by the Crows. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1859-’60.

[Illustration: FIG. 1267.]

Fig. 1267.--Eagle-Feather. Red-Cloud’s Census. This is probably the same

name as translated Lone-Feather in the following figure, in which the

feather also comes from an eagle’s tail:

[Illustration: FIG. 1268.]

Fig. 1268.--Lone-Feather said his prayers and took the warpath to avenge

the death of some relatives. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1842-’43.

[Illustration: FIG. 1269.]

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

to some special ornamentation.

[Illustration: FIG. 1270.]

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

[Illustration: FIG. 1271.]

Fig. 1271.--Bone-Necklace. Red-Cloud’s Census. This figure and the three

following show special kinds of neck ornaments.

[Illustration: FIG. 1272.]

Fig. 1272--Beads. Red-Cloud’s Census.

[Illustration: FIG. 1273.]

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

[Illustration: FIG. 1274.]

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

[Illustration: FIG. 1275.]

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

Count, 1850-’51.

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

[Illustration: FIG. 1276.]

Fig. 1276.--Wears-the-Bonnet. Red-Cloud’s Census. This is the ornamented

war bonnet of the Dakotas.

[Illustration: FIG. 1277.]

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

[Illustration: FIG. 1278.]

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

Roster.

The place for the fingers to be worn is indicated by the line

terminating in a loop.

The Indian accumulated no wealth except in things useful during his

life. His ornaments were made from shells which in their natural shape

are innumerable; from the skins of animals which require only skill

to take and dress them; and from stone and copper, demanding only

strength to procure and transport them. The value of an Indian ornament

is in the skill, care and patience required in making it. Thus the

wampum-bead became of intrinsic value, similar in that to gold and

silver in civilization; the stone carefully wrought into the fashion of

a pipe became the emblem of authority and the instrument of worship;

and copper, slowly and toilfully delved and fashioned with the rudest

of tools and appliances, became almost a fetich of superstition. So

likewise the quill of the porcupine, worked into a design in embroidery

with the most exquisite care, was an ornament fit for warriors and

chiefs. But on the cradle or basket-nest for the expected or new-born

child, upon the gown or woman’s dress of the favorite daughter, and upon

the moccasins and trappings for the growing son, hand and head and heart

were employed for months and even years.

The Dakotan bride, swayed by the yearning of expectant maternity,

perhaps also by ambition to excel in the sole permitted mode of its

display, adorned her lodge with ornamented cradles, each new one

becoming in design more beautiful and intricate than the last, until her

yearning was answered, when the cradles not needed were exchanged for

horses and ornaments, which became the endowment of the new-born child.

Some note should be made of the sense of correspondence and contrast

of colors which the Dakota, at least, exhibits; the rules which he

originates and observes forming that which is called artistic taste.

The Indian’s use of colors corresponds more nearly than that of most

barbarians with that common in high civilization, except that he

perceives so little distinction between blue and green that but one name

generally suffices for both colors. It is remarkable that among the

wilder and plains tribes of Dakotas dead colors in beads are preferred

and arranged with good effect, and that among these, specially, the use

of neutral tints is common. Probably both of these results were produced

from the old and exclusive employment of clays for pigments--clays of

almost all colors and shades being found in the country over which the

Dakotas roamed.

The peculiarities of dress or undress would seem to have first struck

the people of the eastern hemisphere as well adapted to pictorial

representation. Singularly enough to modern ideas, the braccæ or

trousers were to the Romans the symbol of barbarism, whereas now the

absence of the garments, called even “indispensable,” has the same

significance. Maj. C. R. Conder (_d_) gives this good lesson literally

“a propos de bottes:”

A curious peculiarity of dress also serves to indicate the

racial connection. In Cappadocia and in Anatolia the monuments

represent figures with a boot or shoe curled up in front. An

Assyrian representation of an Armenian merchant shows the same

boot. Sir C. Wilson first compared it with the boot now worn by the

peasantry of Asia Minor. Perrot compares it with the cavalry boot

worn in Syria and with what we call a Turkish slipper. The Etruscans

wore a similar shoe called calceus repandus by the Romans. On the

monuments at Karnak the Hittites are represented wearing the same

shoe, and although it is not of necessity a mark of race, it is

still curious that this curly-toed boot was common to the various

Turanian peoples of Syria, Asia Minor, Armenia, and Italy.

[Illustration: FIG. 1279. Weapons.]

Schoolcraft (_t_) gives the characters on the left hand of Fig. 1279 as

two Ojibwa war clubs, and the right-hand character in the same figure is

represented in a Wyoming petroglyph as a bow.

Many other weapons distinctive to their draughtsmen are shown in this

paper.

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

It may be well to insert here Fig. 1280, showing the wommeras and clubs

of the Australians, taken from Curr (_d_), not only on account of their

forms but of the pictorial designs on some of them, which should be

compared with those of the Moki and other Indian tribes.

A large number of pictographic figures distinguishing bodies of Indians

by different mode of head dress have already been given. Some additional

detail may be added about the Absaroka who have in this regard been

imitated by the Hidatsa and Arikara.

They wear horse hair taken from the tail, attached to the back of their

heads and allowed to hang down their backs. It is arranged in eight or

ten strands, each about as thick as a finger and laid parallel with

spaces between them of the width of a single strand. Pine gum is then

mixed with red ocher or vermilion and by means of other hair, or fibers

of any kind laid crosswise, the strands are secured and around each

intersection of hair a ball of gum is plastered to hold it in place,

secured to the real growth of hair on the back of the head. About four

inches further down a similar row of gum balls and cross strings is

placed, and so on down to the end. The Indians frequently incorporate

the false hair with their own so as to lengthen the latter without any

marked evidence of the deception. Nevertheless the transverse fastenings

with their gum attachments are present. In picture-writing this is shown

upon the figure of a man by parallel lines drawn downward from the back

of the head, intersected by cross lines, the whole appearing like small

squares or a piece of net. See Figs. 484 and 485, supra.

A quaint account of social designation by the arrangement of the hair

among the Northeastern Algonquins is recorded in the Jesuit Relations of

1639, pp. 44-5:

When a girl or woman favors some one who seeks her, she cuts the

hair in the fashion adopted by the maidens of France, hanging over

the forehead, which is an ugly style as well in this country as in

France; St. Paul forbidding women to show their hair. The women here

wear their hair in bunches at the back of the head, in the form of a

truss, which they decorate with beads when they have them. If, after

marrying some one, a woman leaves him without cause, or if, being

promised and having accepted some present, she fails to keep her

word, the presumptive husband sometimes cuts her hair, which renders

her very despicable and prevents her from getting another spouse.

There is a differentiation of this usage among the Pueblos generally,

who, when accurate and particular in delineation, designate the women of

that tribe by a huge coil of hair over either ear. This custom prevails

also among the Coyotèro Apaches, the women wearing the hair in a coil to

denote a virgin, while the coil is absent in the case of a married woman.

Regarding the apparent subject matter of pictographs an obvious

distinction may be made between hunting and land scenes such as would

be familiar to interior tribes and those showing fishing and aquatic

habits common to seaboard and lacustrine peoples. Similar and more

perspicuous modes of discrimination are available. The general scope of

known history, traditions, and myths may also serve in identification.

Known habits and fashions of existing or historically-known tribes have

the same application, e. g., the portrayal on a drawing of a human face

of labrets or nose rings limits the artist to defined regions, and then

other considerations may further specify the work.

When the specific pictorial style of distinctive peoples is ascertained

its appearance on rocks may give evidence of their habitat and

migrations, and on the other hand their authorship of the petroglyphs

being received as a working hypothesis, the latter may be confirmed and

the characters interpreted through the known practices and habits of the

postulated authors.

SECTION 3.

AMBIGUOUS CHARACTERS WITH ASCERTAINED MEANING.

Under this heading specimens of the card catalogue before mentioned

are presented. The characters would not probably be recognized for

the objects they are intended to represent and many of them might be

mistaken for attempts to delineate other objects. A much larger number

of similar delineations are to be found under other headings in this

work, especially in Chap. XIII on Totems, titles, and names.

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

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

representing the turtle.

That they do so is shown by the head of the animal, _e_, taken from

the Cortesian Codex. This is one of the many examples in which

the significance of drawings can be ascertained from a series of

conventionalized forms. Other instances are given in the present paper,

and more in the works of Mr. W. H. Holmes, published in several of the

Annual Reports of the Bureau of Ethnology.

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

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

the armadillo of Yucatan.

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

The drawings of which Fig. 1283 presents copies were made by Dakota

tribesmen: _a_, fox; _b_, black fox; _c_, wolf; _d_, black deer; _e_,

beaver; _f_, spotted horse; _g_, porcupine; _h_, white hawk; _i_, bald

eagle; _k_, crow; _l_, swallow; _m_ and _n_, war bonnet; _o_, leggins;

_p_, gun; _q_, pipe.

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

The characters in Fig. 1284 are Ojibwa drawings. With the exception of

the last one they are copies of selected sketches made by Gaga Sindebi

at White Earth, Minn., in 1891, as parts of a Midē' song.

_a_, a wolf. The dark chest markings and the large tail are in imitation

of those parts of the timber wolf. The coyote is not now found in the

region where the author of the song lives; but is more particularly a

prairie animal.

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

_c_, a badger. Although the form resembles that of the bear the

difference is shown by the darkened body to imitate the gray fur.

_d_, a bear.

_e_, a bear. This style of drawing is not common, it being rather short

and stout, while the legs and ears are unusually pronounced.

_f_, the figure of a bear manido, to which is attached a feather

denoting the mythic character of the animal.

_g_, the figure represents a “lean bear,” as is specified by the

appearance of the ribs showing his lean condition.

_h_, a lizard. The ribs are ridges, which are found upon some forms of

_Siredon_, one species of which occurs in the ponds and small lakes of

Minnesota.

_i_, a toad.

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

_l_, a porcupine. Resembles some forms of the sacred bear manido as the

latter is sometimes drawn.

_m_, the crane. The three round spots over the head represent three

songs sung by the midē' to the crane manido.

_n_, the thunder-bird or eagle, having four heads. This character

appears to be unique, as it has at no time been noticed upon any of the

numerous midē' records in the possession of the Bureau of Ethnology.

_o_, the character represents a man using the rattle, as in the ceremony

of incantation. The projections above the head denote his superior

powers.

_p_, a midē', holding in his right hand a bear’s paw medicine bag, and

in his left hand an arrow. The character resembles similar drawings to

denote vessels in which herbs are boiled and from the top of which vapor

is issuing.

_q_, a midē' medicine sack. The character appears like similar drawings

of the otter; in the present instance, however, the ornamentation upon

the skin shows it to be not a living animal.

_r_, a beaver’s tail, from Schoolcraft (_y_). Many other illustrations

of this general nature are given by Mr. Schoolcraft, nearly all colored

according to his fancy.

CHAPTER XXII.

CONTROVERTED PICTOGRAPHS.

No large amount of space need be occupied in the mention of detected

pictographic frauds, their present and future importance being small,

but much more than is now allowed would be required for the full

discussion of controverted cases.

There is little inducement, beyond the amusement derived from hoaxing,

to commit actual frauds in the fabrication of petroglyphs. It must,

however, be remembered that coloration and carving of a deceptive

character are sometimes produced by natural causes, e. g., pictured

rocks on the island of Monhegan, Maine, figured by Schoolcraft (_z_),

are classed in “Science” VI, No. 132, p. 124, as freaks of surface

erosion. Mica plates were found in a mound at Lower Sandusky, Ohio,

which, after some attempts at interpretation, proved to belong to the

material known as graphic or hieroglyphic mica, the discolorations

having been caused by the infiltration of mineral solution between the

laminæ.

The instances where inscribed stones from mounds have been ascertained

to be forgeries or fictitious drawings are to be explained as sometimes

produced by simple mischief, sometimes by craving for personal

notoriety, and in other cases by schemes either to increase the

marketable value of land supposed to contain more of the articles or to

sell those exhibited.

With regard to more familiar and more portable articles, such as

engraved pipes, painted robes, and like curios, it is well known that

the fancy prices paid for them by amateurs have stimulated their

unlimited manufacture by Indians at agencies who make a business of

sketching upon ordinary robes or plain pipes the characters in common

use by them, without regard to any real event or person, and selling

them as significant records. Some enterprising traders have been known

to furnish the unstained robes, plain pipes, paints, and other materials

for the purpose, and simply pay a skillful Indian for his work, when the

fresh antique or imaginary chronicle is delivered.

As the business of making and selling archæologic frauds has become so

extensive in Egypt and Palestine, it can be no matter of surprise that

it has been attempted by enterprising people of the United States, about

whom the wooden-nutmeg imputation still clings. The Bureau of Ethnology

has discovered several centers of the manufacture of antiquities.

It was once proclaimed that six inscribed copper plates had been found

in a mound near Kinderhook, Pike county, Illinois, which were reported

to bear a close resemblance to Chinese. This resemblance seemed not

to be extraordinary when it was ascertained that the plate had been

engraved by the village blacksmith, copied from the lid of a Chinese

tea-chest.

The following recent notice of a case of alleged fraud is quoted from

Science, Vol. III, No. 58, March 14, 1884, page 334:

Dr. N. Roe Bradner exhibited [at the Academy of Natural

Sciences, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania] an inscribed stone found

inside a skull taken from one of the ancient mounds at Newark,

Ohio, in 1865. An exploration of the region had been undertaken,

in consequence of the finding of stones bearing markings somewhat

resembling Hebrew letters, in the hope of finding other specimens

of a like character. The exploration was supposed to have been

entirely unproductive of such objects until Dr. Bradner had found

the engraved stone, now exhibited, in a skull which had been given

to him.

This was supplemented by an editorial note in No. 62 of the same

publication, page 467, as follows:

A correspondent from Newark, Ohio, warns us that any inscribed

stones said to originate from that locality may be looked upon as

spurious. Years ago certain parties in that place made a business of

manufacturing and burying inscribed stones and other objects in the

autumn, and exhuming them the following spring in the presence of

innocent witnesses. Some of the parties to these frauds afterwards

confessed to them; and no such objects, except such as were

spurious, have ever been known from that region.

The correspondent of Science probably remembered the operations of

David Wyrick, of Newark, who, to prove his theory that the Hebrews were

the mound-builders, discovered in 1860 a tablet bearing on one side a

truculent “likeness” of Moses with his name in Hebrew, and on the other

a Hebrew abridgment of the ten commandments. A Hebrew bible afterwards

found in Mr. Wyrick’s private room threw some light on the inscribed

characters.

A grooved stone ax or maul, first described by the late Dr. John Evans,

of Pemberton, New Jersey, was reproduced by Dr. Wilson (_a_). Several

characters are cut in the groove and on the blade. They are neither

Runic, Scandinavian, nor Anglo-Saxon. It was found near Pemberton, New

Jersey, prior to 1859. Dr. E. H. Davis, who saw the stone, does not

regard the inscription as ancient. The characters had been retouched

before he saw them.

A grooved stone ax or maul, sent to Col. Whittlesey in 1874, from Butler

county, Ohio, about the size of the Pemberton ax, was covered with

English letters so fresh as to deceive no one versed in antiquities. The

purport of this inscription is that in 1689 Capt. H. Argill passed there

and secreted two hundred bags of gold near a spring.

It was claimed that an inscribed stone had been plowed up on the eastern

shore of Grand Traverse bay, Michigan, and an imperfect cast of it

was among the collections of the state of Michigan at the Centennial

Exhibition. The original is or was in the cabinet of the Kent county

Institute, Grand Rapids, Michigan. It is imperfectly executed, probably

with a knife, and evidently of recent make, in which Greek, Bardic, and

fictitious letters are jumbled together without order.

In 1875 a stone maul was discovered in an ancient mine pit near Lake

Desor, Isle Royal, Lake Superior, on which were cut several lines that

were at first regarded as letters.

An instructive paper by Mr. Wm. H. Holmes “On Some Spurious Mexican

Antiquities and their Relation to Ancient Art,” is published in the

Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1886, Pt. 1, pp. 319-334.

SECTION 1.

THE GRAVE CREEK STONE.

An inscribed stone found in Grave creek mound, near the Ohio river,

in 1838, has been the subject of much linguistic contention among

persons who admitted its authenticity. Twenty-four characters on it

have been considered by various experts to be alphabetic, and one is

a supposed hieroglyphic sign. Mr. Schoolcraft says that twenty-two

of the characters are alphabetic, but there has been a difference of

opinion with regard to their origin. One scholar finds among them four

characters which he claims are ancient Greek; another claims that four

are Etruscan; five have been said to be Runic; six, ancient Gaelic;

seven, old Erse; ten, Phenician; fourteen, old British; and sixteen,

Celtiberic. M. Levy Bing reported at the Congress of Americanists at

Nancy, in 1875, that he found in the inscription twenty-three Canaanite

letters, and translated it: “What thou sayest, thou dost impose it, thou

shinest in thy impetuous clan and rapid chamois.” (!) M. Maurice Schwab

in 1857 rendered it: “The Chief of Emigration who reached these places

(or this island) has fixed these statutes forever.” M. Oppert, however,

gave additional variety by the translation, so that all tastes can be

suited: “The grave of one who was assassinated here. May God to avenge

him strike his murderer, cutting off the hand of his existence.”

Col. Chas. Whittlesey (_a_) gives six copies of the Grave creek stone,

all purporting to be facsimiles, which have been published and used in

the elaborate discussions held upon its significance. Of these, three

are here reproduced with Col. Whittlesey’s remarks, as follows:

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

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

Capt. Seth Eastman was a graduate and teacher of drawing at West

Point. He was an accomplished draftsman and painter detailed by

the War Department to furnish the illustrations for “Schoolcraft’s

Indian Tribes,” published by the Government. This copy was made in

his official capacity, with the stone before him, and therefore

takes the first rank as authority. There are between the lines

twenty-two characters, but one is repeated three times and another

twice leaving only twenty. The figure, if it has any significance,

is undoubtedly pictorial.

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

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

From this copy M. Jomard considered the letters to be Lybian, a

language derived from the Phenician. At the right of the upper line

one is omitted and another bears no resemblance to the original.

The fifth character of the second line is equally defective and

objectionable. The second, fifth, and sixth of the lower line are

little better. In the rude profile of a human face beneath an eye

has been introduced and the slender cross lines attached to it have

assumed the proportions of a dagger or sword. For the linguist or

ethnologist this copy is entirely worthless.

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

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

This is so imperfect and has so many additions that it is little

better than a burlesque upon the original. No one will be surprised

that the learned Danish antiquarian could find in it no resemblance

to the Runic, with which he was thoroughly familiar.

A mere collocation of letters from various alphabets is not an alphabet.

Words can not be formed or ideas communicated by that artifice. When a

people adopts the alphabetical signs of another it adopts the general

style of the characters and more often the characters in detail. Such

signs had already an arrangement into syllables and words which had a

vocalic validity as well as known significance. A jumble of letters from

a variety of alphabets bears internal evidence that the manipulator

did not have an intelligent meaning to convey by them, and did not

comprehend the languages from which the letters were selected. In the

case of the Grave creek inscription the futile attempts to extract

a meaning from it on the theory that it belongs to an intelligent

alphabetic system show that it holds no such place. If it is genuine

it must be treated as pictorial and ideographic, unless, indeed, it is

cryptographic, which is not indicated.

SECTION 2.

THE DIGHTON ROCK.

In this connection some allusion must be made to the learned discussions

upon the Dighton rock before mentioned, p. 86. The originally Algonquian

characters were translated by a Scandinavian antiquary as an account

of the party of Thorfinn, the Hopeful. A distinguished Orientalist

made out clearly the word “melek” (king). Another scholar triumphantly

established the characters to be Scythian, and still another identified

them as Phenician. But this inscription has been so manipulated that it

is difficult now to determine the original details.

An official report made in 1830 by the Rhode Island Historical Society

and published by the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries, in

“Antiquitates Americanæ,” by C. C. Rafn (_e_), presents the best account

known concerning the Dighton rock and gives copies made from time to

time of the inscription, which are here reproduced, Pl. LIV. The text is

condensed as follows, but in quoting it the statement that the work was

not done by the Indians is without approval.

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

I. _Dr. Danforth’s Drawing 1680_

II. _Dr. Cotton Mather’s 1712_

III. _Dr. Greenwood’s 1730_

IV. _Mr. Stephen Sewell’s 1768_

V. _Mr. James Winthrop’s 1788_

VI. _Mr. Kendall’s 1807_

VII. _Mr. Job Gardner’s 1812_

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

IX. _The Rhode Island Historical Society’s 1830_

DIGHTON ROCK.]

It is situated about 6-1/2 miles south of Taunton, on the east

side of Taunton river, a few feet from the shore, and on the west

side of Assonet neck, in the town of Berkley, county of Bristol, and

commonwealth of Massachusetts; although probably from the fact of

being generally visited from the opposite side of the river, which

is in Dighton, it has always been known by the name of the Dighton

Writing Rock. It faces northwest toward the bed of the river, and is

covered by the water 2 or 3 feet at the highest, and is left 10 or

12 feet from it at the lowest tides; it is also completely immersed

twice in twenty-four hours. The rock does not occur in situ, but

shows indubitable evidence of having occupied the spot where it

now rests since the period of that great and extensive disruption

which was followed by the transportation of immense bowlders to,

and a deposit of them in, places at a vast distance from their

original beds. It is a mass of well characterized, fine grained

graywacke. Its true color, as exhibited by a fresh fracture, is a

bluish gray. There is no rock in the immediate neighborhood that

would at all answer as a substitute for the purpose for which the

one bearing the inscription was selected, as they are aggregates

of the large conglomerate variety. Its face, measured at the base

is 11-1/2 feet, and in height it is a little rising 5 feet. The

upper surface forms with the horizon an inclined plane of about 60

degrees. The whole of the face is covered to within a few inches of

the ground with unknown hieroglyphics. There appears little or no

method in the arrangement of them. The lines are from half an inch

to an inch in width; and in depth, sometimes one-third of an inch,

though generally very superficial. They were, inferring from the

rounded elevations and intervening depressions, pecked in upon the

rock and not chiseled or smoothly cut out. The marks of human power

and manual labor are indelibly stamped upon it. No one who examines

attentively the workmanship will believe it to have been done by

the Indians. Moreover, it is a well attested fact that nowhere

throughout our widespread domain is a single instance of their

recording or having recorded their deeds or history on stone.

“The committee also examined the various drawings that have been

made of this inscription.

“The first was made by Cotton Mather as early as 1712; and may

be found in No. 338, vol. 28, of the Philosophical Transactions, pp.

70 and 71; also in vol. 5, Jones’s abridgment, under article fourth.

“Another was made by James Winthrop in 1788, a copy of which may

be found in the Memoirs of the American Academy, vol. 2, part 2, p.

126.

“Dr. Baylies and Mr. Goodwin made another drawing in 1790, a

copy of which is inclosed.

“Mr. E. A. Kendall in 1807 took another which may be found in

the Memoirs of the American Academy, vol. 3, part 1, p. 165.

“And one has been more recently [1812] made by Mr. Job Gardner,

a lithograph from which is also inclosed.

“Dr. Isaac Greenwood exhibited a drawing of the inscription

before the Society of Antiquarians of London bearing the date of

1730. The drawing by the Historical Society of Rhode Island bears

the date of 1830.

“We send you a copy of the inscription, as given on said

representation of the rock, being what you probably desire; but

having made an accurate drawing of the rock itself for your

special use, we have not deemed it necessary to forward the one

above referred to. We also send a copy of Judge Winthrop’s drawing

contained in the same work, and of one taken by Stephen Sewell in

1768.

“You will likewise find among the drawings a copy of what

purports to be ‘a faithful and accurate representation of the

inscription,’ taken by Dr. Danforth in 1680. This is not sent with

any idea that it will prove serviceable in your present inquiry,

but simply to show what strange things have been conjured up by

travelers and sent to Europe for examination. We are, indeed, at

times almost compelled to believe there must have been some other

inscription rock seen; and yet from the accompanying accounts it

would appear that all refer to the same one; besides, there is a

degree of similarity in the complicated triangular figures which

appear on all.”

See, also, the illustration from Schoolcraft, Fig. 49, supra, with

further account. The fact was mentioned on p. 87 that the characters

on the Dighton Rock strongly resembled those on the Indian God Rock,

Pennsylvania, and some others specified. Lately some observers have

noticed the same fact with a different deduction. They presuppose

that the Dighton inscription is Runic, and therefore that the one in

Pennsylvania was carved by the Norsemen. This logic would bring the

Vikings very far inland into West Virginia and Ohio.

SECTION 3.

IMITATIONS AND FORCED INTERPRETATIONS.

From considerations mentioned elsewhere, and others that are obvious,

any inscriptions purporting to be pre-Columbian, showing apparent use

of alphabetic characters, signs of the zodiac, or other evidences of

a culture higher than that known among the North American Indians,

must be received with caution, but the pictographs may be altogether

genuine, and their erroneous interpretation may be the sole ground for

discrediting them.

The course above explained, viz, to attempt the interpretation of all

unknown American pictographs by the aid of actual pictographers among

the living Indians, should be adopted regarding all remarkable “finds.”

This course was pursued by Mr. Horatio N. Rust, of Pasadena, California,

regarding the much-discussed Davenport Tablets, in the genuineness of

which he believes. Mr. Rust exhibited the drawings to Dakotas with the

result made public at the Montreal meeting of the American Association

for the Advancement of Science, and also in a letter, an extract from

which is as follows:

As I made the acquaintance of several of the older and more

intelligent members of the tribe, I took the opportunity to show

them the drawings. Explaining that they were pictures copied from

stones found in a mound, I asked what they meant. They readily

gave me the same interpretation (and in no instance did either

interpreter know that another had seen the pictures, so there could

be no collusion). In Plate I, of the Davenport Inscribed Tablets

[so numbered in the Proceedings of the Davenport Academy, vol. II],

the lower central figure represents a dome-shaped lodge, with smoke

issuing from the top, behind and to either side of which appears a

number of individuals with hands joined, while three persons are

depicted as lying upon the ground. Upon the right and left central

margins are the sun and moon, the whole surmounted by three arched

lines, between each of which, as well as above them, are numerous

unintelligible characters. * * * The central figure, which has been

supposed by some to represent a funeral pile, was simply the picture

of a dirt lodge. The irregular markings apparently upon the side

and to the left of the lodge represent a fence made of sticks and

brush set in the ground. The same style of fence may be seen now in

any Sioux village.

The lines of human figures standing hand-in-hand indicate that a

dance was being conducted in the lodge. The three prostrate forms at

right and left sides of the lodge represent two men and a woman who,

being overcome by the excitement and fatigue of the dance, had been

carried out in the air to recover. The difference in the shape of

the prostrate forms indicates the different sexes.

The curling figures or rings above the lodge represent smoke,

and indicate that the dance was held in winter, when fire was used.

An amusing example of forced interpretation of a genuine petroglyph is

given by Lieut. J. W. Gunnison (_a_), and is presented in the present

work in connection with Fig. 81, supra.

[Illustration: FIG. 1288.--Imitated pictograph.]

Fig. 1288 is a copy of a drawing taken from an Ojibwa pipestem,

obtained by Dr. Hoffman from an officer of the United States Army, who

had procured it from an Indian in St. Paul, Minnesota. On more minute

examination, it appeared that the pipestem had been purchased at a shop

in St. Paul, which had furnished a large number of similar objects--so

large as to awaken suspicion that they were in the course of daily

manufacture. The figures and characters on the pipestem were drawn in

colors. In the present figure, which is without colors, the horizontal

lines represent blue and the vertical red, according to the heraldic

scheme. The outlines were drawn in a dark neutral tint, in some lines

approaching black; the triangular characters, representing lodges,

being also in a neutral tint, or an ashen hue, and approaching black in

several instances. The explanation of the figures, made before there was

any suspicion of their authenticity, is as follows:

The first figure is that of a bear, representing the person to whom the

record pertains. The heart above the line, according to an expression

in gesture language, would signify a brave heart, increased numbers

indicating much or many, so that the three hearts mean a large brave

heart.

The second figure, a circle inclosing a triradiate character, refers to

the personal totem. The character in the middle somewhat resembles the

pictograph sometimes representing stars, though in the latter the lines

center upon the disks and not at a common point.

The seven triangular characters represent the lodges of a village to

which the person referred to belongs.

The serpentine lines immediately below these signify a stream or river,

near which the village is situated.

The two persons holding guns in their left hands, together with another

holding a spear, appear to be the companions of the speaker or recorder,

all of whom are members of the turtle gens, as shown by that animal.

The curve from left to right is a representation of the sky, the sun

having appeared upon the left or eastern horizon. The drawing, so far,

might represent the morning when a female member of the crane gens, was

killed--shown by the headless body of a woman.

The lower figure of a bear is the same apparently as the upper, though

turned to the right. The hearts are drawn below the line, i. e., down,

to denote sadness, grief, remorse, as it would be expressed in gesture

language, and to atone for the misdeed committed the pipe is brought and

offering made for peace.

Altogether the act depicted appears to have been accidental, the woman

belonging to the same tribe, as can be learned from the gens of which

she was a member. The regret or sorrow signified in the bear, next to

the last figure, corresponds with that supposition, as such feelings

would not be manifested on the death of an enemy.

The point of interest in this drawing is, that the figures are very

skillfully copied from the numerous characters of the same kind

representing Ojibwa pictographs, and given by Schoolcraft. The

arrangement of these copied characters is precisely what would be

common in the similar work of Indians. In fact, the group constitutes

an intelligent pictograph and affords a good illustration of the

manner in which one can be made. The fact that it was sold under false

representations is its objectionable feature.

Another case brought officially to the Bureau of Ethnology shows

evidence of a more determined fraud. In 1888 and earlier a so-called

“Shawnee doctor” had displayed as a chart in the nature of an aboriginal

diploma, a brightly colored picture 36 by 40 inches, a copy of which was

sent, to be deciphered, to the Bureau by a gentleman who is not supposed

to have been engaged in fraud or hoax. The mystic chart is copied in

Fig. 1289. There was little difficulty in its explanation.

[Illustration: FIG. 1289.--Fraudulent pictograph.]

The large figures on the border can not be pretended to be of Indian

origin. The smaller interior figures constituting the body of the chart

are all, with trifling exceptions, exact copies of figures published

and fully explained in G. Copway’s “Traditional History, etc., of the

Ojibway Nation,” op. cit. Several of the same figures appear above in

the present work. The principal exceptions are, first, a modern knife;

second, a bird with a decidedly un-Indian human head, and, third,

a cross with two horizontal arms of equal length. The figures from

Copway are not in the exact order given in his list and it is possible

that they may have been placed in their present order to simulate the

appearance of some connected narrative or communication, which could

readily be done in the same manner as the words of a dictionary could be

cut out and pasted in some intelligent sequence.

Among the curiosities of literature in connection with the

interpretation of pictographs may be mentioned La Vèritè sur le Livre

des Sauvages, par L’Abbé Em. Domenech, Paris, 1861, and Researches

into the Lost Histories of America, by W. S. Blacket, London and

Philadelphia, 1884.

[Illustration: FIG. 1290.--Chinese characters.]

The following remarks of Dr. Edkins (_h_) are also in point:

The early Jesuits were accustomed to interpret Chinese

characters on the wildest principles. They detected religious

mysteries in the most unexpected situations. Kwei “treacherous,” is

written with Kieu “nine,” and above it one of the covering radicals,

Fig. 1290_a_. This, then, was Satan at the head of the nine ranks of

angels. The character, same Fig., _b_, c’hwen “a boat,” was believed

to contain an allusion to the deluge. On the left side is the ark

and on the right are the signs for eight and for persons. The day

for this mode of explaining the Chinese characters has gone by.

CHAPTER XXIII.

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS.

The result of the writer’s studies upon petroglyphs as distinct from

other forms of picture writing may now be summarized.

Perhaps the most important lesson learned from these studies is that no

attempt should be made at symbolic interpretation unless the symbolic

nature of the particular characters under examination is known, or can

be logically inferred from independent facts. To start with a theory, or

even a hypothesis, that the rock writings are all symbolic and may be

interpreted by the imagination of the observer or by translation either

from or into known symbols of similar form found in other regions, were

a limitless delusion. Doubtless many of the characters are genuine

symbols or emblems, and some have been ascertained through extrinsic

information to be such. Sometimes the more modern forms are explained

by Indians who have kept up the pictographic practice, and the modern

forms occasionally throw light upon the more ancient. But the rock

inscriptions do not evince mysticism or esotericism, cryptography,

or steganography. With certain exceptions they were intended to be

understood by all observers either as rude objective representations

or as ideograms, which indeed were often so imperfect as to require

elucidation, but not by any hermeneutic key. While they often related to

religious ceremonies or myths, such figures were generally drawn in the

same spirit with which any interesting matter was portrayed.

While the interpretation of petroglyphs by Indians should be obtained

if possible, it must be received with caution. They very seldom know

by tradition the meaning of the older forms, and their inferences are

often made from local and limited pictographic practices. There is

no more conscientious and intelligent Indian authority than Frank La

Flêche, an Omaha, and he explains the marks on a rock in Nebraska as

associated with the figures of deceased men and exhibiting the object

which caused their death, such as an arrow or ax. This may be a local

or tribal practice, but it certainly does not apply to similar figures

throughout the Algonquian and Iroquoian areas, where, according to the

concurrent testimony for more than two centuries, similar figures are

either designations of tribes and associations, or in their combinations

are records of achievements.

Lossing (_b_) gives the following explanation of markings on a well

known rock:

Among the brave warriors in the battle [of Maumee] who were the

last to flee before Wayne’s legion, was Me-sa-sa, or Turkey-foot, an

Ottawa chief, who lived on Blanchards Fork of the AuGlaize River.

He was greatly beloved by his people. His courage was conspicuous.

When he found the line of dusky warriors giving way at the foot of

Presque Isle hill, he leaped upon a small bowlder, and by voice and

gesture endeavored to make them stand firm. He almost immediately

fell, pierced by a musket ball, and expired by the side of the

rock. * * * They carved many rude figures of a turkey’s foot on the

stone, as a memorial of the English name of the lamented Me-sa-sa.

The stone is still there, by the side of the highway at the foot of

Presque Isle hill, within a few rods of the swift-flowing Maumee.

Many of the carvings are still quite deep and distinct, while others

have been obliterated by the abrasion of the elements.

This tale may be true, but it surely does not account for the

turkey-foot marks which are so common in the northeastern Algonquian

region, extending from Dighton rock to Ohio, that they form a typical

characteristic of its pictographs. They have been considered to be the

sign for the bird, the turkey, which was a frequent totem. Lossing’s

story is an example of the readiness of an Indian, when in an amiable

and communicative mood, to answer queries in a manner which he supposes

will be satisfactory to his interviewer. He will then give any desired

amount of information on any subject without the slightest restriction

by the vulgar bounds of fact. It is dangerous to believe explanations

on such subjects as are now under consideration, unless they are

made without leading questions by a number of Indian authorities

independently.

Specially convenient places for halting and resting on a journey,

either by land or water, such as is mentioned supra, on Machias bay,

generally exhibit petroglyphs if rocks of the proper character are

favorably situated there. The markings may be mere graffiti, the product

of leisure hours, or may be of the more serious descriptions mentioned

below.

Some points are ascertained with regard to the motives of the painters

and sculptors on rocks. Some of the characters were mere records

of the visits of individuals to important springs or to fords on

regularly established trails. In this practice there may have been in

the intention of the Indians very much the same spirit which induces

the civilized man to record his name or initials upon objects in the

neighborhood of places of general resort. But there was real utility in

the Indian practice, which more nearly approached to the signature in

a visitor’s book at a hotel or public building, both to establish the

identity of the traveler and to give the news to friends of his presence

and passage. At Oakley springs, Arizona territory, totemic marks have

been found, evidently made by the same individual at successive visits,

showing that on the number of occasions indicated he had passed by those

springs, probably camping there, and the habit of making such record

was continued until quite recently by the neighboring Indians. The same

repetition of totemic names has been found in great numbers in the

pipestone quarries of Minnesota, on the rocks near Odanah, Wisconsin,

and also at some old fords in West Virginia. These totemic marks are

so designed and executed as to have intrinsic significance and value,

wholly different in this respect from names in alphabetic form, which

grammatically are proper but practically may be common.

Rock carvings are frequently noticed at waterfalls and other points

on rivers and on lake shores favorable for fishing, which frequency

is accounted for by the periodical resort of Indians to such places.

Sometimes they only mark their stay, but occasionally there also appear

to be records of conflict with rival or inimical tribes which sought to

use the same waters.

Evidence is presented in the present work that the characters on

rock pictures sometimes were pointers or “sign-posts” to show the

direction of springs, the line of established trails, or of paths that

would shorten distances in travel. It has been supposed that similar

indications were used guiding to burial mounds and other places of

peculiar sanctity or interest, but the evidence of this employment is

not conclusive. Many inquiries have been made of the Bureau of Ethnology

concerning Indian marks supposed to indicate the sites of gold, silver,

and copper mines and buried treasure generally, which inquiries were

answered only because it was recognized as the duty of an office of the

government to respond, so far as possible, to requests for information,

however silly, which are made in good faith.

Petroglyphs are now most frequently found in those parts of the world

which are still, or recently have been, inhabited by savage or barbarian

tribes. Persons of these tribes when questioned about the authorship of

the rock drawings have generally attributed them to supernatural beings.

Statements to this effect from many peoples of the three Americas and

of other regions, together with the names of rockwriting deities, are

abundantly cited in the present work. This is not surprising, nor

is it instructive, except as to the mere fact that the drawings are

ancient. Man has always attributed to supernatural action whatever he

did not understand. Also, it appears that in modern times shamans have

encouraged this belief and taken advantage of it to interpret for their

own purposes the drawings, some of which have been made by themselves.

But notwithstanding these errors and frauds, a large proportion of the

petroglyphs in America are legitimately connected with the myths and the

religious practices of the authors. The information obtained during late

years regarding tribes such as the Zuñi, Moki, Navajo, and Ojibwa, which

have kept up on the one hand their old religious practices and on the

other that of picture writing, is conclusive on this point. The rites

and ceremonies of these tribes are to some extent shown pictorially on

the rocks, some of the characters on which have until lately been wholly

meaningless, but are now identified as drawings of the paraphernalia

used in or as diagrams of the drama of their rituals. Unless those

rituals, with the creeds and cosmologies connected with them had been

learned, the petroglyphs would never have been interpreted. The fact

that they are now understood does not add any new information, except

that perhaps in some instances their age may show the antiquity and

continuity of the present rites.

A potent reason for caution in making deductions based only on copies

of figures published incidentally in works of travel is that it can

seldom be ascertained with exactness what is the true depiction

of those figures as actually existing or as originally made. The

personal equation affects the drawings and paintings intended to

be copies from the rock surfaces and also the engravings and other

forms of reproductions, and the student must rely upon very uncertain

reproductions for most of his material. The more ancient petroglyphs

also require the aid of the imagination to supply eroded lines or

faded colors. Travelers and explorers are seldom so conscientious as

to publish an obscure copy of the obscure original. It is either made

to appear distinct or is not furnished at all, and if the author were

conscientious the publisher would probably overrule him.

Thorough knowledge of the historic tribes, including their sociology,

sophiology, technology, and especially their sign language, will

probably result in the interpretation of many more petroglyphs than

are now understood, but the converse is not true. The rock characters

studied independently will not give much primary information about

customs and concepts, though it may and does corroborate what has

been obtained by other modes of investigation. A knowledge of Indian

customs, costumes, including arrangement of hair, paint, and all tribal

designations, and of their histories and traditions, is essential to

the understanding of their drawings; for which reason some of those

particulars known to have influenced pictography have been set forth in

this work and objects have been mentioned which were known to have been

portrayed graphically with special intent.

Other objects are used symbolically or emblematically which, so far as

known, have never appeared in any form of pictographs, but might be

found in any of them. For instance, Mr. Schoolcraft says of the Dakotas

that “some of the chiefs had the skins of skunks tied to their heels

to symbolize that they never ran, as that animal is noted for its slow

and self-possessed movements.” This is one of the many customs to be

remembered in the attempted interpretations of pictographs. The present

writer does not know that a skunk skin or a strip of skin which might

be supposed to be a skunk skin attached to a human heel has ever been

separately used pictorially as the ideogram of courage or steadfastness,

but with the knowledge of this objective use of the skins, if they were

found so represented pictorially, the interpretation would be suggested

without any direct explanation from Indians.

A partial view of petroglyphs has excited hope that by their correlation

the priscan homes and migrations of peoples may be ascertained.

Undoubtedly striking similarities are found in regions far apart from as

well as near to each other. A glance at the bas-reliefs of Boro Boudour

in Java, now copied and published by the Dutch authorities, at once

recalls figures of the lotus and uræus of Egypt, the horns of Assyria,

the thunderbolt of Greece, the Buddhist fig tree, and other noted

characters common in several parts of the world. If the petroglyphs

of America are considered as the texts with which all others may be

compared, it is believed that the present work shows illustrations

nearly identical with many much-discussed carvings and paintings on the

rocks of the eastern hemisphere, those in Siberia being most strongly

suggestive of connection. But from the present collection it would seem

that the similarity of styles in various regions is more worthy of

study than is the mere resemblance or even identity of characters, the

significance of which is unknown and may have differed in the intent of

the several authors. Indeed it is clear that even in limited areas of

North America, diverse significance is attached to the same figure and

differing figures are made to express the same concept.

The present work shows a surprising resemblance between the typical

forms among the petroglyphs found in Brazil, Venezuela, Peru, Guiana,

part of Mexico, and those in the Pacific slope of North America. This

similarity includes the forms in Guatemala and Alaska, which, on account

of the material used, are of less assured antiquity. Indeed it would be

safe to include Japan and New Zealand in this general class. In this

connection an important letter from Mr. James G. Swan, respecting the

carved wooden images of the Haidas, accentuates the deduction derived

only from comparison. Mr. Swan says that he showed to the Indians of

various coast tribes the plates of Dr. Habel’s work on sculptures in

Guatemala, and that they all recognized several of the pictures which

he notes. They also recognized and understood the pictures of the Zuñi

ceremonials, masks, and masquerades scenes published by Mr. F. H.

Cushing.

Without entering upon the discussion whether America was peopled from

east to west, or from either, or from any other part of the earth, it

is for the present enough to suggest that the petroglyphs and other

pictographs in the three Americas indicate that their pre-Columbian

inhabitants had at one time frequent communication with each other,

perhaps not then being separated by the present distances of habitat.

Styles of drawing and painting could thus readily be diffused, and,

indeed, to mention briefly the extralimital influence, if as many

Japanese and Chinese vessels were driven upon the west American coast

in prehistoric times as are known by historic statistics to have been

so driven, the involuntary immigrants skilled in drawing and painting

might readily have impressed their styles upon the Americans near their

landing place to be thence indefinitely diffused. This hypothesis would

not involve migration.

Interest has been felt in petroglyphs, because it has been supposed

that if interpreted they would furnish records of vanished peoples

or races, and connected with that supposition was one naturally

affiliated that the old rock sculptures were made by peoples so far

advanced in culture as to use alphabets or at least syllabaries, thus

supporting the theory about the mythical mound builders or some other

supposititious race. All suggestions of this nature should at once be

abandoned. The practice of pictography does not belong to civilization

and declines when an alphabet becomes popularly known. Neither is there

the slightest evidence that an alphabet or syllabary was ever used in

pre-Columbian America by the aborigines, though there is some trace

of Runic inscriptions. The fact that the Maya and Aztec peoples were

rapidly approaching to such modes of expressing thought, and that the

Dakota and Ojibwa had well entered upon that line of evolution, shows

that they had proceeded no farther, and it is admitted that they were

favorable representatives of the tribes of the continent in this branch

of art. The theory mentioned requires the assumption, without a particle

of evidence, that the rock sculptures are alphabetic, and therefore were

made by a supposititious and extinct race. Topers of the mysterious

may delight in such dazing infusions of perverted fancy, but they are

repulsive to the sober student.

The foregoing remarks apply mainly to rock inscriptions and not to

pictographs on other substances, the discussion and illustration of

which occupy the greater part of the present work. In that division

there is no need of warning against wild theories or uncertain data. The

objects are in hand and their current use as well as their significance

is understood. Their description and illustration by classes is

presented in the above chapters with such detail that further discussion

here would be mere repetition.

One line of thought, however, is so connected with several of the

classifications that it may here be mentioned with the suggestion that

the preceding headings, with the illustrations presented under each,

may be reviewed in reference to the methodical progress of pictography

toward a determined and convenient form of writing. This exhibition of

evolution was arrested by foreign invasion before the indirect signs of

sound had superseded the direct presentments of sight for communication

and record. Traces of it appear throughout the present paper, but are

more intelligently noticed on a second examination than in cursory

reading. In the Winter Counts of Battiste Good there are many characters

where the figure of a human being is connected with an object, which

shows his tribal status or the disease of which he died, and the

characters representing the tribe or disease are purely determinative.

The discrimination which is made between animals and objects portrayed

simply as such, and as supernatural or mystic, is shown in the many

illustrations of Ojibwa and Zuñi devices, in which the heart is

connected with a line extending to the mouth, and those of the Ojibwa

and the Dakota, where the spirals indicate spirit or wakan. Animals are

often portrayed without such lines, in which cases it is understood

that they are only the animals in natural condition, but with the

designations or determinatives they are intended to be supernatural.

Among the Ojibwa animals connected with certain ceremonies are

represented as encircled by a belt or baldric, an ornamented baldric

of the same character being used by the participants in the ceremonial

chant dance; so that the baldric around the animal determines that the

figure is that of a supernatural and mystic, not an ordinary, animal.

This is an indication of the start from simple pictography towards an

alphabet by the use of determinatives as was done by the Chinese.

It is not believed that much information of historical value will be

obtained directly from the interpretation of the petroglyphs in America.

The greater part of those already known are simply peckings, carvings,

or paintings connected with their myths or with their every-day lives.

It is, however, probable that others were intended to commemorate

events, but the events, which to their authors were of moment, would be

of little importance as history, if, as is to be expected, they were

selected in the same manner as is done by modern Indian pictographers.

They referred generally to some insignificant fight or some season of

plenty or of famine, or to other circumstances the interest in which has

long ago died away.

The question may properly be asked, why, with such small prospect of

gaining historic information, so much attention has been directed to

the collection and study of petroglyphs. A sufficient answer might be

submitted, that the fact mentioned could not be made evident until after

that collection and study, and that it is of some use to establish the

limits of any particular line of investigation, especially one largely

discussed with mystical inferences to support false hypotheses. But

though the petroglyphs do not and probably never will disclose the kind

of information hoped for by some enthusiasts, they surely are valuable

as marking the steps in one period of human evolution and in presenting

evidence of man’s early practices. Also though the occurrences

interesting to their authors and therefore recorded or indicated by

them are not important as facts of history, they are proper subjects

of examination, simply because in fact they were the chief objects of

interest to their authors, and for that reason become of ethnologic

import. It is not denied that some of the drawings on rocks were made

without special purpose, for mere pastime, but they are of import even

as mere graffiti. The character of the drawings and the mode of their

execution tell something of their makers. If they do not tell who those

authors were, they at least suggest what kind of people they were as

regards art, customs, and sometimes religion. But there is a broader

mode of estimating the quality of known pictographs. Musicians are

eloquent in lauding of the great composers of songs without words. The

ideography, which is the prominent feature of picture writing, displays

both primordially and practically the higher and purer concept of

thoughts without sound.

The experience of the present writer induces him to offer the following

suggestions for the benefit of travelers and other observers who may

meet with petroglyphs which they may desire to copy and describe.

As a small drawing of large rock inscriptions must leave in doubt

the degree of its finish and perhaps the essential objects of its

production, it is requisite, in every instance, to affix the scale of

the drawing, or to give a principal dimension to serve as a guide. A

convenient scale for ordinary petroglyphs is one-sixteenth of actual

size. The copy should be with sufficient detail to show the character

of the work. It is useful to show the lithologic character of the rock

or bowlder used; whether the drawing has been scratched into the face

of the rock, or incised more deeply with a sharp implement, and the

depth of such incision; whether the design is merely outlined, or the

whole body of the figures pecked out, and whether paint has been applied

to the pecked surface, or the design executed with paint only. The

composition of paint should be ascertained when possible. The amount of

weathering or erosion, together with the exposure, or any other feature

bearing on the question of antiquity, might prove important. If actual

colors are not accessible for representation the ordinary heraldic

scheme of colors can be used.

That sketches, even by artists of ability, are not of high value

in accuracy, is shown by the discrepant copies of some of the most

carefully studied pictographs, which discrepancies sometimes leave in

uncertainty the points most needed for interpretation. Sketches, or

still better, photographs are desirable to present a connected and

general view of the characters and the surface upon which they are

found. For accuracy of details “squeezes” should be obtained when

practicable.

A simple method of obtaining squeezes of petroglyphs, when the lines

are sufficiently deep to receive an impression, is to take ordinary

manilla paper of loose texture, and to spread the sheet, after being

thoroughly wetted, over the surface, commencing at the top. The top edge

may be temporarily secured by a small streak of starch or flour paste.

The paper is then pressed upon the surface of the rock by means of a

soft bristle brush, so that its texture is gently forced into every

depression. Torn portions of the paper may be supplied by applying

small patches of wet paper until every opening is thoroughly covered.

A coating of ordinary paste, as above mentioned, is now applied to the

entire surface, and a new sheet of paper, similarly softened by water,

is laid over this and pressed down with the brush. This process is

continued until three or four thicknesses of paper have been used. Upon

drying, the entire mold will usually fall off by contraction. The edge

at the top, if previously pasted to the rock, should be cut. The entire

sheet can then be rolled up, or if inconveniently large can be cut in

sections and properly marked for future purposes. This process yields

the negative. To obtain the positive the inner coating of the negative

may be oiled, and the former process renewed upon the cast.

The characters when painted with bright tints and upon a light-colored

surface, may readily be traced upon tracing linen, such as is employed

by topographers. Should the rock be of a dark color, and the characters

indistinct, a simple process is to first follow the characters in

outline with colored crayons, red chalk, or dry colors mixed with water

and applied with a brush, after which a piece of muslin is placed over

the surface and pressed so as to receive sufficient coloring matter to

indicate general form and relative position. After these impressions

are touched up, the true position may be obtained by painting the lines

upon the back of the sheet of muslin, or by making a true tracing of the

negative.

An old mode of securing the outline was to clear out the channels of the

intaglios, then, after painting them heavily, to press a sheet of muslin

into the freshly painted depressions. The obvious objection to this

method is the damage to the inscription. Before such treatment, if the

only one practicable, all particulars of the work to be covered by paint

should be carefully recorded.

The locality should be reported with detail of State (or territory),

county, township, and distance and direction from the nearest

post-office, railway station, or country road. In addition the name of

any contiguous stream, hill, bluff, or other remarkable natural feature

should be given. The name of the owner of the land is of temporary

value, as it is liable to frequent changes. The site or station should

be particularly described with reference to its natural characteristics

and geological history. When petroglyphs are in numbers and groups,

their relation to each other to the points of the compass or to

topographical features, should be noted, if possible, by an accurate

survey, otherwise by numeration and sketching.

The following details should be carefully noted: The direction of the

face of the rock; the presence of probable trails and gaps which may

have been used in shortening distances in travel; localities of mounds

and caves, if any, in the vicinity; ancient camping grounds, indicated

by fragments of pottery, flint chips or other refuse; existence of

aboriginal relics, particularly flints which may have been used in

pecking (these may be found at the base of the rocks upon which

petroglyphs occur); the presence of small mortar-holes which may have

served in the preparation of colors.

With reference to pictographs on other objects than rock it is important

to report the material upon which they appear and the implements

ascertained to be used in their execution examples of which are given in

other parts of this work.

With reference to all kinds of pictographs, it should be remembered

that mere descriptions without graphic representations are of little

value. Probable age and origin and traditions relating to them should

be ascertained. Their interpretation by natives of the locality who

themselves make pictographs or who belong to people who have lately made

pictographs is most valuable, especially in reference to such designs

as may be either conventional, religious, or connected with lines of

gesture-signs.

LIST OF WORKS AND AUTHORS CITED.

The object of this alphabetical list is to permit convenient reference

to authorities without either deforming the pages of the present work

by footnotes or cumbering the text with more or less abbreviated

indications of editions, volumes, and pages, as well as titles and

names, which in some cases would have required many repetitions. The

list is by no means intended as a bibliography of the subject, nor

even as a statement of the printed and MS. works actually studied and

consulted by the present writer in the preparation of his copy. The

details and niceties of bibliographic description are not attempted,

the titles being abbreviated, except in a few instances where they are

believed to be of special interest. The purpose is to include only the

works which have been actually quoted or cited in the text, and, indeed,

not all of those, as it was deemed unnecessary to transfer to the

list some well-known works of which there are no confusing numbers of

editions. When a publication is cited in the text but once, sufficient

reference is sometimes made at the place of citation. When it would seem

that the reference should be more particular the work is mentioned in

the text, generally by the name of the author, followed by an italic

letter of the alphabet in a parenthesis, which letter is repeated in the

same form under the author’s name in the alphabetical list followed by

mention of the edition from which the citation was taken, the number of

the volume when there is more than one volume of that edition, and the

page; also a reference, when needed, to the illustration reproduced or

described.

Example: When the voluminous official publication of Schoolcraft is

first quoted on p. 35, the reference is to p. 351 of his first volume,

and the name “Schoolcraft” is followed by (_a_). On turning to that

name in the list there appears under it a note of the work and the

letter (_a_) is followed by “I, p. 351.” The references to this author

are so many that all the letters of the alphabet are successively

employed--indeed, some of them do duty several times, as several

references in the text are to the same page or plate. The references

to this single author would therefore have required at least thirty

footnotes, or corresponding words in the text, instead of thirty italic

letters divided between the several places of citation.

The abbreviation and simplicity of the plan is shown where there are

many editions of the work cited. One of the most troublesome for

reference of all publications is that of the Travels, etc., of Lewis and

Clarke. The letter (_a_) after those names on p. 419, repeated under the

same names in the list, refers to p. 66 of the edition specified.

When the italic letter in parenthesis precedes the title of a work in

the list, reference is made to that work as a whole without specific

quotation. So also when no such italic letter appears. Occasionally the

title and imprint of a magazine or other continuous publication appears

in the list without note of volume and page. This occurs where the

authority is noted elsewhere, generally more than once, with only curt

reference to the serial publication, and is intended to avoid repetition.

The simple scheme is designed, while avoiding bibliographic prolixity,

to give practical assistance to the reader in finding the authorities

cited, when desired. Scientific pretense has sometimes been sacrificed

for simplicity and convenience.

LIST.

~ADAIR~ (JAMES).

The History of the American Indians; particularly those Nations

adjoining to the Mississippi, East and West Florida, Georgia, South

and North Carolina, and Virginia. * * * By James Adair, Esquire, a

Trader with the Indians, and Resident in their Country for Forty

Years. London; 1775. 4^{o}.

(_a_) p. 389.

~AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST.~

The American Anthropologist, published quarterly under the

auspices of the Anthropological Society of Washington. Washington,

D. C. Vol. I[-VI]. 8^{o}.

(_a_) II, 1889, No. 4, p. 323. (_b_) ibid., p. 524.

~AMERICAN NATURALIST.~

The American Naturalist, a monthly journal devoted to the

natural sciences in their widest sense. Philadelphia. Vol.

I[-XXVII]. 8^{o}.

~AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.~

Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, held at

Philadelphia, for promoting useful knowledge. Philadelphia (Penna.).

Vol. I[-XXX]. 8^{o}.

(_a_) XXIX, p. 216.

~ANDREE~ (_Dr._ RICHARD).

Das Zeichnen bei den Naturvölkern. Separatabdruck aus den

Mittheilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien. Bd. XVII,

der neuen Folge Bd. VII. Wien; 1887. 8^{o}.

(_a_) p. 6. (_b_) p. 4. (_c_) ib. (_d_) p. 8. (_e_) p. 5.

Ethnographische Parallelen und Vergleiche, von Richard Andree.

Mit 6 Tafeln und 21 Holzschnitten. Stuttgart; 1878. 8^{o}.

(_a_) p. 260. (_b_) p. 194.

~ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.~

The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain

and Ireland. London; 1872[-1892]. 8^{o}.

(_a_) XIX, May, 1890, p. 368. (_b_) XVI, Feb., 1887, p. 309.

(_c_) I, 1872, p. 334. (_d_) X, Feb., 1880, p. 104. (_e_) III, Feb.,

1873, p. 131. (_f_) XVII, Nov., 1887, p. 86.

~ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF TŌKYŌ.~

See _Tōkyō Anthropological Society of._

~ANTHROPOLOGIE.~

See _L’Anthropologie._

~ANTHROPOLOGISCHE GESELLSCHAFT IN BERLIN.~

See _Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie._

~ANTHROPOLOGISCHE GESELLSCHAFT IN WIEN.~

Mittheilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in

Wien. In Commission bei Alfred Hölder, k.k. Hof- und

Universitäts-Buchhändler. Wien; 4^{o}.

(_a_) XVI, iii. and iv. Heft, 1886, Tafel X.

~APPUN~ (C. F.).

Südamerikanischen, mit Sculpturen bedeckten Felsens. In

Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie,

Ethnologie und Urgeschichte. Berlin; Mai, 1877.

(_a_) pp. 6 and 7, Pl. XVI.

~ARARIPE~ (TRISTÃO DE ALENCAR).

Cidades Petrificades e Inscripções Lapidares no Brazil. By

Tristão de Alencar Araripe. In Revista Trim. do Inst. Hist. e Geog.

Brazil, Tome L, 2^o folheto. Rio de Janeiro; 1887.

(_a_) p. 275 et seq. (_b_) p. 291. (_c_) p. 277.

~ARCHAIC ROCK INSCRIPTIONS.~

Archaic Rock Inscriptions; an Account of the Cup and Ring

Markings on the Sculptured Stones of the Old and New Worlds. * * * A

Reader, Orange Street, Red Lion Square, London; 1891. Sm. 8^{o}.

~AUSLAND~, _Das_

Das Ausland. Wochenschrift für Erd- und Völkerkunde.

Herausgegeben von Siegmund Günther. Stuttgart. Verlag der J. G.

Cotta’schen Buchhandlung, Nachfolger. 4^{o}.

(_a_) 1884, No. 1, p. 12.

~BANCROFT~ (HUBERT HOWE).

The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America. By

Hubert Howe Bancroft. San Francisco; 1882. Vol. I[-V]. 8^{o}.

(_a_) I, p. 379. (_b_) I, p. 48. (_c_) I, p. 332. (_d_) II, p.

802. (_e_) I, p. 333. (_f_) I, p. 387. (_g_) I, p. 403. (_h_) II, p.

374. (_i_) IV, pp. 40-50.

~BANDELIER~ (A. F.).

Report of an Archæological Tour in Mexico in 1881. By A. F.

Bandelier. Papers of the Archæological Institute of America.

American Series, II. Boston; 1884. 8^{o}.

(_a_) p. 184.

~BARTLETT~ (JOHN RUSSELL).

Personal Narrative of Explorations and Incidents in Texas, New

Mexico, California, Sonora, and Chihuahua, connected with the United

States and Mexican Boundary Commission, during the years 1850, ’51,

’52, and ’53. By John Russell Bartlett, United States Commissioner

during that period. New York; 1854. 2 vols. 8^{o}.

(_a_) II, pp. 192-206. (_b_) ibid., pp. 170-173.

~BASTIAN~ (A.).

(_b_) Amerika’s Nordwest-Küste. Neueste Ergebnisse

ethnologischer Reisen. Aus den Sammlungen der königlichen Museen

zu Berlin. Herausgegeben von der Direction der ethnologischen

Abtheilung. Berlin; 1884. Folio.

Ethnologisches Bilderbuch (mit erklärendem Text), 25 Tafeln. Von

Adolf Bastian. Berlin; 1887. Folio.

(_a_) Pl. VI.

~BELDEN~ (G. P.).

Belden, the White Chief, or Twelve Years among the Wild Indians

of the Plains. From the diaries and manuscripts of George P. Belden.

* * * Edited by Gen. James S. Brisbin, U. S. A. Cincinnati and New

York; 1870. 8^{o}.

(_a_) p. 277. (_b_) p. 145. (_c_) p. 144.

~BERLINER GESELLSCHAFT FÜR ANTHROPOLOGIE.~

Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie,

Ethnologie und Urgeschichte. Redigirt von Rud. Virchow. Berlin.

8^{o}.

(_a_) No. 20, March, 1886. (_b_) Sitzung 16, November, 1889, p.

655. (_c_) ibid., p. 651. (_d_) March 20, 1886, p. 208.

~BERTHELOT~ (S.).

Notice sur les Caractères Hiéroglyphiques Gravés sur les

Roches Volcaniques aux îles Canaries. In Bulletin de la Société de

Géographie, rédigé avec le Concours de la Section de Publication

par les Secrétaires de la Commission Centrale. Sixième Série, Tome

Neuvième, année 1875. Paris; 1875.

(_a_) p. 117 et seq. (_b_) p. 189.

~BERTHOUD~ (_Capt._ E. L.).

(_a_) In Kansas City Review of Science and Industry, VII, 1883,

No. 8, pp. 489, 490.

~BLOXAM~ (G. W.).

Aroko, or Symbolic Letters. In Journal Anthrop. Inst. Great

Britain and Ireland. 1887.

(_a_) pp. 291 et seq. (_b_) p. 295. (_c_) p. 298.

~BOAS~ (_Dr._ FRANZ).

Report on the Northwestern Tribes of the Dominion of Canada. In

Report of the Fifty-ninth Annual Meeting of the British Association

for the Advancement of Science. London; 1889.

(_c_) p. 12. (_e_) pp. 852, 853. (_f_) p. 841.

Felsenzeichnung von Vancouver Island. In Verhandlungen der

Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, ausserordentliche Sitzung

am 14. Februar 1891.

(_a_) p. 160. Fig. p. 161.

The Houses of the Kwakiutl Indians, British Columbia. In

Proceedings of the U. S. National Museum for 1888. Washington. 8^{o}.

(_b_) pp. 197 et seq. (_d_) p. 212, Pl. XL. (_g_) p. 208.

~BOBAN~ (EUGÈNE).

Documents pour servir à l’Histoire du Mexique. Catalogue

raisonné de la Collection de M. E.-Eugène Goupil (Ancienne coll.

J.-M.-A. Aubin). Manuscrits figuratifs et autres sur papier indigène

d’agave Mexicana et sur papier européen antérieurs et postérieurs à

la Conquête du Mexique. (XVI^e siècle). Avec une introduction de M.

E.-Eugène Goupil et une lettre-préface de M. Auguste Génin. Paris;

1891. 2 vols. 4^{o}, and atlas folio.

(_a_) II, p. 273. (_b_) II, pp. 331, 342.

~BOCK~ (CARL).

The Head-Hunters of Borneo: A narrative of travel up the

Mahakkam and down the Barrito; also journeyings in Sumatra. By Carl

Bock. London; 1881. 8^{o}.

(_a_) p. 67. (_b_) p. 41.

~BOLLER~ (HENRY A.).

Among the Indians. Eight years in the Far West: 1858-1866.

Embracing sketches of Montana and Salt Lake. By Henry A. Boller.

Philadelphia; 1868. 12^{o}.

(_a_) p. 284.

~BOSCAWEN~ (W. ST. CHAD).

The Prehistoric Civilization of Babylonia. In Journal of the

Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. VIII,

No. 1; August, 1878.

(_a_) p. 23.

~BOSSU~ (_Capt._).

Travels through that part of North America formerly called

Louisiana. By Mr. Bossu, captain in the French marines. Translated

from the French by John Rheinhold Forster. Illustrated with Notes,

relative chiefly to Natural History. London; 1771. 2 vols. 8^{o}.

(_a_) I, p. 164.

~BOTURINI~ (BENADUCI).

Idea de una Nueva Historia General de la América Septentrional,

fundada sobre material copioso de Figuras, Symbolos, Caracteres y

Geroglíficos, Cantares y Manuscritos de Antores Indios, ultimamente

descubiertos. Dedicada al Rey N^{tro} Señor en su real y supremo

consejo de las Indias el Cavallero Lorenzo Boturini Benaduci, Señor

de la Torre, y de Pono. Madrid; 1746. 4^{o}.

(_a_) pp. 54-56.

~BOURKE~ (_Capt._ JOHN G.).

The Snake-Dance of the Moquis of Arizona; being a Narrative of

a Journey from Santa Fé, New Mexico, to the Villages of the Moqui

Indians of Arizona, etc. By John G. Bourke, Captain, Third U. S.

Cavalry. New York; 1884. 8^{o}.

(_f_) p. 120.

The Medicine Men of the Apaches. By John G. Bourke, Captain,

Third Cavalry, U. S. Army. In the Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau

of Ethnology.

(_a_) p. 550 et seq. (_b_) p. 562. (_c_) ib. (_d_) p. 580. (_e_)

p. 588. (_f_) ib.

~BOVALLIUS~ (CARL).

Nicaraguan Antiquities. By Carl Bovallius; pub. by Swed. Soc.

Anthrop. and Geog. Stockholm; 1886. 8^{o}.

(_a_) Pl. 39.

~BOYLE~ (DAVID).

4th Ann. Rep. Canadian Institute, 1890.

(_a_) p. 23. (_b_) ib.

~BRANSFORD~ (_Dr._ J. F.).

Archæological Researches in Nicaragua. By J. F. Bransford, M.

D., Passed Assistant Surgeon, U. S. Navy. [Constitutes No. 383,

Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge.] Washington; 1881.

(_a_) p. 64, fig. 123. (_b_) p. 65.

~BRASSEUR DE BOURBOURG~ (_Abbé_ CHARLES ÉTIENNE).

See _Landa_.

~BRAZILEIRO, REVISTA TRIMENSAL.~

See _Revista Trimensal do Instituto Hist. e Geog. Brazileiro_.

~BRINTON~ (_Prof._ DANIEL G.).

On the “Stone of the Giants.” In Report of the Proceedings of

the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia for the years

1887-1889. Philadelphia; 1891.

(_a_) p. 78 et seq. (_c_) ib.

On the Ikonomatic Method of Phonetic Writing, with special

reference to American Archæology. Read before the Am. Philosoph.

Soc. Oct. 1, 1886.

(_b_) p. 3.

The Names of the Gods in the Kiche Myths, Central America. By

Daniel G. Brinton, M. D. Separate and in Proc. Am. Philos. Soc. 8^o.

(_d_) XIX, p. 613.

(_e_) The Maya Chronicles. Edited by Daniel G. Brinton, M.

D. Philadelphia; 1882. 8^{o}. Number 1 of Brinton’s Library of

Aboriginal American Literature.

(_f_) The Lenape and their Legends, with the complete text and

symbols of the Walam Olum. By Daniel G. Brinton, M. D. Philadelphia;

1885. 8^{o}.

(_g_) The Myths of the New World. A treatise on the symbolism

and mythology of the red race of America. By D. G. Brinton. New

York; 1876. 8^{o}.

~BROWN~ (CHAS. B.).

The Indian Picture Writing in British Guiana. By Charles B.

Brown. In Journal of the Anthropological Inst. of Gt. Britain and

Ireland.

(_a_) II, 1873, pp. 254-257.

~BROWN~ (EDWARD).

The Pictured Cave of La Crosse Valley, near West Salem,

Wisconsin. In Report and Collections of the State Historical Society

of Wisconsin for the years 1877, 1878, and 1879, Vol. VIII, Madison;

1879.

(_a_) pp. 174-181, Figs. 2, 5, 9, 14.

~BRUXELLES, SOCIÉTÉ D’ANTHROPOLOGIE DE.~

See _Société d’Anthropologie de Bruxelles_.

~BUCKLAND~ (_Miss_ A. W.).

On Tattooing. In Journal Anthrop. Inst. Gt. Britain and Ireland,

XVII, No. 4. May, 1888.

(_a_) p. 318 et seq.

~BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.~

Annual Reports of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of

the Smithsonian Institution. Washington. Roy. 8^o. I[-X].

First Annual Report [for 1879-’80]. 1881. Sign Language among

North American Indians compared with that among other peoples and

deaf mutes. By Garrick Mallery. pp. 263-552.

(_a_) p. 498.

Same Report. A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary

Customs of the North American Indians. By Dr. H. C. Yarrow, Act.

Asst. Surg. U. S.

A. pp. 87-203.

(_a_) p. 195.

Fourth Annual Report [for 1882-’83]. 1886. Pictographs of North

American Indians. A Preliminary Paper. By Garrick Mallery. pp. 3-256.

References to other authors in this series appear under their

respective names.

~CADILLAC~ (_Capt._ DE LAMOTHE).

(_a_) Collier qui doit être porté à Montréal. In Margry, Part V,

pp. 290-291.

(_b_) In Margry, Part V, p. 90.

~CANADA, ROYAL SOCIETY OF.~

Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada.

I[-IX]. Montreal and Toronto. Large 4^o.

~CANADA~, Report of the Deputy Superintendent-General of Indian

Affairs of. Ottawa; 1879. 8^o.

(_a_) p. 113.

~CANADIAN INSTITUTE.~

Proceedings of the Canadian Institute of Toronto, being a

continuation of the Canadian Journal of Science, Literature, and

History. 20 vols. in 3 series, commencing 1852. Toronto. First

series 4^o, last series 8^o.

~CARNE~ (PERRIER DU).

(_a_) In L’Anthropologie, II, 1891, No. 2, p. 269.

~CARPENTER~ (EDWARD).

From Adam’s Peak to Elephanta. Sketches in Ceylon and India. By

Edward Carpenter. London; 1892. 8^o.

(_a_) p. 129.

~CARTAILHAC~ (ÉMILE).

La France préhistorique d’après les sépultures et les monuments.

Par Émile Cartailhac. Paris; 1889. 8^o.

(_a_) p. 234.

~CARVER~ (_Capt._ JONATHAN).

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years 1766, 1767, and 1768. By J. Carver, esq., captain of a company

of Provincial troops during the late war with France. Illustrated

with copper plates. London; 1778. 8^o.

(_a_) p. 418. (_b_) ib. (_c_) p. 357.

~CATLIN~ (GEORGE).

Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the

North American Indians. Fourth edition. London; 1844. 2 vols. 8^o.

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~CHAMPLAIN~ (_Le Sieur_ SAMUEL DE).

Les voyages de la Novvelle France occidentale, dicte Canada,

faits par le S^r de Champlain Xainctongeois, Capitaine pour le Roy

en la Marine du Ponant, & toutes les Descouuertes qu’il a faites

en ce païs depuis l’an 1603 iusques en l’an 1629. Où se voit comme

ce pays a esté premierement descouuert par les François, sous

l’authorité de nos Roys tres-Chrestiens, iusques au regne de sa

Majesté à present regnante Lovis XIII. Roy de France & de Nauarre.

Auec vn traitté des qualitez & conditions requises à vn bon &

parfaict Nauigateur pour cognoistre la diuersité des Estimes qui se

font en la Nauigation; Les Marques & enseignments que la prouidence

de Dieu a mises dans les Mers pour redresser les Mariniers en leur

routte, sans lesquelles ils tomberoient en de grands dangers, Et

la maniere de bien dresser Cartes marines auec leurs Ports, Rades,

Isles, Sondes & autre chose necessaire à la Nauigation. Ensemble

vne Carte generalle de la description dudit pays faicte en son

Meridien selon la declinaison de la guide Aymant, & vn Catechisme ou

Instruction traduicte du François au langage des peuples Sauuages de

quelque contree, auec ce qui s’est passé en ladite Nouuelle France

en l’année 1631. Paris; 1632. Sm. 4^o.