Part 24

Figure 139 is taken from a roll of birch bark obtained from the Ojibwa Indians at Red Lake, Minnesota, in 1882, known to be more than seventy years old. The interpretation was given by an Indian from that reservation, although he did not know the author nor the history of the record. With one exception, all of the characters were understood and interpreted to Dr. Hoffman, in 1883 by Ottawa Indians at Harbor Springs, Michigan. This tribe at one time habitually used similar methods of recording historic and mythologic data.

No. 1. Represents the person who visited a country supposed to have been near one of the great lakes. He has a scalp in his hand which he obtained from the head of an enemy, after having killed him. The line from the head to the small circle denotes the name of the person, and the line from the mouth to the same circle signifies (in the Dakota method), “That is it,” having reference to proper names.

No. 2. The person killed. He was a man who held a position of some consequence in his tribe, as is indicated by the horns, marks used by the Ojibwas among themselves for Shaman, Wabeno, etc. It has been suggested that the object held in the hand of this figure is a rattle, though the Indians, to whom the record was submitted for examination, are in doubt, the character being indistinct.

No. 3. Three disks connected by short lines signify, in the present instance, three nights, _i. e._, three black suns. Three days from home was the distance the person in No. 1 traveled to reach the country for which started.

No. 4. Represents a shell, and denotes the primary object of the journey. Shells were needed for making ornaments and to trade.

No. 5. Two parallel lines are here inserted to mark the end of the present record and the beginning of another.

IDEOGRAPHS.

The number of instances in this paper in which the picture has been expressive of an idea, and not a mere portraiture of an object, and has amounted sometimes to a graphic representation of an abstract idea, is so great as to render cross-references superfluous. As examples, attention may be invited to Figure 72, page 166, for the idea of “voice,” Figure 179, page 241, for that of “war,” and the Corbusier winter counts for the year 1876-’77--No. I, page 146, for that of “support.” In addition to them, however, for convenience of grouping under this special heading, the following illustrations (some of which would as properly appear under the head of Conventionalizing) are presented.

ABSTRACT IDEAS.

Figure 140 is taken from the winter count of Battiste Good, and is drawn to represent the sign for pipe, which it is intended to signify. The sign is made by placing the right hand near the upper portion of the breast, the left farther forward, and both held so that the index and thumb approximate a circle, as if holding a pipe-stem. The remaining fingers are closed.

The point of interest in this character is that instead of drawing a pipe the artist drew a human figure making the sign for pipe, showing the intimate connection between gesture-signs and pictographs. The pipe, in this instance, was the symbol of peace.

Figure 141, taken from the winter count of Battiste Good for the year 1703-’04, signifies plenty of buffalo meat.

The forked stick being one of the supports of a drying-pole or scaffold, indicates meat. The circle may represent a pit or “cache” in which buffalo meat was placed during the winter of 1703-’04, or it may mean “heap”--_i. e._, large quantity, buffalo having been very plentiful that year. The buffalo head denotes the kind of meat stored. This is an abbreviated form of the device immediately following, and being fully understood affords a suggestive comparison with some Egyptian hieroglyphs and Chinese letters, both in their full pictographic origin and in their abbreviation.

Figure 142 is taken from the same count for the year 1745-’46, in which the drying-pole is supported by two forked sticks or poles, only one of which, without the drying-pole, was indicated in the preceding figure, which is an abbreviated or conventionalized form of the objective representation in the pre-present figure, viz., a scaffold or pole upon which buffalo meat was placed for drying. Buffalo were very plentiful during the winter of 1745-’46, and the kind of meat is denoted by the buffalo head placed above the pole, from which meat appears suspended.

Figure 143 is taken from Prince Maximilian’s Travels, _op. cit._ p. 352. The cross signifies, I will barter or trade. Three animals are drawn on the right hand of the cross; one is a buffalo (probably albino); the two others, a weasel (_Mustela Canadensis_) and an otter. The pictographer offers in exchange for the skins of these animals the articles which he has drawn on the left side of the cross. He has there, in the first place, depicted a beaver very plainly, behind which there is a gun; to the left of the beaver are thirty strokes, each ten separated by a longer line; this means: I will give thirty beaver skins and a gun for the skins of the three animals on the right hand of the cross.

The ideographic character of the design consists in the use of the cross--being a drawing of the gesture-sign for “trade”--the arms being in position interchanged. Of the two things each one is put in the place before occupied by the other thing--the idea of exchange.

Figure 144, from the record of Battiste Good for the year 1720-’21, signifies starvation, denoted by the bare ribs.

This design survives among the Ottawa and Pottawatomi Indians of Northern Michigan, but among the latter a single line only is drawn across the breast, shown in Figure 145. This corresponds, also, with one of the gesture-signs for the same idea.

Figure 146, from the record of Battiste Good for the year 1826-’27, signifies “pain.” He calls the year “Ate-a-whistle-and-died winter,” and explains that six Dakotas, on the war path, had nearly perished with hunger when they found and ate the rotting carcass of an old buffalo, on which the wolves had been feeding. They were seized soon after with pains in the stomach, their bellies swelled, and gas poured from the mouth and the anus, and they died of a whistle, or from eating a whistle. The sound of gas escaping from the mouth is illustrated in the figure. The character on the abdomen and on its right may be considered to be the ideograph for pain in that part of the body.

SYMBOLISM.

The writer has, in a former publication, suggested the distinction to be made between a pictorial sign, an emblem, and a symbol; but it is not easy to preserve the discrimination in reference to ideographic characters which have often become conventionalized. To partly express the distinction, nearly all of the characters in the Dakota Winter Counts are regarded as pictorial signs, and the class represented by tribal signs, personal insignia, etc., is considered to belong to the category of emblems. There is no doubt, however, that true symbols exist among the Indians, as they must exist to some extent among all peoples not devoid of poetic imagination. Some of them are shown in this paper. The pipe is generally a symbol of peace, although in certain positions and connections it sometimes signifies preparation for war, and again subsequent victory. The hatchet is a common symbol for war, and closed hands or approaching palms denote friendship. The tortoise has been clearly used as a symbol for land, and many other examples can be admitted. If Schoolcraft is to be taken as uncontroverted authority, the symbolism of the Ojibwa rivalled that of the Egyptians, and the recent unpublished accounts of the Zuñi, Moki, and Navajo before mentioned indicate the frequent employment of symbolic devices by those tribes which are notably devoted to mystic ceremonies. Nevertheless, the writer’s personal experience is, that often when he has at first supposed a character to be a genuine symbol it has resulted, with better means of understanding, in being not even an ideograph but a mere objective representation. In this connection, the remarks on the circle on page 107, and those on Figure 206, on page 246, may be in point.

Another case for consideration occurs. The impression, real or represented, of a human hand is used in several regions in the world with symbolic significance. For instance, in Jerusalem a rough representation of a hand is reported by Lieutenant Conder (Palestine Exploration Fund, January, 1873, p. 16) to be marked on the wall of every house whilst in building by the native races. Some authorities connect it with the five names of God, and it is generally considered to avert the evil eye. The Moors generally, and especially the Arabs in Kairwan, employ the marks on their houses as prophylactics. Similar hand prints are found in the ruins of El Baird, near Petra. Some of the quaint symbolism connected with horns is supposed to originate from such hand marks. Among the North American Indians the mark so readily applied is of frequent occurrence, an instance, with its ascertained significance, being given on page 187, _supra_.

It has been recently ascertained that the figure of a hand, with extended fingers, is very common in the vicinity of ruins in Arizona as a rock-etching, and is also frequently seen daubed on the rocks with colored pigments or white clay. This coincidence would seem at first to assure symbolic significance and possibly to connect the symbolism of the two hemispheres. But Mr. Thomas V. Keam explains the Arizona etchings of hands, on the authority of the living Moki, as follows:

“These are vestiges of the test formerly practiced among young men who aspired for admission to the fraternity of Salyko. The Salyko is a trinity of two women and a woman from whom the Hopitus [Moki] first obtained corn. Only those were chosen as novices, the imprints of whose hands had dried on the instant.”

While the subject-matter is, therefore, ceremonial, there is absolutely no symbolism connected with it. The etchings either simply perpetuate the marks made in the several tests or imitate them.

In the present stage of the study no more can be suggested than that symbolic interpretations should be accepted with caution.

With regard to the symbolic use of material objects, which would probably be extended into graphic portrayal, the following remarks maybe given:

The Prince of Wied mentions (_op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 244) that in the Sac and Fox tribes the rattle of a rattlesnake attached to the end of the feather worn on the head signifies a good horse stealer. The stealthy approach of the serpent, accompanied with latent power, is here clearly indicated.

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.” See Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontier, etc., Philadelphia, 1851, p. 214.

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 used pictorially as the ideograph of courage or steadfastness, but with the knowledge of this objective use of the skins, if they were found so represented pictorially, as might well be expected, the interpretation would be suggested, without any direct explanation from Indians.

IDENTIFICATION OF THE PICTOGRAPHERS.

The first point in the examination of a pictograph is to determine by what body of people it was made. This is not only because the marks or devices made by the artists of one tribe, or perhaps of one linguistic stock if not disintegrated into separated divisions distant from each other, may have a different significance from figures virtually the same produced by another tribe or stock, but because the value of the record is greatly enhanced when the recorders are known. In arriving at the identification mentioned it is advisable to study: 1st. The general style or type. 2d. The presence of characteristic objects. 3d. The apparent subject-matter. 4th. The localities with reference to the known habitat of tribes.

GENERAL STYLE OR TYPE.

Although the collection of pictographs, particularly of petroglyphs, is not complete, and their study, therefore, is only commenced, it is possible to present some of the varieties in general style and type.

Figure 147 is presented as a type of the Eastern Algonkian pictographs. It was copied by Messrs. J. Sutton Wall and William Arison, in 1882, from a rock opposite Millsborough, in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, and is mentioned on page 20, _supra_, in connection with the local distribution of petroglyphs. The locality is within the area once occupied by the tribes of the Algonkian linguistic family, and there is apparent a general similarity to the well-known Dighton Rock inscription.

Mr. J. Sutton Wall, of Monongahela City, Pennsylvania, who has kindly furnished the drawing of the etchings, states that the outlines of figures are formed by grooves carved or cut in the rock from an inch to a mere trace in depth. The footprints are carved depressions. The character marked Z (near the lower left-hand corner) is a circular cavity 7 inches deep. The rock is sandstone, of the Waynesburg series.

Mr. Wall has also contributed a copy of the “Hamilton Picture Rock,” of which Figure 148 is an illustration. The etchings are on a sandstone rock, on the Hamilton farm, 6 miles southeast from Morgantown, West Virginia. The turnpike passes over the south edge of the rock.

Mr. Wall furnishes the following interpretation of the figures:

A. Outline of a turkey.

B. Outline of a panther.

C. Outline of a rattlesnake.

D. Outline of a human form.

E. A “spiral or volute.”

F. Impression of a horse foot.

G. Impression of a human foot.

H. Outline of the top portion of a tree or branch.

I. Impression of a human hand.

J. Impression of a bear’s forefoot, but lacks the proper number of toe marks.

K. Impression of two turkey tracks.

L. Has some appearance of a hare or rabbit, but lacks the corresponding length of ears.

M. Impression of a bear’s hindfoot, but lacks the proper number of toe marks.

N. Outline of infant human form, with two arrows in the right hand.

O, P. Two cup-shaped depressions.

Q. Outline of the hind part of an animal.

R. Might be taken to represent the impression of a horse’s foot were it not for the line bisecting the outer curved line.

S. Represent buffalo and deer tracks.

The turkey A, the rattlesnake C, the rabbit L, and the “footprints” J, M, and Q, are specially noticeable as typical characters in Algonkian pictography.

Mr. P. W. Sheafer furnishes in his Historical Map of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1875, a sketch of a pictograph on the Susquehanna River, Pennsylvania, below the dam at Safe Harbor, part of which is reproduced in Figure 149. This appears to be purely Algonkian, and has more resemblance to Ojibwa characters than any other petroglyph yet noted from the Eastern United States.

The best type of Western Algonkian petroglyphs known to the writer is reported as discovered by members of the party of Capt. William A. Jones, United States Army, in 1873, and published in his report on Northwestern Wyoming, including the Yellowstone National Park, Washington, 1875, p. 267, _et seq._, Fig. 50, reproduced in this paper by Figure 150, in which the greater number of the characters are shown about one-fifth of their size.

An abstract of his description is as follows:

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

Several years ago Dr. W. J. Hoffman showed these (as well as other pictographs from the same locality) to several prominent Shoshoni Indians from near that locality, who at once pronounced them the work of the Pawkees (Satsika, or Blackfeet), who formerly occupied that country. The general resemblance of many of the drawings from this area of country is similar to many of the Eastern Algonkin records. The Satsika are part of the great Algonkian stock.

Throughout the Wind River country of Wyoming many pictographic records have been found, and others reported by the Shoshoni Indians. These are said, by the latter, to be the work of the “Pawkees,” as they call the Blackfeet, or more properly Satsika, and the general style of many of the figures bears strong resemblance to similar carvings found in the eastern portion of the United States, in regions known to have been occupied by other tribes of the same linguistic stock, viz., the Algonkian.

The four specimens of Algonkian petroglyphs presented above in Figures 147-150 show gradations in type. In connection with them reference may be made to the Ojibwa bark record, Figure 139, page 218; the Ojibwa grave-posts, Plate LXXXIII; the Ottawa pipe-stem, Figure 120, page 204, in this paper; and to Schoolcraft’s numerous Ojibwa pictographs; and they may be contrasted with the many Dakota and Innuit drawings in this paper.

Mr. G. K. Gilbert has furnished a small collection of drawings of Shoshonian petroglyphs, from Oneida, Idaho, shown in Figure 151. Some of them appear to be totemic characters, and to record the names of visitors to the locality.

Five miles northwest from this locality, and one-half mile east from Marsh Creek, is another group of characters, on basalt bowlders, apparently totemic, and by Shoshoni. A copy of these, also contributed by Mr. Gilbert, is given in Figure 152.

All of these drawings resemble the petroglyphs found at Partridge Creek, northern Arizona, and in Temple Creek Cañon, southeastern Utah, mentioned _ante_, pages 30 and 26 respectively.

Mr. I. C. Russell, of the United States Geological Survey, has furnished drawings of rude pictographs at Black Rock Spring, Utah, represented in Figure 153. Some of the other characters not represented in the figure consist of several horizontal lines, placed one above another, above which are a number of spots, the whole appearing like a numerical record having reference to the figure alongside, which resembles, to a slight extent, a melon with tortuous vines and stems. The left-hand upper figure suggests the masks shown on Plate LXXXI.

Mr. Gilbert Thompson, of the United States Geological Survey, has discovered pictographs at Fool Creek Cañon, Utah, shown in Figure 154, which strongly resemble those still made by the Moki of Arizona. Several characters are identical with those last mentioned, and represent human figures, one of which is drawn to represent a man, shown by a cross, the upper arm of which is attached to the perinæum. These are all drawn in red color and were executed at three different periods. Other neighboring pictographs are pecked and unpainted, while others are both pecked and painted.

Both of these pictographs from Utah may be compared with the Moki pictographs from Oakley Springs, Arizona, copied in Figure 1, page 30.

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

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 Ojibwa, Dakota, Haida, and Innuit of Alaska presented in various parts of this paper.

PRESENCE OF CHARACTERISTIC OBJECTS.

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 impracticable now to give further details in this immediate connection, except to add to similar particulars before presented the following notes with regard to the arrangement of hair and display of paint in identification.

A custom obtains among the Absaroka, which, when depicted in pictographs, as is frequently done, serves greatly to facilitate identification of the principal actors in events recorded. This consists in wearing false hair, attached to the back of the head and allowed to hang down over the back. Horse hair, taken from the tail, is arranged in 8 or 10 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, when the individual can afford the expense, and by means of other hair, or fibers of any kind laid cross-wise, the strands are secured, and around each intersection of hair a ball of gum is plastered to hold it in place. About 4 inches further down, a similar row of gum balls and cross strings are placed, and so on down to the end. The top of the tail ornament is then secured to the hair on the back of the head. 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. The Arikara have adopted this custom of late, and they have obtained it from the Hidatsa, who, in turn, learned it of the Absaroka.