CHAPTER VII.

SUBSTANCES ON WHICH PICTOGRAPHS ARE MADE.

Substances on which pictographs are made may be divided into--

I. The human body. II. Natural objects other than the human body. III. Artificial objects.

SECTION 1.

THE HUMAN BODY.

Markings on human bodies are--(1) Those expressed by painting or such coloration as is not permanent. It has been found convenient to treat this topic under the heading of “Significance of Colors,” Chap. XVIII, Sec. 3. (2) Those of intended permanence upon the skin, generally called tattoo, but including scarification. This enormous and involved topic is discussed, so far as space allows, under the heading of “Totems, Titles, and Names,” Chapter XIII, Sec. 3, where it seems to be most convenient in the general arrangement of this work. Though logically it might have been divided among several of the headings, that course would have involved much repetition or cross reference.

SECTION 2.

NATURAL OBJECTS OTHER THAN THE HUMAN BODY.

Other natural objects may be divided into--(1) Stone; (2) bone; (3) skins; (4) feathers and quills; (5) gourds; (6) shells; (7) earth and sand; (8) copper; (9) wood.

STONE.

This caption comprises the pictographs upon stone surfaces or tablets which are not of the dimensions or in the position to be included under the heading of petroglyphs, as elsewhere defined. Accounts, with and without illustrations, have been published of several engraved tablets, regarding which there has been much discussion, and some examples appear, infra, under the appropriate heading. (See Chapter XXII, Sec. 1.) Other examples, in which the genuine aboriginal character of the work is undisputed, appear in the present work, and a large number of other engraved and incised stone objects could be referred to, some of which are in the possession of the Bureau of Ethnology, unpublished, others being figured in its several reports. It is sufficient now for illustration of this subject to refer to the account accompanying Pl. LI, infra, describing and copying the Thruston tablet, which is, perhaps, the most interesting of any pictograph on stone yet discovered, the genuineness of which as Indian work has not been called in question.

BONE.

For instances of the use of bone, several Alaskan and Eskimo carvings figured in this work may be referred to, e. g., Figs. 334, 459-462, 534, 703, 704, 742, 771, 844, and 1228.

Fig. 157, copied from Schoolcraft (_e_), is taken from the shoulder-blade of a buffalo found on the plains in the Comanche country of Texas. He says:

It is a symbol showing the strife for the buffalo existing between the Indian and white races. The Indian (1) presented on horseback, protected by his ornamented shield and armed with a lance, (2) kills a Spaniard (3) after a circuitous chase (6), the latter being armed with a gun. His companion (4), armed with a lance, shares the same fate.

It may be questioned whether Mr. Schoolcraft was not too active in the search for symbols in his explanation of (6) as a circuitous chase. The device is either a lasso or a lariat, and relates to the possession or attempt to take possession of the buffalo. The design (5), however, well expresses ideographically the fact that the buffalo at the time was in contention, and therefore was the property half of the Indians and half of the whites.

SKINS.

A large number of pictographs upon the hides of animals are mentioned in the present paper. Pl. XX, with its description in the Dakota Winter Counts, infra, Chap, X, Sec. 2, is one instance. Rawhide drum-heads are also used to paint upon, as by the shamans of the Ojibwa.

The use of robes made of the hides of buffalo and other large animals, painted with biographic, shamanistic, and other devices, is also mentioned in various parts of this work. A description of very early observation is now introduced, taken from John Ribault in Hakluyt (_a_).

The king gaue our Captaine at his departure a plume or fanne of Hernshawes feathers died in red, and a basket made of Palmeboughes after the Indian fashion, and wrought very artificially and a great skinne painted and drawen throughout with the pictures of diuers wilde beasts so liuely drawen and pourtrayed, that nothing lacked but life.

With the American use of pictographic robes may be compared the following account of the same use by Australian natives by Dr. Richard Andree (_b_).

The inner side of the opossum skins worn by the blacks is also often ornamented with figures. They scratch lines into the skin, which afterward are rubbed over with fat and charcoal.

FEATHERS AND QUILLS.

Edward M. Kern, in Schoolcraft (_f_), reports that the Sacramento tribes of California were very expert in weaving blankets of feathers, many of them having beautiful figures worked upon them.

The feather work in Mexico, Central America, and the Hawaiian Islands is well known, often having designs properly to be considered among pictographs, though in modern times not often passing beyond ornamentation.

Worsnop (op. cit.) mentions that on grand occasions of the “Mindarie” (i. e., peace festival) the Australian natives decorate the bodies, face, legs, and feet with the down of wild fowl, stuck on with their own blood. The ceremony of taking the blood is very painful, yet they stand it without a murmur. It takes five or six men four to five hours to decorate one man. The blood is put on the body wet and the down stuck on the blood, showing, when finished, outlines of man’s head, face, feet, snakes, emu, fish, trees, birds, and other outlines representing the moon, stars, sun, and Aurora Australis, the whole meaning that they are at peace with the world.

Mr. David Boyle (_a_) gives an account of a piece of porcupine quill work, with an illustration, a part of which is copied in Fig. 158.

Among the lost or almost lost arts of the Canadian Indians is that of employing porcupine quills as in the illustration. Partly on account of scarcity of material, but chiefly, it is likely, from change of habits and of taste, there are comparatively few Indian women now living who attempt to produce any fabric of this kind. * * *

The central figure is meant to represent the eagle or great thunder-bird, the belief in which is, or was, widely spread among the Indians over the northern part of this continent. * * *

This beautiful piece of quill work was produced from Ek-wah-satch, who resides at Baptiste lake. He informed me that it had belonged to his grandfather, who resided near Georgian bay.

See also Fig. 685 for another illustration of pictographic work by colored porcupine quills.

GOURDS.

After gourds have dried the contents are removed and small pebbles or bones placed in the empty vessel. Handles are sometimes attached. They serve as rattles in dances and in religious and shamanistic rites. The representations of natural or mythical objects, connected with the ceremonies, for which the owner may have special reverence are often depicted upon their outer surfaces. This custom prevails among the Pueblos generally, and also among many other tribes, notably those of the Siouan linguistic stock.

Fig. 159 is a drawing of the Sci-Manzi or “Mescal Woman” of the Kiowa as it appears on a sacred gourd rattle in the mescal ceremony of that tribe, and was procured with full explanations in the winter of 1890-’91 by Mr. James Mooney of the Bureau of Ethnology.

It shows the rude semblance of a woman, with divergent rays about her head, a fan in her left hand, and a star under her feet.

The peculiarity of the drawing is its hermeneutic character, which is rarely ascertained by actual evidence as existing among the North American Indians. It has a double meaning, and while apparently only a fantastic figure of a woman, it conveys also to the minds of the initiated a symbolic representation of the interior of the sacred mescal lodge. Turning the rattle with the handle toward the east, the lines forming the halo about the head of the figure represent the circle of devotees within the lodge. The head itself, with the spots for eyes and mouth, represents the large consecrated mescal which is placed upon a crescent-shaped mound of earth in the center of the lodge, this mound being represented in the figure by a broad, curving line, painted yellow, forming the curve of the shoulders. Below this is a smaller crescent curve, the original surface of the gourd, which symbolizes the smaller crescent mound of ashes built up within the crescent of earth as the ceremony progresses. The horns of both crescents point toward the door of the lodge on the east side which, in the figure, is toward the feet. In the chest of the body is a round globule painted red, emblematic of the fire within the horns of the crescent in the lodge. The lower part of the body is green, symbolic of the eastern ocean beyond which dwells the mescal woman who is the ruling spirit or divinity to whom prayers are addressed in the ceremony, and the star under her feet is the morning star which heralds her approach. In her left hand is a device representing the fan of eagle feathers used to shield the eyes from the glare of the fire during the ceremony.

SHELLS.

The admirable and well illustrated paper, Art in Shell of the Ancient Americans, by Mr. W. H. Holmes, in the Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, and a similar paper, Burial Mounds of the Northern Section of the United States, by Prof. Cyrus Thomas, in the Fifth Annual Report of the same Bureau, render unnecessary present extended discussion under this head.

One example, however, which is unique in character and of established authenticity, is presented here as Pl. XV.

Dr. Edward B. Tylor (_a_) gives a description of the mantle copied upon that plate, which is condensed as follows:

Among specimens illustrative of native North American arts, as yet untouched by European influence, is the deerskin mantle ornamented with shellwork, recorded to have belonged to the Virginian chief, Powhatan. Of the group of Virginian mantles in Tradescant’s collection there only now remains this shell embroidered one. It is entered as follows in the MS. catalogue of the Ashmolean Museum, in the handwriting of the keeper, Dr. Plot, the well-known antiquary, about 1685: “205 Basilica Powhatan Regis Virginiani vestis, duabus cervorum cutibus consuta, et nummis indicis vulgo cori’s dictis splendidè exornata.” He had at first written “Roanoke,” but struck his pen through this word, and wrote “cori’s” (i. e. cowries) above, thus by no means improving the accuracy of his description.

The mantle measures about 2.2^{m} in length by 1.6^{m} in width. The two deerskins forming it are joined down the middle; no hair remains. The ornamental design consists of an upright human figure in the middle; divided by the seam; a pair of animals; 32 spirally-formed rounds (2 in the lowest line have lost their shells) and the remains of some work in the right lower corner. The marks where shellwork has come away plainly show the hind legs and tapering tails of both animals. It is uncertain whether the two quadrupeds represent in the conventional manner of picture-writing some real animal of the region, or some mythical composite creature such as other Algonquin tribes are apt to figure. The decorative shellwork is of a kind well known in North America. The shells used are _Marginella_; so far as Mr. Edgar A. Smith is able to identify them in their present weathered state, _M. nivosa_. They have been prepared for fastening on, in two different ways, which may be distinguished in the plate. In the animals and rounds, the shells have been perforated by grinding on one side, so that a sinew thread can be passed through the hole thus made and the mouth. In the man, the shells are ground away and rounded off at both ends into beads looking roughly ball-like at a distance.

The artistic skill of the North American Indians was not, as a rule, directed to represent the forms of animals with such accuracy as to allow of their identification as portraitures. Instead of attempting such accuracy they generally selected some prominent feature such as the claws of the bear, which were drawn with exaggeration, or the tail of the mountain lion which was portrayed of abnormal length over the animal’s back. Those animals were, therefore, recognized by those selected features in much the same manner as if there had been a written legend--“this is a bear” or “a mountain lion,” the want of iconographic accuracy being admitted. In the animals represented on the mantle no such indicating feature is obvious, and the general resemblance to the marten is the only guide to identification.

The habitat of the marten does not include Virginia as a whole, but the animal is found in the elevated regions of that state. This local infrequency is not, however, of much significance. If regarded as a clan totem, as is probable, it may well be that the clan of Powhatan was connected with the clans of the more northern Algonquian tribes among whom the marten frequently appears as a clan totem. What is generally termed the Powhatan confederacy was a union, not apparently ancient, of a large number of tribal divisions or villages, and it is not known to which clan (probably extending through many of these tribal divisions) the head chief Powhatan belonged. There is almost nothing on record of the clan system of those Virginian Indians, but it is supposed to be similar to that of the northern and eastern members of the same linguistic family, among whom the marten clan was and still is found.

The topic of wampum which, considered as to its material, belongs to the division of shellwork, is with regard to the purposes of the present paper, discussed under the head of “Mnemonic,” Chap. IX, Sec. 3.

EARTH AND SAND.

The highly important work, The Mountain Chant, a Navajo Ceremony, in the Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, by Dr. Washington Matthews, U. S. Army, and that of Mr. James Stevenson, Ceremonial of Hasjelti Dailjis and Mythical Sand Painting of the Navajo Indians, in the Eighth Annual Report of that Bureau, give accounts of most interesting sand paintings by the Navajo Indians, which were before unknown. These paintings were made upon the surface of the earth by means of sand, ashes, and powdered vegetable and mineral matter of various colors. They were highly elaborate, and were fashioned with care and ceremony immediately preceding the observance of specific rites, at the close of which they were obliterated with great nicety. The subject is further discussed by Dr. W. H. Corbusier, U. S. Army, in the present paper (see Chap. XIV, Sec. 5).

Mr. Frank Hamilton Cushing, of the Bureau of Ethnology, kindly contributes the following remarks with special reference to the Zuñi:

A study of characteristic features in these so-called sand pictures of the Navajos would seem to indicate a Pueblo origin of the art, this notwithstanding the fact that it is to-day more highly developed or at least more extensively practiced amongst the Navajos than now, or perhaps ever, amongst the Pueblos. When, during my first sojourn with the Zuñi, I found this art practice in vogue among the tribal priest magicians and members of cult societies, I named it dry or powder painting. I could see at a glance that this custom of powder painting had resulted from the effort to transfer from a vertical, smooth, and stable surface, which could be painted on, to a horizontal and unstable surface, unsuited to like treatment, such symbolic and sacramental pictographs as are painted on the walls of the kivas, temporarily, as appurtenances to the dramaturgic ceremonials of the cult societies, and as supposed aids to the magical incantations and formulæ of all the monthly, semiannual, and quadrennial observances and fasts of the tribal priests; sometimes, also, in the curative or “Betterment” ceremonials of these priests. It is noteworthy that, with the exception of the invariable “Earth terrace,” “Pathway of (earth) life,” and a few other conventional symbols of mortal or earthly things (nearly always made of scattered prayer meal), powder painting is resorted to amongst the Zuñi only in ceremonials pertaining to _all_ the regions or inclusive of the _lower_ region. In such cases paintings typical of the North, West, South, and East are made on the four corresponding walls of the kiva, whilst the lower region is represented by appropriately powder or paint colored sand on the floor, and the upper region either by paintings on the walls near the ceiling or on stretched skins suspended from the latter. Thus the origin of the practice of floor powder painting may be seen to have resulted from the effort to represent with more dramatic appropriateness or exactness the lower as well as the other sacramental regions, and to have been incident to the growth from the quaternary of the sextenary or septenary system of world division so characteristic of Pueblo culture. Hence it is that I attribute the art of powder or sand painting to the Pueblos, and believe that it was introduced both by imitation and by the adoption of Pueblo men amongst the Navajos. Its greater prevalence amongst them to-day is simply due to the fact that having, as a rule, no suitable vertical or wall surfaces for pictorial treatment, all their larger ceremonial paintings have to be made on the ground, and can only or best be made, of course, by this means alone.

It is proper to add, as having a not inconsiderable bearing on the absence generally of screen or skin painting among the Navajos, that, with the Pueblos at least, these pictures are--must be--only temporary; for they are supposed to be spiritually shadowed, so to say, or breathed upon by the gods or god animals they represent, during the appealing incantations or calls of the rites; hence the paint substance of which they are composed is in a way incarnate, and at the end of the ceremonial must be killed and disposed of as dead if evil, eaten as medicine if good.

Further light is thrown on this practice of the Zuñi in making use of these suppositively vivified paintings by their kindred practice of painting not only fetiches of stone, etc., and sometimes of larger idols, then of washing the paint off for use as above described, but also of _powder painting in relief_; that is, of modeling effigies in sand, sometimes huge in size, of hero or animal gods, sacramental mountains, etc., powder painting them in common with the rest of the pictures, and afterwards removing the paint for medicinal or further ceremonial use.

The construction of the effigies in high relief last above mentioned should be compared with the effigy mounds mentioned below in this section.

In connection with the ceremonial use, for temporary dry painting on the ground, of colored earth and sand and also that of sacred corn meal, a remarkable parallel is found in India. Mr. Edward Carpenter (_a_) mentions that the Devadásis, who are popularly called Nautch girls, as a part of their duty, ornament the floor of the Hindu temples with quaint figures drawn in rice flour.

The well known mounds or tumuli more or less distinctly representing animal forms and sometimes called effigy mounds, found chiefly in Wisconsin and Illinois, come in this category, but it is not possible to properly discuss them and also give space to the many other topics in this paper, the facts and authorities upon which are less known or less accessible. A large amount of information is published by Rev. S. D. Peet (_a_). Other articles are by Mr. T. H. Lewis in Science, September 7, 1888, and No. 318, 1889. One upon the Serpent mound of Ohio, by Prof. F. W. Putnam (_a_), is of special interest. It may be suggested as a summation that there is not sufficient evidence of the erection of this class of effigy mounds merely for burial purposes. They seldom exceeded 6 feet in height and varied in expanse from 30 to 300 feet. The animals most frequently recognizable in the constructions are lizards, birds, and several more or less distinct quadrupeds; serpents and turtles also are identified. The species of fauna represented are those now or lately found in the same region. There is a strong probability that the forms of the mounds in question were determined by totemic superstitions or tribal habitudes.

In England the pictographs styled “turf monuments” are sometimes made by cutting the natural turf and filling with chalk the part of the surface thus laid bare. Sometimes the color depends wholly upon the limestone, granite, or other rock exposed by removing the turf. Rev. W. C. Plenderleath (_a_) gives a full account of this variety of pictograph.

COPPER.

This is the only metal on which it is probable that the North American Indians made designs. To present comparisons of pictures by other peoples on that or other metals or alloys would be to enter into a field, the most interesting part of which is classed as numismatic, and which would be a departure from the present heading. That virgin copper was used for diverse purposes, generally ornamental, by the North American Indians, is now established, and there is a presentation of the subject in Prof. Cyrus Thomas’s (_a_) Burial Mounds. The most distinct and at the same time surprising account of a true pictographic record on copper is given by W. W. Warren (_a_), an excellent authority, and is condensed as follows:

The Ojibwa of the Crane family hold in their possession a circular plate of virgin copper, on which are rudely marked indentations and hieroglyphics denoting the number of generations of the family who have passed away since they first pitched their lodges at Shang-a-waum-ik-ong and took possession of the adjacent country, including the island of La Pointe.

When I witnessed this curious family register in 1843 it was exhibited to my father. The old chief kept it carefully buried in the ground and seldom displayed it. On this occasion he brought it to view only at the entreaty of my mother whose maternal uncle he was.

On this plate of copper were marked eight deep indentations, denoting the number of his ancestors who had passed away since they first lighted their fire at Shang-a-waum-ik-ong. They had all lived to a good old age.

By the rude figure of a man with a hat on its head, placed opposite one of these indentations, was denoted the period when the white race first made its appearance among them. This mark occurred in the third generation, leaving five generations which had passed away since that important era in their history.

Mr. I. W. Powell (_a_), Indian superintendent, in the report of the deputy superintendent-general of Indian affairs of Canada for 1879, gives an account of some tribes of the northwest coast, especially the Indians called in the report Newittees, a tribe now known as the Naqómqilis of the Wakashan family, who treasure pieces of copper peculiarly shaped and marked. The shape is that of one face of a truncated pyramid with the base upward. In the broad end appear marks resembling the holes for eyes and mouth, which are common in masks of the human face. The narrower end has a rough resemblance to an ornamental collar. These copper articles were made by the Indians originally from the native copper, and in 1879 a few were held by the chiefs who used them for presentation at the potlaches or donation feasts. The value which is attached to these small pieces of copper, which are intrinsically worthless, is astounding. For one of them 1,200 blankets were paid, which would at the time and place represent $1,800. Sometimes a chief in presenting one of them, in order to show his utter disregard of wealth, would break it into three or four pieces and give them away, each fragment being perhaps repurchased at an exorbitant sum. This competition in extravagance for display, under the guise of charity and humility, has had parallels in the silver-brick and flour-barrel auctions in parts of the United States, when the actors were white citizens. Apart from such public exhibitions, the copper tokens seem to partake of the natures both of fiat money and of talismans.

WOOD.

This division comprises:

(1) _The living tree_, of the use of which for pictographic purposes there are many descriptions and illustrations in this paper. In addition to them may be noted the remark made by Bishop De Schweinitz (_a_) in the Life and Times of Zeisberger, that in 1750 there were numerous tree carvings at a place on the eastern shore of Cayuga lake, the meaning of which was known to and interpreted by the Cayuga Indians.

This mode of record or notice is so readily suggested that it is found throughout the world, e. g., the “hieroglyph” in New Guinea, described by D’Albertis (_a_), being a drawing in black on a white tree.

(2) _Bark._--The Abnaki and Ojibwa have been and yet continue to be in the habit of incising pictographic characters and mnemonic marks upon birch bark. Many descriptions and illustrations of this style are given in this paper, and admirable colored illustrations of it also appear in Pl. XIX of the Seventh Ann. Rept. Bureau of Ethnology. The lines appear sometimes to have been traced on the inner surface of young bark with a sharply pointed instrument, probably bone, but in other examples the drawings are made by simple puncturing. The strips of bark, varying from an inch to several feet in length, roll up after drying, and are by heating straightened out for examination.

Another mode of drawing on birch bark which appears to be peculiar to the Abnaki is by scratching the exterior surface, thus displaying a difference in color between the outermost and the second layer of the rind, which difference forms the figure. The lower character in Pl. XVI shows this mode of picturing. It is an exact copy of part of an old bark record made by the Abnaki of Maine.

They also use the mode of incision, many examples of which appear in the present work, but their mode of scratching produced a much more picturesque effect, as is shown also in Fig. 659, than the mere linear drawing.

(3) _Manufactured wood._--The Indians of the northwest coast generally employ wood as the material on which their pictographs are to be made. Totem posts, boats, boat paddles, the boards constituting the front wall of a house, and wooden masks, are among the objects used.

Many drawings among the Indians of the interior parts of the United States are also found upon pipestems made of wood, usually ash. Among the Arikara boat paddles are used upon which marks of personal distinction are reproduced, as shown in Fig. 578.

Mortuary records are also drawn upon slabs of wood. (See Figs. 728 and 729). Mnemonic devices, notices of departure, distress, etc., are also drawn upon slips of wood.

The examples of the use of wood for pictographs which are illustrated and described in this paper are too numerous for recapitulation; to them, however, may be added the following from Wilkes’s (_a_) Exploring Expedition, referring to Fig. 160.

Near an encampment on Chickeeles river, near Puget Sound, Washington, were found some rudely carved painted planks, of which Mr. Eld made a drawing. These planks were placed upright and nothing could be learned of their origin. The colors were exceedingly bright, of a kind of red pigment.

Mr. James O. Pattie (_a_) gives an account of a wooden passport given to him in 1824 by a Pawnee chief. He describes it, without illustration, as a small piece of wood curiously painted with characters something like “hieroglyphics.” The chief told Mr. Pattie’s party if they saw any of his warriors to give them the stick, in which case they would be kindly treated, which promise was fulfilled a few days later when the party met a large band of the same tribe on the warpath.

SECTION 3.

ARTIFICIAL OBJECTS.

Artificial objects may be classified, so far as is important for the present work, into, I, fictile fabrics and, II, textile fabrics.

FICTILE FABRICS.

A large number of articles of pottery bearing pictographs are figured in the illustrated collections by Mr. James Stevenson in the Second Annual Report, and by Mr. Stevenson and Mr. William H. Holmes in the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Pipes on which totemic designs and property marks appear are also common.

The art of pottery was at first limited to vessel-making. In the earlier stages of culture, vases were confined to simple use as receptacles, but as culture ripened they were advanced to ceremonial and religious offices and received devices and representations in color and in relief connected with the cult to which they were devoted. Among some tribes large burial vases were fashioned to contain or cover the dead. An infinite variety of objects, such as pipes, whistles, rattles, toys, beads, trowels, calendars, masks, and figurines, were made of pottery. Clays of varying degrees of purity were used, and sometimes these were tempered with powdered quartz, shell, or like materials. The vessels were frequently built by coiling. The surface was smoothed by the hands or the modeling implement or was polished with a stone or other smoothing tool. Much attention was given to surface embellishment. The finger nails and various pointed tools were used to scarify and indent, and elaborate figures and designs were incised. Stamps with systematically worked designs were sometimes applied to the soft clay. Cords and woven fabrics were also employed to give diversity to the surface. With the more advanced tribes, though these simple processes were still resorted to, engraving, modeling in relief and in the round, and painting in colors were employed.

TEXTILE FABRICS.

Textile fabrics include those products of art in which the elements of their construction are filamental and mainly combined by using their flexibility. The processes employed are called wattling, interlacing, plaiting, netting, weaving, sewing, and embroidery. The materials generally used by primitive people were pliable vegetal growths, such as twigs, leaves, roots, canes, rushes, and grasses, and the hair, quills, feathers, and tendons of animals.

Unlike works in stone and clay, textile articles are seldom long preserved. Still, from historic accounts and a study of the many beautiful articles produced by existing Indian tribes, a fair knowledge of the range and general character of native fabrics may be obtained. In many cases buried articles of that character have been preserved by the impregnation of the engirding earths with preservative salts, and also some fabrics which had been wrapped about buried utensils, or ornaments of copper remained without serious decay. Charring has also been a means of preserving cloth, and much has been learned of the weaving done by ancient workers through impressions upon pottery which had been made by applying the texture while the clay was still soft. The weaving appliances were simple, but the results in plain and figured fabrics, in tapestry, in lace-like embroideries, and in feather-work are admirable.

This subject is discussed by Mr. W. H. Holmes in his paper, A Study of the Textile Art, etc., in the Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, in a manner so comprehensive as to embrace the field of pictography in its relation to woven articles.

Several examples of this application also appear in the present work. See Figs. 821, 976 and 1167. In addition the following are now presented.

Some of the California tribes are expert workers in grass and roots in the manufacture of baskets, upon which designs other than for mere ornamentation are frequently worked. The Yokuts, at Tule river Agency, in the southeastern part of the State, sometimes incorporate various human forms in which the arms are suspended at the sides of the body with the hands directed outward to either side. Above the head is a heavy horizontal line.

The following is extracted from Prof. O. T. Mason’s (_a_) paper on basket work, describing Fig. 161:

_a_ is a rain hat of twined basketry in spruce root from Haida Indians. This figure is the upper view and shows the ornamentation in red and black paint. The device in this instance is the epitomized form of a bird, perhaps a duck. Omitting the red cross on the top the beak, jaws, and nostrils are shown; the eyes at the sides near the top, and just behind them the ears. The wings, feet, and tail, inclosing a human face, are shown on the margin. The Haida, as well as other coast Indians from Cape Flattery to Mount Saint Elias, cover everything of use with totemic devices in painting and carving.

_b_ shows the conical shape of _a_. The painted ornamentation on these hats is laid on in black and red in the conventional manner of ornamentation in vogue among the Haidas and used in the reproduction of their various totems on all of their houses, wood and slate carvings, and implements.

Mr. Niblack (_b_) says, describing Fig. 162:

The Chilkat and cedar-bark blankets are important factors in all ceremonial dances and functions. Other forms of ceremonial blankets or mantles are made from Hudson Bay Company blankets, with totemic figures worked on them in a variety of ways. The usual method is to cut out the totemic figure in red cloth and sew it on to the garment (ornamenting it with borders of beads and buttons) by the method known as appliqué work; another method is to sew pieces of bright abalone or pearl shell or pearl buttons on to the garment in the totemic patterns. The illustration is a drawing of a vestment which hangs down the back, representing the totem or crest of the wearer.

This specimen is mentioned as the workmanship of the Tsimshian Indians, at Point Simpson, British Columbia, and represents the halibut.