Chapter CV: 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.

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.

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.

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.