Chapter XXVIII: 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and incised stone objects could be referred to, some of which are in the possession of the Bureau of Ethnology, unpublished, others being figured in its several reports.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.

POWHATAN’S MANTLE.]

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.