Chapter XCIV: Section 2: Homomorphs and Symmorphs (1)

It has already been mentioned that characters substantially the same, or homomorphs, made by one set of people, have a different signification among others. The class of homomorphs may also embrace the cases common in gesture signs, and in picture writing, similar to the homophones in oral language, where the same sound has several meanings among the same people.

It would be very remarkable if precisely the same character were not used by different or even the same persons or bodies of people with wholly distinct significations. The graphic forms for objects and ideas are much more likely to be coincident than sound is for similar expressions, yet in all oral languages the same precise sound, sometimes but not always distinguished by different literation, is used for utterly diverse meanings. The first conception of different objects could not have been the same. It has been found, indeed, that the homophony of words and the homomorphy of ideographic pictures is noticeable in opposite significations, the conceptions arising from the opposition itself. The same sign and the same sound may be made to convey different ideas by varying the expression, whether facial or vocal, and by the manner accompanying their delivery. Pictographs likewise may be differentiated by modes and mutations of drawing. The differentiation in picturing or in accent is a subsequent and remedial step not taken until after the confusion had been observed and had become inconvenient. Such confusion and contradiction would only be eliminated from pictography if it were far more perfect than is any spoken language.

This heading, for convenience, though not consistently with its definition, may also include those pictographs which convey different ideas and are really different in form of execution as well as in conception, yet in which the difference in form is so slight as practically to require attention and discrimination. Examples are given below in this section, and others may be taken from the closely related sign-language, one group of which may now be mentioned.

The sign used by the Dakota, Hidatsa, and several other tribes for “tree” is made by holding the right hand before the body, back forward, fingers and thumb separated; then pushing it slightly upward, Fig. 1115; that for “grass” is the same, made near the ground; that for “grow” is made like “grass,” though, instead of holding the back of the hand near the ground, the hand is pushed upward in an interrupted manner, Fig. 1116. For “smoke” the hand (with the back down, fingers pointing upward as in grow) is then thrown upward several times from the same place instead of continuing the whole motion upward. Frequently the fingers are thrown forward from under the thumb with each successive upward motion. For “fire” the hand is employed as in the gesture for smoke, but the motion is frequently more waving, and in other cases made higher from the ground.

Symmorphs, a term suggested by the familiar “synonym,” are designs not of the same form, but which are used with the same significance or so nearly the same as to have only a slight shade of distinction and which sometimes are practically interchangeable. The comprehensive and metaphorical character of pictographs renders more of them interchangeable than is the case with words; still, like words, some pictographs with essential resemblance of meaning have partial and subordinate differences made by etymology or usage. Doubtless the designs are purposely selected to delineate the most striking outlines of an object or the most characteristic features of an action; but different individuals and likewise different bodies of people would often disagree in the selection of those outlines and features. In an attempt to invent an ideographic, not an iconographic, design for “bird,” any one of a dozen devices might have been agreed upon with equal appropriateness, and, in fact, a number have been so selected by several individuals and tribes, each one, therefore, being a symmorph of the other. Gesture language gives another example in the signs for “deer,” designated by various modes of expressing fleetness, also by his gait when not in rapid motion, by the shape of his horns, by the color of his tail, and sometimes by combinations of those characteristics. Each of these signs and of the pictured characters corresponding with them may be indefinitely abbreviated and therefore create indefinite diversity. Some examples appropriate to this line of comparison are now presented.

SKY.

The Indian gesture sign for sky, heaven, is generally made by passing the index from east to west across the zenith. This curve is apparent in the Ojibwa pictograph, the left-hand character of Fig. 1117, reported in Schoolcraft (_q_), and is abbreviated in the Egyptian character with the same meaning, the middle character of the same figure, from Champollion (_e_). A simpler form of the Ojibwa picture sign for sky is the right-hand character of the same figure, from Copway (_h_).

SUN AND LIGHT.

Fig. 1118 shows various representations of the sun taken from a petroglyph at Oakley springs.

The common Indian gesture sign for sun is: Right hand closed, the index and thumb curved, with tips touching, thus approximating a circle, and held toward the sky, the position of the fingers of the hand forming a circle as is shown in Fig. 1119. Two of the Egyptian characters for sun, the left-hand upper characters of Fig. 1120 are the common conception of the disk. The rays emanating from the whole disk appear in the two adjoining characters on the same figure, taken from the rock etchings of the Moki pueblos in Arizona. From the same locality are the two remaining characters in the same figure, which may be distinguished from several similar etchings for “star,” Fig. 1129, infra, by their showing some indication of a face, the latter being absent in the characters denoting “star.”

With the above characters for sun compare the left-hand character of Fig. 1121, found at Cuxco, Peru, and taken from Wiener (_h_).

In the pictorial notation of the Laplanders the sun bears its usual figure of a man’s head, rayed. See drawings in Scheffer’s History of Lapland, London, 1704.

The Ojibwa pictograph for sun is seen in the second character of Fig. 1121, taken from Schoolcraft (_r_). The sun’s disk, together with indications of rays, as shown in the third character of the same figure, and in its linear form, the fourth character of that figure, from Champollion, Dict., constitutes the Egyptian character for light.

Fig. 1122.--Light. Red-Cloud’s Census. This is to be compared with the rays of the sun as above shown, but still more closely resembles the old Chinese character for light, or more specifically “light above man,” in the left-hand character of Fig. 1123, reported by Dr. Edkins.

The other characters of the same figure are given by Schoolcraft (_s_) as Ojibwa symbols of the sun.

The left-hand character of Fig. 1124, from Proc. U. S. Nat. Museum (_a_), shows the top of an heraldic column of the Sentlae (Sun) gens of the Kwakiutl Indians in Alert bay, British Columbia, which represents the sun surrounded by wooden rays. A simpler form is seen in the right character of the same figure where the face of the sun is also fastened to the top of a pole. The author, Dr. Boas, states that Fig. 1125 is the sun mask used by the same gens in their dance. This presents another mode in which the common symbolic connection of the eagle (the beak of which bird is apparently shown) with the sun is indicated.

Prof. Cyrus Thomas, in Aids to the Study of the Manuscript Troano, Sixth Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn., p. 348, gives the left-hand character in Fig. 1126 as representing the sun.

General Forlong (_a_) states that the middle device of the same figure represents the sun as Mihr, the fertilizer of the seed.

Dr. Edkins (_e_) gives the right-hand device of the same figure as a picture of the sun. Originally it was a circle with a stroke or dot in the middle.

MOON.

A common Indian gesture sign for moon, month, is the right hand closed, leaving the thumb and index extended, but curved to form a half circle and the hand held toward the sky, in a position which is illustrated in Fig. 1127, to which curve the Moki drawing, the upper left-hand device in Fig. 1128, and the identical form in the ancient Chinese have an obvious resemblance.

The crescent, as Europeans and Asiatics commonly figure the satellite, appears also in the Ojibwa pictograph, the lower left-hand character in Fig. 1128, taken from Schoolcraft (t), which is the same, with a slight addition, as the Egyptian figurative character.

The middle character in Fig. 1128 is the top of an upright post of a house of the moon gens of the Kuakiutl Indians taken from Boas (_g_). It represents the moon.

Schoolcraft (_u_) gives the right-hand character of the same figure for the moon, i. e., an obscured sun, as drawn by the Ojibwa.

STARS.

Fig. 1129 shows various forms of stars, taken from a petroglyph at Oakley Springs, Arizona. Most of them show the rays in a manner to suggest the points of stars common in many parts of the world.

DAYTIME AND KIND OF DAY.

Fig. 1130, copied from Copway (_h_), presents respectively the characters for sunrise, noon, and sunset.

An Indian gesture sign for “sunrise,” “morning,” is: Forefinger of right hand crooked to represent half of the sun’s disk and pointed or extended to the left, slightly elevated. In this connection it may be noted that when the gesture is carefully made in open country the pointing would generally be to the east, and the body turned so that its left would be in that direction. In a room in a city, or under circumstances where the points of the compass are not specially attended to, the left side supposes the east, and the gestures relating to sun, day, etc., are made with such reference. The half only of the disk represented in the above gesture appears in the Moki pueblo drawings for morning and sunrise.

Fig. 1131 shows various representations of sunrise from Oakley Springs, Arizona.

J. B. Dunbar (_b_), in The Pawnee Indians, says:

As an aid to the memory the Pawnees frequently made use of
notches cut in a stick or some similar device for the computation
of nights (for days were counted by nights), or even of months and
years. Pictographically a day or daytime was represented by a six or
eight pointed star as a symbol of the sun. A simple cross (a star)
was a symbol of a night and a crescent represented a moon or lunar
month.

A common Indian gesture for day is when the index and thumb form a circle (remaining fingers closed) and are passed from east to west.

Fig. 1132 shows a pictograph found in Owens valley, California, a similar one being reported in the Ann. Rep. Geog. Survey West of the 100th Meridian for 1876, Washington, 1876, pl. opp. p. 326, in which the circle may indicate either day or month (both these gestures having the same execution), the course of the sun or moon being represented perhaps in mere contradistinction to the vertical line, or perhaps the latter signifies one.

Fig. 1133 is a pictograph made by the Coyotèro Apaches, found at Camp Apache, in Arizona, reported in the Tenth Ann. Rep. U. S. Geol. and Geogr. Survey of the Terr., Washington, 1878, Pl. LXXVII. The sun and the ten spots of approximately the same shape represent the days, eleven, which the party passed in traveling through the country. The separating lines are the nights, and may include the conception of covering over and consequent obscurity referred to in connection with the pictographs for night.

The left-hand character in Fig. 1134, copied from Copway (_h_), represents smooth water or clear day.

The right-hand character in the same figure, from the same authority, p. 135, represents storm or a windy day.

NIGHT.

Fig. 1135.--Kills-the-Enemy-at-Night. Red-Cloud’s Census. Night is indicated by the black circle around the head, suggesting the covering over with darkness, as is shown in the common gesture for night, made by passing both flat hands from their respective sides, inward and downward, before the body. The sign for kill is denoted here by the bow in contact with the head, in accordance with a custom among the Dakota of striking the dead enemy with the bow or coup stick.

Fig. 1136.--Kills-Enemy-at-Night. Red-Cloud’s Census. This drawing is similar to the preceding. The differentiation is sufficient to allow of a distinction between the two characters, each representing the same name, though belonging to two different men.

Fig. 1137.--Smokes-at-Night. Red-Cloud’s Census. Again the concept is expressed by the covering over with darkness.

Fig. 1138.--Kills-at-Night. Red-Cloud’s Census. Night is here shown by the curve for sky and the suspension, beneath it, of a star, or more probably in Dakotan expression, a night sun, i. e., the moon.

Fig. 1139.--A Crow chief, Flat-Head, comes into the tipi of a Dakota chief, where a council was assembled. Flame’s Winter Count, 1852-’53. The night is shown by the black top of the tipi.

Fig. 1140 is taken from Copway (_f_). It represents “night.”

A typical Indian gesture for night, illustrated by Fig. 1141, is: Place the flat hands horizontally about 2 feet apart, move them quickly in an upward curve toward one another until the right lies across the left. “Darkness covers all.”

The conception of covering executed by delineating the object covered beneath the middle point of an arch or curve, appears also clearly in the Egyptian characters for night, Fig. 1142, Champollion (_f_).

In Kingsborough (_m_) is the painting reproduced as Fig. 1143.

This painting expresses the multitude of eyes, i. e., stars in the sky, and signifies the night. Eyes in Mexican paintings are painted exactly in this manner.

CLOUD.

Fig. 1144.--Cloud shield. Red-Cloud’s Census. This figure shows in conjunction with the disk, probably a shield but possibly the sun, a dim cloud, and below is a line apparently holding up clouds from which the raindrops have not yet begun to fall. This may be collated with the pictographs for rain and also for snow, as figured below.

A Cheyenne sign for cloud is as follows: (1) Both hands partially closed, palms facing and near each other, brought up to level with or slightly above but in front of the head; (2) suddenly separated sidewise, describing a curve like a scallop; this scallop motion is repeated for “many clouds.” The same conception is in the Moki etchings, the three left-hand characters of Fig. 1145 (Gilbert MS.), and in variants from Oakley Springs, the two right-hand characters of the same figure.

The Ojibwa pictograph for cloud, reported in Schoolcraft (_n_), is more elaborate, Fig. 1146. It is composed of the sign for sky to which that for clouds is added, the latter being reversed, as compared with the Moki etchings, and picturesquely hanging from the sky.

RAIN.

Fig. 1147.--From Copway, loc. cit., represents rain, cloudy.

The gesture sign for rain is illustrated in Fig. 1002. The pictograph, Fig. 1148, reported as found in New Mexico, by Lieut. Simpson, in Ex. Doc. No. 64, 31st Congress, 1st session, 1850, p. 9, is said to represent Montezuma’s adjutants sounding a blast to him for rain. The small character inside the curve which represents the sky, corresponds with the gesturing hand, but may be the rain cloud appearing.

The Moki drawing for rain, i. e., a cloud from which the drops are falling, is given in Fig. 1149, in six variants taken from a petroglyph at Oakley Springs.

Edkins (_f_) gives Fig. 1150 as the Chinese character for rain. It is a picture of rain falling from the clouds. He adds, p. 155:

Rain was anciently without the upper line, and instead of the
vertical line in the middle there were four, but all shorter. Above
each of them and within the concave was a dot. These four dots were
raindrops, the four lines were the direction of their descent, and
the concave was the firmament.

LIGHTNING.

Among the northern Indians of North America the concept of lightning is included in that of thunder, and is represented by the thunder bird, see Chap. XIV, sec. 2, supra.

Fig. 1151 shows three ways in which lightning is represented by the Moki. They are copied from a petroglyph at Oakley Springs, Arizona. In the middle character the sky is shown, the changing direction of the streak and clouds with rain falling. The part relating specially to the streak is portrayed in an Indian gesture sign as follows: Right hand elevated before and above the head, forefinger pointing upward, brought down with great rapidity with a sinuous, undulating motion, finger still extended diagonally downward toward the right.

Fig. 1152 is a copy from a vase in the collection of relics of the ancient builders of the southwest table lands in the MS. Catalogue of Mr. Thomas V. Keam, and represents the body of the mythic Um-tak-ina, the Thunder. This body is a rain cloud with thunder [lightning] darting through it, and is probably of ancient Moki workmanship.

Fig. 1153, also from Keam’s MS., gives three other representations of the Moki characters for lightning. The middle one shows the lightning sticks which are worked by the hands of the dancers.

Fig. 1154 also represents lightning, taken by Mr. W. H. Jackson, photographer of the late U. S. Geol. and Geogr. Survey, from the decorated walls of an estufa in the Pueblo de Jemez, New Mexico. The former is blunt, for harmless, and the latter terminates in an arrow or spear point, for destructive or fatal lightning.

Connected with this topic is the following extract from Virgil’s Æneis, Lib. VIII, 429:

Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosæ
Addiderant, rutili tres ignis et alitis austri.

The “radii” are the forks or spikes by which lightning is designated, especially on medals. It consisted of twelve wreathed spikes or darts extended like the radii of a circle. The wings denote the lightning’s rapid motion and the spikes or darts its penetrating quality. The four different kinds of spikes refer to the four seasons. The “tres imbristorti radii” or the three spikes of hail, are the winter when hail storms abound. The “tres nubis aquosæ radii,” the three spikes of a watery cloud, denote the spring. The “tres rutili ignis radii,” the three spikes of sparkling fire, are the summer when lightning is frequent and the “tres alitis austri radii,” or the three spikes of winged wind, are for autumn with its many wind storms.

HUMAN FORM.

Fig. 1155.--_a_ among the Arikara signifies men. The characters are used in connection with horseshoes, to denote “mounted men” _b_. In other pictographs such spots or dots are merely numerical. _c_ is drawn by the Kiatéxamut branch of the Innuits for man. It is an abbreviated form and rare. _d_, drawn by the Blackfeet, signifies “Man-dead.” This is from a pictograph in Wind River mountains, taken from Jones’s (_c_) Northwestern Wyoming. _e_ is also a Kiatéxamut Innuit drawing for man. This figure is armless; generally represents the person addressed.

Fig. 1156.--_a_ is also a Kiatéxamut Innuit drawing for man. The person makes the gesture for negation. _b_ and _c_, from a Californian petroglyph, are men also gesturing negation. _d_, from Schoolcraft (_v_), is the Ojibwa “symbol” for disabled man.

Fig. 1157.--_a_ is the Kiatéxamut Innuit drawing for Shaman. _b_, used by the same tribe, represents man supplicating. _c_, reproduced from Schoolcraft (_u_), is the Ojibwa representative figure or man.

Fig. 1158.--_a_, from Schoolcraft, loc. cit., is an Ojibwa drawing of a headless body. _b_, from the same, is another Ojibwa figure for a headless body, perhaps female. _c_, contributed by Mr. Gilbert Thompson, is a drawing for a man, made by the Moki in Arizona. _d_, reproduced from Schoolcraft (_w_), is a drawing from the banks of the River Yenesei, Siberia, by Von Strahlenberg (_a_). _e_ is given by Dr. Edkins, op. cit., p. 4, as the Chinese character for, and originally a picture of, a man.

The representation of a headless body does not always denote death. An example is given in Fig. 1159, _a_, taken from an ivory drill-bow in the collection of the Alaska Commercial Company, of San Francisco, California. It was made by the Aigaluxamut natives of Alaska. As the explanation gives no suggestion of a fatal casualty, the concept may be that the hunter got lost or “lost his head,” according to the colloquial phrase.

The figures of men in a canoe are represented by the Kiatéxamut Innuit of Alaska, as shown in the same figure, _b_. The right-hand upward stroke represents the bow of the boat, while the two lines below the horizontal stroke denote the paddles used by the men, who are shown as the first and second upward strokes above the canoe; in the same figure, _c_ shows the outline of human figures, copied from a walrus ivory drill-bow (U. S. Nat. Mus., No. 44398) from Cape Nome, Alaska. The second pair closely resemble forms of the thunder-bird as drawn by various Algonquian tribes and as found in petroglyphs upon rocks in the northeastern portion of the United States; in the same figure, _d_, selected from a group of human forms, is incised upon a walrus ivory drill-bow obtained at Port Clarence, Alaska, by Dr. T. H. Bean, of the National Museum. The specimen is numbered 40054. The fringe-like appendages on the arms may indicate the garment worn by some of the Kenai or other inland Athabascan Indians of Alaska.

Fig. 1160, from Strahlenberg, op. cit., was found in Siberia, and is identical with the character which, according to Schoolcraft, is drawn by the Ojibwa to represent speed and the power of superior knowledge by exaltation to the regions of the air, being, in his opinion, a combination of bird and man.

It is to be noticed that some Ojibwa recently examined regard the character merely as a human figure with outstretched arms, and fringes pendent therefrom. It has, also, a strong resemblance to some of the figures in the Lone-Dog Winter Counts (those for 1854-’55 and 1866-’67, pages 283 and 285, respectively), in which there is no attempt understood to signify anything more than a war-dress.

Fig. 1161, according to Schoolcraft (_t_), is the Ojibwa drawing symbolic for an American.

Bastian (_a_), in Ethnologisches Bilderbuch, says:

Upon a shaman’s drum, from the Yakuts of Siberia, is the figure
of a human form greatly resembling some forms of the American types.
The appendages beneath the arms, given in Fig. 1162, suggest also
some forms of the thunder-bird as drawn by the Ojibwa.

Fig. 1163 is a copy of human forms found by Mr. Dellenbaugh in petroglyphs in Shinumo canyon, Utah. They probably are of Moki workmanship.

Fig. 1164, from Mr. Stevenson’s paper in the Eighth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 283, is the form of a man, drawn in the sand in the Hasjelti ceremony of the Navajo.

The left-hand character of Fig. 1165 is described in Keam’s MS. as follows:

This is a conventional design of dragon flies, and is often
found among rock etchings throughout the plateau [Arizona]. The
dragon flies have always been held in great veneration by the Mokis
and their ancestors, as they have been often sent by Oman to reopen
springs which Muingwa had destroyed and to confer other benefits
upon the people.

This form of the figure, with little vertical lines added to the
transverse lines, connects the Batolatci with the Ho-bo-bo emblems.
The youth who was sacrificed and translated by Ho-bo-bo reappeared a
long time afterwards, during a season of great drought, in the form
of a gigantic dragon fly, who led the rain clouds over the lands of
Ho-pi-tu, bringing plenteous rains.

Describing the middle character of the figure, he says: “The figure represents a woman. The breath sign is displayed in the interior. The simpler design in the right-hand character consists of two triangles, one upon another, and is called the ‘woman’s head and body.’”

Fig. 1166, reproduced by permission from the Century Magazine for October, 1891, p. 887, is a representation of a golden breastplate found in the United States of Colombia, and now in the Ruiz-Randall collection. The human figure is nearly identical with some of those described and illustrated in the present work as found in other localities.

Crevaux, quoted by Marcano, (_g_) in speaking of the photographs of French Guyana, makes these useful suggestions:

The drawings of frogs found by Brown on the Esesquibo
are nothing else than human figures such as the Galihis, the
Roucouyennes, and the Oyampis represent them every day on their
pagaras, their pottery, or their skin. We ourselves, on examining
these figures with legs and arms spread out, thought that they were
meant for frogs, but the Indians told us that that was their manner
of representing man.

In Necropolis of Ancon in Peru, by W. Reiss and A. Stubel, (_a_) are descriptions of figures _a_ to _g_ in Pl. L, all being painted sepulcher tablets one-seventh of the actual size. The descriptions are condensed. The general characteristics of the tablets are that they are in a tabular form, made of reeds, and covered with a white cotton fabric, the edges of which are stitched together behind and attached to a pole, short at top, and projecting to a greater length downwards. On the front is a slightly sketched design in red and black lines, while a winding or undulating border usually runs around the sides. Nearly all the space within this border is occupied by a human figure surrounded by isolated symbols or ornaments. The head and features of the conventionalized figure is out of all proportion to the small body, which is often merely suggested by a few strokes.

TABLETS AT ANCON, PERU.]

_a._ The features and high headdress of a human figure, represented by concentric black and red lines. To the short arms are attached outstretched three-fingered hands, the right holding some object, while body and legs are arbitrarily indicated. The legs are twice reproduced in black and red lines. The space between the figure and border is occupied by six simple designs, two black and one red on either side.

_b._ The human figure, comparatively simple and distinct, distinguished by large ear ornaments, with designs similar to those of the preceding figure, but varying in number and disposition.

_c._ Highly fantastic figure with diverse ornamentations; the space in the corners cut off by designs, of which the upper two show a bird motive, such as frequently occurs on earthenware and woven fabrics.

_d._ This is doubtless meant to represent a figure clothed down to the feet.

_e._ Here the human figure is formed of black lines, connected at right angles with complementary red lines. A wide top-piece covers the head, which consists of two small rectangles, leaving room only to indicate the eyes, while the mouth, placed rather too low down, is suggested by a red stroke. The arms are bent downwards; hands and feet with triple articulation. Within the red and black frame the figure is encircled by crosses, dots, and a conventional star.

_f._ Human figure filling most of the space, which is inclosed only by a narrow edging. Surface painting distinguishes the wide body, which is rounded off below and to which the triangular head is fitted above. Hands with five, feet with three, articulations; crenelled head gear; necklace suggested by dots; the corners of the ground-surface filled in with rectangular sharply-edged ornaments.

_g._ Human figure consisting of two disconnected parts; triangular head and body; hands and feet with two articulations; frame of red and black dovetailed teeth.

Wiener (_i_), describing illustrations reproduced here as Fig. 1167, says:

The tissue found at Moché, _a_, represents a man with flattened
head, exaggerated ears, and the thumb of the right hand too much
developed. When correlated with that from Ancon, _b_, with its
coarse paintings, it becomes a sort of caligraphy in which all the
letters are traced with the greatest care, while _b_, and also the
sepulchral inscription _c_, found at the same place, become cursive.

The design _a_ of this series presents peculiarities found in Zuñi drawings on pottery. The appendages from the side of the head among the latter denote large coils of hair so arranged by tying. Their significance is that the wearer is an unmarried woman. The remaining designs also resemble types of human figures found upon Zuñi and Pueblo pottery, being rather of a decorative character than having special significance.

HUMAN HEAD AND FACE.

A large number of human faces as drawn by members of different tribes and stocks of North American Indians appear in the present paper. Some of them are iconographic and others are highly conventionalized. Other examples from other regions of the world are also presented under various headings.

In the present connection it may be useful to examine a series of drawings from the prehistoric pottery of Brazil in the National Museum at Rio de Janeiro. Although the U. S. National Museum contains many specimens of a similar character, some of which have been copied and published, the Brazilian types show an instructive peculiarity in the reduction of the face to certain main lines and finally to the eyes, so that the latter are placed apart and independent in a symmetric field.

The following Figs. 1168 to 1174 are reproduced from Dr. Ladisláu Netto (_d_), all of them being from Brazil and from paintings and carvings on Marajo ware.

Fig. 1168 shows broken lines without the aid of curves, but gracefully attached to an instrument, either lance or trident, which present the outline of the contours of a face.

The characters in Fig. 1169 are somewhat more elaborate. The eyes are decorated with lines and the contour of the face is round.

The characters in Fig. 1170 are carved human faces, some of which would not be recognized as such unless shown in the series.

The face in Fig. 1171 represents the horizontal projection or plan of a double-faced head. The central H represents in this case the top of the head, each of the shafts of the H being neither more nor less than the double arch of the eyebrows, joined to which the representation of the nose in a triangular figure may be recognized. The most noticeable point is that if this surface be applied in imagination to the cranium of the bifrontal head, of which it seems to be the covering or skin, the features of the double-faced heads of the Marajo idols are immediately recognized, including the orifices by which those idols are hung on cords, which orifices are seen in the dividing line of the two faces.

Fig. 1172 presents the general form of decoration found upon vases bearing figures of the face as above mentioned. It is a funeral urn, carved and engraved, from Marajo, reduced to one-fifth.

Frequently the face is produced in relief, in which a larger portion of a vessel is taken to produce more lifelike imitation, as in Fig. 1173. It is the neck of an anthropomorphic vase of Marajo ornamented with grooves and lines, red on a white ground, reduced to one-half.

Fig. 1174 _a_, real size, is the neck of a Marajo vase, representing a human head. The nose and chin are very prominent, the eyes horizontal and slit in the same direction. This head is remarkable for the relief of the eyebrows which, after reaching the height of the ears, form these organs, describing above a second curve in the inverse direction of the curve of the brow, each brow thus forming an S. There are other heads in which the eyebrows are prolonged to form the relief of the ears at the outer extremity. In these cases the whole relief represents a semicircle more or less irregular, while on the contrary this relief forms the figure S.

Same figure, _b_, real size, is the neck of an ornithomorphic, anthropocephalous vase. It has on the face the classic and conventional T to represent the nose and brows. The eyes are formed by the symbolic figure equally conventional in the ceramics of the mound-builders of Marajo, and the ears differ very little from the characters seen in other figures.

Same figure, _c_, four-fifths real size, is the neck of a Marajo vase representing, by engraving and painting, all the conventional characters of the different parts of the human face employed by the mound-builders of Marajo. This vase preserves perfectly the primitive colors, which show vermilion lines on a white ground. A double protuberance from each ear, the design which forms the eyes, and that which surrounds and outlines the mouth, the nose, and the ears, are characteristic traces of the decorative art of the human face which few heads present in such perfection.

Same figure, _d_, four-fifths real size, is the neck of a Marajo vase more simple than the preceding one, but with more regular and distinct features.

The Brazilian system above illustrated, which reduces the face to certain main lines and finally to the eyes, in such manner that the eyes are placed apart and each is put by itself in a symmetric field, has its parallel in North America. This is the practice of the Bella Coola Indians and their neighbors at the present day. They divide the surface, to be ornamented into zones and fields, by means of broad horizontal and vertical lines, each field containing, according to its position, now a complete face, now only an indication of it, the especial indication being made by the eye. The eyes themselves are given different shapes, according to the different animals represented, being now large and round, now oblong and with pointed angles. These peculiarities, which have become conventional, are retained when the eye is represented alone, so that by this method it may still be easy to recognize which animal--for example, a raven or a bear, is intended to be portrayed.

The left-hand character in Fig. 1175, from Champollion (_g_), is the Egyptian character for a human face. The predominance of the ears probably has some special significance.

Schoolcraft (_u_) gives the right-hand character of the same figure as a man’s head, with ears open to conviction, as made by the Ojibwa.

Both of these may be compared with the exaggerated ears in Fig. 1167.

HAND.

The impression, real or represented, of a human hand is used in several regions in the world with symbolic significance.

Among the North American Indians the mark so readily applied is of frequent occurrence, with an ascertained significance, which, however, differs in several tribes.

Fig. 1176, taken from Copway (_b_), represents the hand, and also expresses “did so.” This signification of “do,” or action, and hence “power,” is also given to the same character in the Egyptian and Chinese ideograms.

Among several Indian tribes a black hand on a garment or ornament means “the wearer of this has killed an enemy.” The decoration appears upon Ojibwa bead belts, and the Hidatsa and Arikara state that it is an old custom of showing bravery. The character was noticed at Fort Berthold, and the belt bearing it had been received from Ojibwa Indians of northern Minnesota. The mark of a black hand drawn of natural size or less, and sometimes made by the impress of an actually blackened palm, was also noticed, with the same significance, on articles among the Hidatsa and Arikara in 1881.

Schoolcraft (_x_) says of the Dakota on the St. Peters river that a red hand indicates that the wearer has been wounded by his enemy, and a black hand that he has slain his enemy.

Irving (_b_) remarks, in Astoria, of the Arikara warriors: “Some had the stamp of a red hand across their mouths, a sign that they had drunk the life-blood of a foe.”

In other parts of the present paper the significance of the mark is mentioned and may be briefly summarized here.

Among the Sioux a red hand painted on a warrior’s blanket or robe means that he has been wounded by the enemy, and a black hand that he has been in some way unfortunate. Among the Mandan a yellow hand on the breast signifies that the wearer had captured prisoners.

Among the Titon Dakota a hand displayed meant that the wearer had engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle with an enemy. The impress of a hand, stained or muddy, upon the body or horse was the Winnebago mark that the wearer had killed a man.

The drawing of linked fingers or joined hands has been before discussed, p. 643, and in several petroglyphs illustrated in this paper the single hand appears. It is a common device on rocks, and doubtless with varieties of signification, as above mentioned in other forms of pictograph.

It will suffice now to add 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. But Mr. Thomas V. Keam explains the Arizona drawings of hands on the authority of the living Moki. In his MS., in describing Fig. 1177, he says:

The outline of two outstretched hands joined at the wrists and
figure of a hand with extended fingers is very common as a rock
etching.

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 Hopitu
obtained the first corn. The first test above referred to was that
of putting their hands in the mud and impressing them upon the rock.
Only those were chosen as novices the imprints of whose hands had
dried on the instant.

Le Plongeon (_a_) tells that the tribes of Yucatan have the custom of printing the impress of the human hand, dipped in a red-colored liquid, on the walls of certain sacred edifices.

A. W. Howitt, in manuscript notes on Australian pictographs, says:

In very many places there are representations of a human hand
imprinted or delineated upon the rocks or in caverns. In the
mountains on the western side of the Darling river, in New South
Wales, I have observed such, and the aborigines whom I questioned
upon the subject said that these representations were made in sport.
This reply would, however, be also given were any white man to find
and draw their attention to one of the figures which are made in
connection with the initiation ceremonies. The representations of
hands are made in two ways. In one the hand is smeared with red
ocher and water, and impressed upon the rock surface. In the other
the hand, being placed upon the rock, a mouthful of red ocher or
pipe-clay and water is squirted over it. The hand being then removed
there remains its representation surrounded and marked out by the
colored wash.

Thomas Worsnop (_b_) says:

Mr. Winnecke, in 1879, saw several drawings on rocks and in
caves, [Fig. 1178], and describes them as follows:

There are found in several large caves near Mount Skinner and
Ledans hill, in latitude 22° 30′ south and longitude 134° 30′ east.
The natives appear to have selected the smooth surface of granite
rocks inside several large caves, which spots are not subject to
the influence of wind or rain. These caves are resorted to by the
natives during excessive rainy seasons, as indicated by their camp
preparations, and it is beyond doubt that these drawings have
been performed during these periods of forced inactivity by some
artistically inclined native. Those I am alluding to are somewhat
numerous in these particular localities and present a uniform
appearance.

_a_, apparently represents a heart pierced in the center by a
spear. The outline of the object representing the heart has been
delineated with red ocher, whilst the spear has been drawn with
a burnt stick or piece of coal. I have only seen this particular
sketch in one instance, where four distinct drawings of the same
object exactly below and equidistant from each other have been made
in anything but a crude manner, the outline having been carefully
and very distinctly traced on the rocks, showing a degree of
perfection scarcely to be anticipated from these wild inhabitants.
The breadth of the heart is about 5 inches and its length about 6
inches. The length of the spear portion is about 3 feet. [The device
reminds of St. Valentine’s day.]

_b_, consists of two parallel lines about 6 inches apart, with
regular marks between, and probably represents the native’s notion
of a creek with emu tracks traversing its bed. This drawing has been
made with a coal, and is found depicted on smooth rocks in various
localities.

_c_, has been drawn both with coal and red ocher. It is found
in many places, and seems to be a favorite drawing of the natives.
I have found it depicted in several localities in the interior of
Australia. It is generally supposed to represent a hand.

_d._ This figure is made by the natives in the following manner:
Placing their extended hand against a smooth rock, after having
previously moistened the same, they fill their mouths with powdered
charcoal, which they then blow violently along the outline of their
extended hand, thus leaving the portions of rock covered perfectly
clean, whilst the space between their fingers and elsewhere around
about becomes covered with the black substance. This drawing is not
very common. I found several specimens near the Sabdover river. I
have, however, been informed that it has been seen in other and
distant parts of Australia.

Renan (_a_) says in the chapter on the Nomad Semites:

The real monuments of the period were, as in the case with
all people who can not write, the stones which they reared, the
columns erected in memory of some event, and upon which was often
represented a hand, whence the name of _iad_ [finger post].

Major Conder (_c_) writes that in Jerusalem a rough representation of a hand is marked by the native races on the wall of every house while building. 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, apply paintings of red hands above the doors and on the columns of their houses as talismans to drive away the envious. 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. The same people make the gesture against the evil eye by extending the five fingers of the left hand.

H. Clay Trumbull (_b_) gives the following:

It is a noteworthy fact that among the Jews in Tunis, near
the old Phenician settlement of Carthage, the sign of a bleeding
hand is still an honored and a sacred symbol as if in recognition
of the covenant-bond of their brotherhood and friendship. “What
struck me most in all the houses,” says a traveler (Chevalier de
Hesse-Wartegg) among these Jews, “was the impression of an open
bleeding hand on every wall of each floor. However white the walls,
this repulsive (yet suggestive) sign was to be seen everywhere.”

The following is extracted from Panjab Notes and Queries, Vol. I, No. 1 (October, 1883), p. 2:

At the Temple of Balasundarí Deví at Tilokpúr, near Náhan, the
priests stamp a red hand on the left breast of the coat of a pilgrim
who visits the temple for the first time to show that he has, as
it were, paid for his footing. If the pilgrim again visits the
temple and can show the stamp he pays only 4 annas as his fee to the
priests.

Gen. A. Hontum-Schindler, Teheran, Persia, in a letter of December 19, 1888, tells:

All through Persia, principally in villages though, a rough
representation of a hand, or generally the imprint of a right hand,
in red, may be seen on the wall or over the door of a house whilst
in building, or on the wall of a mosque, booth, or other public
building. It is probably an ancient custom, although the Persians
connect it with Islam, and they say that the hand represents that of
Albas, a brother of Husain (a grandson of the prophet Mohammed), who
was one of the victims at the massacre of Kerbela in 680, and who
had his right hand cut off by el Abrad ibu Shaibân. In India I have
noticed similar marks, hands, or simply red streaks.

In Journal of the Proc. Royal Soc. Antiq., Ireland, I, 3, fifth series, 1890, p. 247, is the following:

The hand an emblem of good luck in Ireland.--In Maj. Conder’s
“Syrian Stone Lore,” published for the Palestine Exploration
Committee by Bentley & Son (1886), p. 71, occurs the following
passage: “Among other primitive emblems used by the Phenicians
is the hand occurring on votive steles at Carthage, sometimes in
connection with the sacred fish. This hand is still a charm in
Syria, called Kef Miriam, ‘the Virgin Mary’s hand,’ and sovereign
against the evil eye. The red hand is painted on walls, and occurs,
for instance, in the Hagia Sophia at Constantinople and elsewhere.
It is common also in Ireland and in India (Siva’s hand) and on
early scepters, always as an emblem of good luck.” What actual
foundation is there for the above statement as regards Ireland?
About twenty years ago the first Monday in January was known in
the south of Ireland as “Handsel Monday,” and looked upon as in
some way indicating the prosperity the year succeeding was to bring
forth. But whether, as the name would seem to imply, this had any
connection with the hand as an emblem of good luck I am unaware.--J.
C.

Gen. Forlong (_b_) makes the following remarks:

The “red hand of Ireland” is known alike to Turanians, Shemites,
and Aryans, and from the Americas to farthest Asia. The hand, being
an organ peculiar to man, is in the East a sign of Siva, and seems
to have been identified with his emblem even by the Medes. All men
have usually worshiped and plighted their troth or sworn by manual
signs, so the hand naturally stands as the sign of man himself; but
more than this, Easterns attach a significance to it as an organ
without which the procreating one is useless. In Germany, says J.
Grimm, the hand was _Tyr_, or the son of Odin, “the one-handed,”
for he lost one limb by the biting wintry wolf--that is, he
became powerless to produce.... He was then the “golden-handed,”
fertilizer, whom ancient Irans denoted by their name Zerdosht, and
Irish Kelts placed as a talisman on their Ulster shield.... The
Irish solo-phalik idea is seen in the “crosses” of Clon-Mac-Noise
and Monasterboise, where, as in Fig. 1179, all the fingers are
carefully placed in the center of the circle of fertility. The Vedas
constantly speak of Savatar as “the golden-handed sun,” who lost
this limb owing to his efforts when at sacrifice, and who remained
impotent until the deity restored to him a hand of gold.

Hindus, like the high Asian tribes and the old Mexicans, usually
impress a hand covered with blood or vermilion on the door posts
of their temple--that is, on the Delpheus or “door of life;” and
the great Islamite, Mahmood, when he captured Constantinople, rode
up to the holy feminine shrine of St. Sophia, and reaching up as
high as he could, there unwittingly imprinted this bloody sign of
Great Siva. We must remember how often the hand appears with other
significant objects on the arms of men and nations, and notably so
on Roman standards.... Fig. 1180.

In the old shrines of America, Leslie says, the “sacred hand was
a favorite subject of art,” and Stevens in his Yucatan says, “The
red hand stared us in the face over all the ruined buildings of the
country, ... not drawn or printed, but stamped by the living hand,
the pressure of the palm upon the stone being quite distinct, the
thumb and fingers being extended as we see in the Irish and Hindu
hands.”

FEET AND TRACKS.

In the two first illustrations of this group the respective figures of the man and the eagle are in the act of forming tracks on the ground. Such tracks are shown in the next two figures, but without the context might not be recognized as such. The fifth figure is more distinctly ideographic, showing the foot and leg as in the act of making the impress, and the eagle’s feather to indicate the kind of track which would have been made by a running eagle.

Fig. 1181.--Goes-Walking. Red-Cloud’s Census.

Fig. 1182.--Running-Eagle. Red-Cloud’s Census.

Fig. 1183.--Tracks. Red-Cloud’s Census.

Fig. 1184.--Walking-Bull-Track. Red-Cloud’s Census.

Fig. 1185.--Eagle-Track. Red-Cloud’s Census.

Fig. 1186, copied from Copway (_b_), gives three characters of which the first represents “ran,” the second “walked” or “passed,” and the third “stand,” characters similar both to the tracks and the feet found on many petroglyphs in North America.

They are also found in the terraces of temples of Thebes, of Karnak, and especially at Nakhaur in South Bihar.

P. le Page Renouf (_a_), in An Elementary Grammar of the Ancient Egyptian Language, gives the right-hand character of the same figure as the generic determinative implying motion.

BROKEN LEG.

This group gives several modes of expressing, pictorially, broken legs.

Fig. 1187.--Many were thrown from their horses while surrounding buffalo, and some had their legs broken. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1847-’48. The legs are distorted and the line may refer to the slippery ice touched by the toes.

Fig. 1188.--Lone-Horn’s father broke his leg. The-Flame’s Winter Count, 1832-’33. This is a strongly marked representation.

Fig. 1189.--A Minneconjou Dakota named Broken-Leg died. The-Flame’s Winter Count, 1846-’47. The-Flame’s representation is objective, but Battiste Good gives another more ideographic. The arm in his character, given in Fig. 1190, is lengthened so as nearly to touch the broken leg, which is shown distorted, instead of indicating the injury by the mere distortion of the leg itself. The bird over the head, and connected by a line with it, probably represents the teal as a name-totem. Perhaps he was called Broken-Leg after the injury.

Fig. 1191.--There were a great many accidents and some legs were broken, the ground being covered with ice. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1847-’48. Here the fracture is very obvious--too much so to be intended as objective--rather delineating the idea of the breaking and separation of the bone.

Fig. 1192.--Broken-Leg was killed by the Pawnees. His leg had been broken by a bullet in a previous fight with the Pawnees. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1807-’08. Here the leg is entirely removed from its normal position.

Dr. Edkins (_g_) gives Fig. 1193, _a_, as a picture of a bent leg broken, and adds, “The true radical and phonetic for which this stands as representative is rather _b_, ‘fault,’ ‘move.’”

VOICE AND SPEECH.

This group relates to sounds issuing from the mouth, that is, to voice and speech:

Fig. 1194.--The-Elk-that-Holloes-Walking. The-Swan’s Winter Count, 1860-’61. Interpreter A. Lavary said, in 1867, that The-Elk-that-Holloes-Walking, then chief of the Minneconjous, was then at Spotted-Tail’s camp. His father was Red-Fish. He was the elder brother of Lone-Horn. His name is given as A-hag-a-hoo-man-ie, translated The-Elk’s-Voice-Walking, compounded of he-ha-ka, elk, and omani, walk; this according to Lavary’s literation. The correct literation of the Dakota word meaning elk is heqaka; voice, ho; and to walk, walking, mani. Their compound would be heqaka ho mani, the translation being the same as above given.

Fig. 1195.--Elk-walking-with-his-Voice. Red-Cloud’s Census: This is explained by the following figure.

Fig. 1196 is taken from the manuscript drawing book of an Indian prisoner at St. Augustine, Florida, now in the Smithsonian Institution, No. 30664. It represents an antelope and the whistling sound produced by the animal on being surprised or alarmed. It also shows the tracks, and supplies the idea of walking not exhibited by the preceding two figures.

Fig. 1197.--Dog-with-good-voice. Red-Cloud’s Census. The peculiar angular divisions of the line may indicate the explosive character of a dog’s bark as distinct from a long-drawn howl. Among the many lines indicating voice which appear in the Dakota pictographs none has been found identical with this, and therefore it probably has special significance.

Fig. 1198.--Bear-that-growls. Red-Cloud’s Census. This figure gives a marked differentiation. The sound of growling does not appear to come from the mouth, but from the lower part of the neck or the upper part of the chest, from which the lines here are drawn to emanate. They are also confined by a surrounding line, to suggest the occluded nature of the sound.

Fig. 1199, from Copway (_b_), represents “speak.”

The Mexican pictograph, Fig. 1200, taken from Kingsborough (_n_), is illustrative of the sign made by the Arikara and Hidatsa for “tell” and “conversation.” “Tell me” is: Place the flat right hand, palm upward, about 15 inches in front of the right side of the face, fingers pointing to the left and front; then draw the hand inward toward and against the bottom of the chin. For “conversation,” talking between two persons, both hands are held before the breast, pointing forward, palms up, the edges being moved several times toward one another. Perhaps, however, the picture in fact only means the common poetical image of “flying words.”