Chapter XCIX: Section 1: Marked Characters of Known Significance

It is obvious that before attempting the interpretation of pictographs concerning which no direct information is to be obtained, there should be a collection, as complete as possible, of known characters, in order that through them the unknown may be learned. When any considerable number of objects in a pictograph are actually known the remainder may be ascertained by the context, the relation, and the position of the several designs, and sometimes by the recognized principles of the art.

The present writer has been engaged, therefore, for a considerable time in collating a large number of characters in a card-catalogue arranged primarily by similarity in forms, and in attaching to each character any significance ascertained or suggested. As before explained, the interpretation upon which reliance is mainly based is that which has been made known by direct information from Indians who themselves were actually makers of pictographs at the time of giving the interpretation. Apart from the comparisons obtained by this collation, the only mode of ascertaining the meaning of the characters, in other words, the only key yet discovered, is in the study of the gesture sign included in many of them.

A spiral line frequently seen in petroglyphs is explained by the Dakota to be a snail shell, and, furthermore, this device is seen in Pl. XX, and fully described in that connection as used in the recording and computation of time.

The limits of this paper do not allow of presenting a complete list of the characters in the pictographs which have become known. But some of the characters in the petroglyphs, Figs. 1258, 1259, and 1260, which are not discussed under various headings, supra, should be explained. The following is a selection of those which were interpreted to Mr. Gilbert.

The left hand device of Fig. 1258 is an inclosure, or pen, in which ceremonial dances are performed. That on the right is a headdress used in ceremonial dances.

Compare the drawing from Fairy Rocks, N. S., Fig. 549.

Fig. 1259 gives sketches of the frames or sticks used in carrying wood on the back; also shows different forms of arrows.

Fig. 1260 represents the blossoms of melons, squashes.

The appearance of objects showing the influence of European civilization and christianization should always be carefully noted. An instance where an object of that character is found among a multitude of others not liable to such suspicion is in the heart surmounted by a cross, in the upper line of Fig. 437. This suggests missionary teaching and corresponding date.

Maximilian of Wied (_g_) says:

Another mode of painting their robes by the Dakotas is to
represent the number of valuable presents they have made. By these
presents, which are often of great value, they acquire reputation
and respect among their countrymen. On such robes we observed long
red figures with a black circle at the termination placed close to
each other in transverse rows; they represent whips, indicating the
number of horses given, because the whip belonging to the horse is
always bestowed with the animal. Red or dark-blue transverse figures
indicate cloth or blankets given; parallel transverse stripes
represent firearms, the outlines of which are pretty correctly drawn.

It may be desirable also to note, to avoid misconception, that where, throughout this work, mention is made of particulars under the headings of customs, religion, etc., which might be made the subject of graphic illustration in pictographs, and for that reason should be known as preliminary to the attempted interpretation of the latter, the suggestion is not given as a mere hypothesis. Such objective marks and conceptions of the character indicated which can readily be made objective, are in fact frequently found in pictographs and have been understood by means of the preliminary information to which reference is made. When interpretations obtained through this line of study are properly verified, they can take places in the card catalogue little inferior to those of interpretations derived directly from aboriginal pictographers.

The interpretation by means of gesture-signs has already been discussed, Chap. XVIII, Sec. 4.

Capt. Carver (_b_) describes how an Ojibwa drew the emblem of his own tribe as a deer, a Sioux as a man dressed in skins, an Englishman as a human figure with a hat on his head, and a Frenchman as a man with a handkerchief tied around his head.

In this connection is the quotation from the Historical Collections of Louisiana, Part III, 1851, p. 124, describing a pictograph, as follows: “There were two figures of men without heads, and some entire. The first denoted the dead and the second the prisoners. One of my conductors told me on this occasion that when there are any French among either, they set their arms akimbo, or their hands upon their hips, to distinguish them from the savages, whom they represent with their arms hanging down. This distinction is not purely arbitrary; it proceeds from these people having observed that the French often put themselves in this posture, which is not used among them.”

It is also said suggestively, by C. H. Read (_f_) in Jour. of the Anthrop. Inst. of Gr. Br. and I., that in the carvings of the West African negroes, the typical white man is constantly figured with a brandy bottle in one hand and a large glass in the other.

_a._ A beaver.
_b._ A bear.
_c._ A mountain sheep (_Ovis montana_).
_d._ Three wolf heads.
_e._ Three jackass rabbits.
_f._ Cottontail rabbit.
_g._ Bear tracks.
_h._ An eagle.
_i._ Eagle tails.
_j._ A turkey tail.
_k._ Horned toads (_Phryosoma_ sp. ?).
_l._ Lizards.
_m._ A butterfly.
_n._ Snakes.
_o._ A rattlesnake.
_p._ Deer track.
_q._ Three bird tracks.
_r._ Bitterns (wading birds).
]

Instructive particulars regarding pictographs may be discovered in the delineation of the fauna in reference to its present or former habitat in the region where the representation of it is found.

As an example of the number and kind of animals pictured as well as of their mode of representation, the foregoing Fig. 1261, comprising many of the Moki inscriptions at Oakley Springs, Arizona, is presented by Mr. G. K. Gilbert. These were selected by him from a large number of etchings for the purpose of obtaining the explanation, and they were explained to him by Tubi, an Oraibi chief living at Oraibi, one of the Moki villages.

The large object in Fig. 1262, scratched on the Kejimkoojik rocks, Nova Scotia, is probably intended for a mantis or “rear-horse,” but strongly reminds the observer of the monkey forms in the petroglyphs of Central and South America.

Ten Kate (_b_) shows in Fig. 1263 those animal forms which were not obliterated from the face of the rock of El-Sauce, Sonora; they were very nearly in the order in which they are represented. The fish at the upper right hand is 20 centimeters long.