Pictographs of the North American Indians. A preliminary paper: Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1882-83, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1886, pages 3-256Mallery, Garrick
History
Pictographs of the North American Indians. A preliminary paper: Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1882-83, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1886, pages 3-256
Mallery, Garrick
Haida Indians; Picture-writing, Indian; Tattooing
“The last object of this communication from the high plains of New
Mexico, is the most curious, and the most strongly indicative of the
wild, superstitious notions of the Moqui mind. It consists of a
small quantity of wild honey, wrapped up in a wrapper or inner fold
of the husk of the maize, as represented in E, [reproduced in Figure
67.] It is accompanied by these remarks:
“A charm to call down rain from heaven.--To produce the effect
desired, the President must take a piece of the shuck which contains
the wild honey, chew it, and spit it upon the ground which needs
rain; and the Moquis assure him that it will come.”
[Illustration: FIG. 67.--Part of diplomatic packet.]
The Maori used a kind of hieroglyphical or symbolical way of
communication; a chief inviting another to join in a war party sent
a tattooed potato and a fig of tobacco bound up together, which was
interpreted to mean that the enemy was a Maori and not European by the
tattoo, and by the tobacco that it represented smoke; he therefore
roasted the one and eat it, and smoked the other, to show he accepted
the invitation, and would join him with his guns and powder. Another
sent a water-proof coat with the sleeves made of patchwork, red, blue,
yellow, and green, intimating that they must wait until all the tribes
were united before their force would be water-proof, _i. e._, able to
encounter the European. Another chief sent a large pipe, which would
hold a pound of tobacco, which was lighted in a large assembly, the
emissary taking the first whiff, and then passing it round; whoever
smoked it showed that he joined in the war. See Te Ika a Maui, by Rev.
Richard Taylor, London, 1870.
RECORD OF EXPEDITION.
Under this head, many illustrations of which might be given besides
several in this paper, see account of colored pictographs in Santa
Barbara County, California, page 34 _et seq._, Plates I and II, also
Lean-Wolf’s trip, Figure 60, page 158. Also, Figures 135 and 136, pages
214 and 215.
TOTEMIC.
This is one of the most striking of the special uses to which
pictography has been applied by the North American Indians. For
convenience, the characters may be divided into: First, tribal; Second,
gentile; and Third, personal designations.
TRIBAL DESIGNATIONS.
A large number of these graphic distinctions are to be found in the
Dakota Winter Counts.
Rev. J. Owen Dorsey reports that the Tsi[c]u side of the Osage tribe,
when on a war party, have the face painted red, with mud upon the
cheek, below the left eye, as wide as two or more fingers.
The Hañka side of the tribe paint the face red, with a spot of mud upon
the right cheek, below the eye, as wide as two or more fingers.
For an ingenious method of indicating by variation of incisions on
trees, the tribal use of paint by the Absaroka and Dakota respectively,
see page 62.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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