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
To avoid any danger of spreading knowledge of their names, one
Indian, therefore, generally addresses another only according to
the relationship of the caller and the called, as brother, sister,
father, mother, and so on; or, when there is no relationship, as
boy, girl, companion, and so on. These terms, therefore, practically
form the names actually used by Indians amongst themselves. But an
Indian is just as unwilling to tell his proper name to a white man
as to an Indian; and, of course, between the Indian and the white man
there is no relationship the term for which can serve as a proper
name. An Indian, therefore, when he has to do with a European, asks
the latter to give him a name, and if one is given to him, always
afterwards uses this. The names given in this way are generally
simple enough--John, Peter, Thomas, and so on. But sometimes they are
not sufficiently simple to be comprehended and remembered by their
Indian owners, who therefore, having induced the donor to write the
name on a piece of paper, preserve this ever after most carefully,
and whenever asked for their name by another European, exhibit the
document as the only way of answering. Sometimes, however, an Indian,
though he cannot pronounce his English names, makes it possible by
corruption. For instance, a certain Macusi Indian was known to me for
a long time as Shassapoon, which I thought was his proper name, until
it accidentally appeared that it was his ‘English name,’ he having
been named by and after one Charles Appun, a German traveler.
The original of Figure 76 was made by Lean-Wolf, second chief of the
Hidatsa, for Dr. W. J. Hoffman in 1881, and represents the method
which this Indian has employed to designate himself for many years
past. During his boyhood he had another name. This is a current, or
perhaps it may be called cursive, form of the name, which is given more
elaborately in Figure 74.
[Illustration: FIG. 76.--Lean-wolf.]
Figure 77 is taken from the winter count of Battiste Good for the year
1841-’42. He calls the year “Pointer-made-a-commemoration-of-the-dead
winter.” Also “Deep-snow winter.”
[Illustration: FIG. 77.--Pointer.]
The extended index denotes the man’s name, “Pointer,” the ring and
spots, deep snow.
The spots denoting snow occur also in other portions of this count,
and the circle, denoting _quantity_, is also attached in Figure 141,
p. 219, to a forked stick and incloses a buffalo head to signify _much
meat_. That the circle is intended to signify quantity is probable,
as the gesture for “much” or “quantity” is made by passing the hands
upward from both sides and together before the body, describing the
upper half of a circle, _i. e._, showing a heap.
Figure 78 is also from the winter count of Battiste Good for the year
1785-’86. This year he calls “The-Cheyennes-killed-Shadow’s-father
winter.”
[Illustration: FIG. 78.--Shadow.]
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