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 course of conventionalizing is noticeable in pictographs as well
as in gesture-signs, on the one hand, and, on the other, as it appears
in all forms of graphic art. The analysis of such conventions in form
could be pursued at great length with regard to the pictographs now
known in the same manner as has been done with success by Dr. Harrison
Allen in his work “An analysis of the Life-form in Art,” Philadelphia,
1875. Some suggestions may be obtained from the present paper,
especially from examples given under the headings of Ideographs, page
219, and Homomorphs and Symmorphs, page 239. See also conventionalized
sign for Ponka in Winter Count No. I for 1778-79, on page 131, and
for Mandan in the same count for 1783-84, on the same page; also the
conventional sign for Cheyenne, Figure 78, page 173; also the device
for starvation, Figure 144, page 220, as conventionalized in Figure
145, page 221. The limits of this paper will only allow of submitting
in addition the following conventionalized forms of the human figure,
in some cases being merely marks arbitrarily used to represent humanity:
[Illustration: FIG. 186.]
Figure 186 signifies men among the Arikara. The characters are used
in connection with horse-shoes, to denote “mounted men.” In other
pictographs such spots or dots are merely numerical.
[Illustration: FIG. 187.]
Figure 187 is drawn by the Kiatéxamut branch of the Innuits for man. It
is an abbreviated form and rare.
[Illustration: FIG. 188.]
Figure 188, drawn by the Blackfeet, signifies “Man--dead.” This is from
a pictograph in Wind River Mountains. See Jones’s Northwestern Wyoming,
etc., _op. cit._
[Illustration: FIG. 189.]
Figure 189 is the Kiatéxamut Innuit drawing for man. This figure is
armless; generally represents the person addressed.
[Illustration: FIG. 190.]
Figure 190 is also a Kiatéxamut Innuit drawing for man. The figure
makes the gesture for _negation_.
[Illustration: FIG. 191.]
Figure 191, from a Californian pictograph, is a man, also gesturing
_negation_.
[Illustration: FIG. 192.]
Figure 192 is another Californian pictograph for man, making the same
gesture.
[Illustration: FIG. 193.]
Figure 193, from Schoolcraft, I, Pl. 59, No. 91, is the Ojibwa “symbol”
for disabled man.
[Illustration: FIG. 194.]
Figure 194 is the Kiatéxamut Innuit drawing for Shaman.
[Illustration: FIG. 195.]
Figure 195, used by the Kiatéxamut Innuit, represents man supplicating.
The five figures, 196 to 200, are reproduced from Schoolcraft, Vol.
I, Pl. 58, opp. p. 408. The Numbers attached are those given by that
author:
[Illustration: FIG. 196.]
Figure 196, No. 6, is the Ojibwa representative figure for man.
[Illustration: FIG. 197.]
Figure 197, No. 10, is used by the Ojibwa to denote a spirit or man
enlightened from on high, having the head of the sun.
[Illustration: FIG. 198.]
Figure 198, No. 20, is drawn by the Ojibwa for a “wabeno” or Shaman.
[Illustration: FIG. 199.]
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