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
Figure 199, No. 30, is the Ojibwa “symbol” for an evil or one-sided
“meda” or higher grade Shaman.
[Illustration: FIG. 200.]
Figure 200, No. 29, is the Ojibwa general “symbol” for a meda.
[Illustration: FIG. 201.]
Figure 201 is drawn by the Hidatsa for man.
[Illustration: FIG. 202.]
Figure 202, from Schoolcraft, I, Pl. 58, No. 3, is an Ojibwa drawing of
a headless body.
[Illustration: FIG. 203.]
Figure 203, from Schoolcraft, I, Pl. 58, No. 2, is another Ojibwa
figure for a headless body, perhaps female.
[Illustration: FIG. 204.]
Figure 204, contributed by Mr. Gilbert Thompson, is a drawing for man,
made by the Moki in Arizona.
[Illustration: FIG. 205.]
Figure 205, reproduced from Schoolcraft, I, Pl. 64, opposite page 424,
is a drawing from the banks of the River Yenesei, Siberia, by Von
Strahlenberg, in his historical and geographical description of the
northern and eastern parts of Europe, Asia, etc. London, 1738.
The similarity to characters on Figure 185 is obvious.
[Illustration: FIG. 206.]
Figure 206, also from Strahlenberg, and quoted in Schoolcraft, Vol. I,
Pl. 66, Fig. 4, opp. p. 342, 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
pendant therefrom. It has, also, a strong resemblance to some of the
figures in the Dakota Winter Counts (those for 1854-’55 and 1866-’67,
pages 121 and 124, respectively), in which there is no attempt
understood to signify any thing more than a war-dress.
[Illustration: FIG. 207.]
Figure 207, according to Schoolcraft, Vol. I, Pl. 58, No. 58, is the
Ojibwa drawing symbolic for an American.
ERRORS AND FRAUDS.
No large amount of space need be occupied in the mention of recognized
pictographic frauds, their importance being small, but much more than
is now allowed would be required for the discussion of controverted
cases.
There is little inducement, beyond a disposition to hoax, to commit
actual frauds in the fabrication of rock-carvings. The instances where
inscribed stones from mounds have been ascertained to be forgeries or
fictitious drawings have been about equally divided between simple
mischief and an attempt either to increase the marketable value of some
real estate, supposed to contain more, or to sell the specimens.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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