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
There is no doubt that among the Egyptians and several of the peoples
of the eastern hemisphere, ancient and modern, the form of the cross
was used symbolically, and there is no more doubt that it was employed
in a similar manner by many American tribes with reference to the
points of the compass, or rather the four winds. It was also used with
many differing significations. See in this paper Figure 60, page 158,
Figure 143, page 220, Figure 154, page 230, Figure 165, page 238, and
Figure 168, page 240. The ease with which the design was made would
tend to its early adoption as a sign, an emblem, or a symbol.
Rev. S. D. Hinman states that among the Dakota, symbolic crosses always
have the members equal, or of the “Greek” pattern, and are always
worn resting on one foot, not two as in the St. Andrew’s cross. They
represent the four winds issuing from the four caverns in which the
souls of men existed before embodiment. The top of the cross is the
cold, all-conquering giant, the north wind. As worn on the body it is
nearest the head, the seat of intelligence. The top arm, covering the
heart, is the east wind, coming from the seat of life and love. The
foot is the burning south wind, indicating as it is worn the seat of
passion and fiery lust. The right is the gentle west wind, blowing from
the spirit land, covering the lungs, from which at last the breath goes
out. The center of the cross is the earth and man, sometimes indicated
at that point by a circle surrounding a dot. On the upper arm an arrow
is sometimes drawn, on the left a heart, on the right a star, and on
the lower a sun.
SUGGESTIONS TO COLLABORATORS.
The present writer hopes to receive contributions from travelers and
observers, not only in North America, but in other parts of the world.
Such collaboration will always receive due credit, and when practicable
will be reproduced in the language of the collaborator.
The number and the importance of the contributions received upon the
collateral branch of sign-language encourages the hope of similar
success in this application for assistance in the monograph on
pictographs now in preparation.
The main object of the classification both of the text and of the
illustrations in the present paper has been to stimulate the research
and assist the collaboration invited, so that reference to the various
preceding headings is unnecessary. Some practical suggestions may,
however, be offered as follows:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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