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
Having occasion subsequently to visit the private ethnologic collection
of Hon. A. F. Coronel, of Los Angeles, California, Dr. Hoffman
discovered a clue to the general import of the above record, as well
as the signification of some of the characters above mentioned. In a
collection of colored illustrations of Mexican costumes some of them
probably a century old, he found blankets bearing borders and colors,
nearly identical with those shown in the circles in Plate I, _d_, and
Plate II, _c_, _r_, _w_. It is more than probable that the circles
represent bales of blankets which early became articles of trade at the
Santa Barbara Mission. If this supposition is correct, the cross-lines
would seem to represent the cords, used in tying the blankets into
bales, which same cross-lines appear as cords in _l_, Plate II. Mr.
Coronel also possesses small figures of Mexicans, of various conditions
of life, costumes, trades, and professions, one of which, a painted
statuette, is a representation of a Mexican lying down flat upon an
outspread serape, similar in color and form to the black and white
bands shown in the upper figure of _d_, Plate I, and _a_, _b_, of Plate
II, and instantly suggesting the explanation of those figures. Upon the
latter the continuity of the black and white bands is broken, as the
human figures are probably intended to be in front, or on top, of the
drawings of the blankets.
[Illustration:
BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. II
PICTOGRAPHS IN SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.]
The small statuette above mentioned is that of a Mexican trader, and
if the circles in the pictographs are considered to represent bales of
blankets, there is a figure in Plate I, _d_, still more interesting,
from the union of one of these circles with that of a character
representing the trader, _i. e._, the man possessing the bales. Bales,
or what appear to be bales, are represented to the top and right of the
circle _d_, Plate I, and also upon the right hand figure in _l_, Plate
II. To the right of the latter are three short lines, evidently showing
the knot or ends of the cords used in tying a bale of blankets without
colors, therefore of less importance, or of other goods. This bale is
upon the back of what appears to be a horse, led in an upward direction
by an Indian whose head-dress, and ends of the breech-cloth, are
visible. Other human forms appear in the attitude of making gestures,
one also in _j_, Plate II, probably carrying a bale of goods. Figure
_u_ represents a centipede, an insect found occasionally south of the
mountains, but reported as extremely rare in the immediate northern
regions. (For _x_, see page 232.)
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