Picture-Writing of the American Indians: Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1888-89, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1893, pages 3-822Mallery, Garrick
History
Picture-Writing of the American Indians: Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1888-89, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1893, pages 3-822
Mallery, Garrick
Picture-writing, Indian
Caraweera is a somewhat similar dye, of a more purplish red,
and by no means so commonly used. It is prepared from the leaves of
a yellow-flowered bignonia (_B. chicka_) together with some other
unimportant ingredients. The dried leaves are boiled. The pot is
then taken from the fire and the contents being poured into bowls
are allowed to subside. The clear water left at the top is poured
away and the sediment is of a beautiful purple color.
Lana is the juice of the fruit of a small tree (_Genipa
americana_) with which without further preparation, blue-black lines
are drawn in patterns, or large surfaces are stained on the skin.
The dye thus applied is for about a week indelible.
Paul Marcoy (_a_), in Travels in South America, says the Passés, Yuris,
Barrés and Chumanas of Brazil, employ a decoction of indigo or genipa in
tattooing.
F. S. Moreat, M. D., in Jour. Roy. Geog. Soc., XXXII, 1862, p. 125, says
that the Andaman Islanders rubbed earth on the top of the head, probably
for the purpose of ornamentation.
Dr. Richard Andree (_b_) says:
Long before Europeans came to Australia, the Australian blacks
knew a kind of pictorial representation, exhibiting scenes from
their life, illustrating it with great fidelity to nature. An
interesting specimen of that kind was found on a piece of bark that
had served as cover of a hut on Lake Tyrrell. The black who produced
this picture had had intercourse with white people, but had had no
instruction whatever in drawing. The bark was blackened by smoke
on the inside, and on this blackened surface the native drew the
figures with his thumb nail.
CHAPTER IX.
MNEMONIC.
This is the most obvious and probably was the earliest use to
which picture-writing was applied. The contrivance of drawing the
representations of objects, to fix in the memory either the objects
themselves or the concepts, facts, or other matters connected with them,
is practiced early by human individuals and is found among peoples the
most ancient historically or in the horizons of culture. After the
adoption of the characters for purely mnemonic purposes, those at first
intended to be iconographic often became converted into ideographic,
emblematic, or symbolic designs, and perhaps in time so greatly
conventionalized that the images of the things designed could no longer
be perceived by the imagination alone.
It is believed, however, that this form and use of picturing were
preceded by the use of material objects which afterwards were reproduced
graphically in paintings, cuttings, and carvings. In the present paper
many examples appear of objects known to have been so used, the graphic
representations of which, made with the same purpose, are explained by
knowledge of the fact. Other instances are mentioned as connected with
the evolution of pictographs, and they possibly may interpret some forms
of the latter which are not yet understood.
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