[Illustration: Fig. 116. Design representing the buffalo, Arapaho.] That both ways are possible is easily shown. When the Plains Indians represent a buffalo in a stiff angular form, like a hide spread out provided with legs, head and tail (fig. 116); and if also a rectangle without these attachments is called a buffalo, it may be as well the buffalo hide that has been abbreviated, so to speak, as that the hide has been read into the rectangle. The process of reading in is not at all unfamiliar to us. We see realistic forms in the shapes of mountains and clouds and in marks on rocks, and we enjoy the play of fancy that endows natural forms with new meanings. There is no reason to doubt that the same tendency prevails among primitive peoples. Koch-Grünberg’s[67] observations among the natives of South America prove this point. He tells us that the Indians, when camping at a portage and waiting for the rivers to become navigable, take up accidental marks on the rocks and by pecking develop them into forms suggested by the natural outlines, or that they take up the lines left by a preceding party who amused themselves in the same way and whose play was interrupted when they were able to resume their journey. We have also ample evidence to show that curiously formed rocks are not only compared with animate beings, but that they are actually considered as men or beasts transformed into stone. Thus the Pueblo Indians tell in their migration legend that a person or an animal became tired on account of the fatigue of the long travel, sat down and was transformed into stone. The forms of a hawk, man, bear, and of a woman carrying a basket are still pointed out. On Vancouver Island are shown the tracks of the culture hero, where he stepped on a rock. In the interior of British Columbia a large boulder is said to be Coyote’s basket.[68] [67] Th. Koch-Grünberg, Südamerikanische Felszeichnungen. Berlin, 1907. [68] James A. Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, Publications of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Vol. I, Pl. 19. [Illustration: Fig. 117. Designs of North American Indians; the first nine Arapaho, the next six Eastern Algonquin; the last line; first Hopi; then archaeological specimens, Pueblo region.]