So also among other rude Indian tribes of North America, no less than among the civilised and lettered nations in the centres of native civilisation in Mexico, Central America, and Peru, the hand is familiarly employed not only as a graven or written symbol, but is literally impressed, apparently as the equivalent of a signet. The sign of the expanded right hand touching the left arm occupies a prominent place among the graven hieroglyphics on an Aztec stone hatchet shown by Humboldt in his _Vues des Cordillères_. The graven Moro Rock in the valley of the Rio de Zuñi includes more than one similar device among its elaborate inscriptions and pictographs; one of which is specially noticeable. Inscriptions in the Spanish language, some of them with dates referable to the first intrusion of European explorers, are intermingled with the native hieroglyphs. In one example the sacred monograph I.H.S. is enclosed in the same cartouch with an open hand characterised by a double thumb,--possibly the native counterpart to the Christian symbol,--a hand of superhuman capacity and power. Schoolcraft says: “The figure of the human hand is used by the North American Indians to denote supplication to the Deity or Great Spirit; and it stands in the system of picture-writing as the symbol for strength, power, or mastery thus derived.” But the use of the hand as the chief organ of gesture-language shows how varied are the applications that it admits of as a significant emblem. Washington Irving remarks in his _Astoria_: “The Arickaree warriors were painted in the most savage style. Some had the stamp of a red hand across their mouths, a sign that they had drunk the life-blood of a foe.” Catlin found the same symbol in use not only for decoration, but as the actual sign-manual among the Omahaws and the Mandans. I have repeatedly observed the red hand impressed on the buffalo robe, and also occasionally on the naked breast of the Chippewas of Lake Superior. In the sculptured hieroglyphics of Central America, and in the Mexican picture-writings, the human and other profiles are introduced in the large majority of examples looking to the left, as would be the natural result of the tracings of a right-handed draftsman. But the hand is also employed symbolically; while, among the civilised Peruvians, the impress of the naked hand was practised in the same way as by the Indians of the northern continent. Among an interesting collection of mummies recovered by Mr. J. H. Blake of Boston from ancient Peruvian cemeteries on the Bay of Chacota, one is the body of a female wrapped in parti-coloured garments of fine texture, and marked on the outer woollen wrappings with the impress of a human hand. The same impress of the red hand is common on Peruvian mummies.