It shows the rude semblance of a woman, with divergent rays about her head, a fan in her left hand, and a star under her feet.
The peculiarity of the drawing is its hermeneutic character, which is rarely ascertained by actual evidence as existing among the North American Indians. It has a double meaning, and while apparently only a fantastic figure of a woman, it conveys also to the minds of the initiated a symbolic representation of the interior of the sacred mescal lodge. Turning the rattle with the handle toward the east, the lines forming the halo about the head of the figure represent the circle of devotees within the lodge. The head itself, with the spots for eyes and mouth, represents the large consecrated mescal which is placed upon a crescent-shaped mound of earth in the center of the lodge, this mound being represented in the figure by a broad, curving line, painted yellow, forming the curve of the shoulders. Below this is a smaller crescent curve, the original surface of the gourd, which symbolizes the smaller crescent mound of ashes built up within the crescent of earth as the ceremony progresses. The horns of both crescents point toward the door of the lodge on the east side which, in the figure, is toward the feet. In the chest of the body is a round globule painted red, emblematic of the fire within the horns of the crescent in the lodge. The lower part of the body is green, symbolic of the eastern ocean beyond which dwells the mescal woman who is the ruling spirit or divinity to whom prayers are addressed in the ceremony, and the star under her feet is the morning star which heralds her approach. In her left hand is a device representing the fan of eagle feathers used to shield the eyes from the glare of the fire during the ceremony.
The admirable and well illustrated paper, Art in Shell of the Ancient Americans, by Mr. W. H. Holmes, in the Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, and a similar paper, Burial Mounds of the Northern Section of the United States, by Prof. Cyrus Thomas, in the Fifth Annual Report of the same Bureau, render unnecessary present extended discussion under this head.
One example, however, which is unique in character and of established authenticity, is presented here as Pl. XV.
Dr. Edward B. Tylor (a) gives a description of the mantle copied upon that plate, which is condensed as follows:
Among specimens illustrative of native North American arts, as yet untouched by European influence, is the deerskin mantle ornamented with shellwork, recorded to have belonged to the Virginian chief, Powhatan. Of the group of Virginian mantles in Tradescant’s collection there only now remains this shell embroidered one. It is entered as follows in the MS. catalogue of the Ashmolean Museum, in the handwriting of the keeper, Dr. Plot, the well-known antiquary, about 1685: “205 Basilica Powhatan Regis Virginiani vestis, duabus cervorum cutibus consuta, et nummis indicis vulgo cori’s dictis splendidè exornata.” He had at first written “Roanoke,” but struck his pen through this word, and wrote “cori’s” (i. e. cowries) above, thus by no means improving the accuracy of his description.
The mantle measures about 2.2m in length by 1.6m in width. The two deerskins forming it are joined down the middle; no hair remains. The ornamental design consists of an upright human figure in the middle; divided by the seam; a pair of animals; 32 spirally-formed rounds (2 in the lowest line have lost their shells) and the remains of some work in the right lower corner. The marks where shellwork has come away plainly show the hind legs and tapering tails of both animals. It is uncertain whether the two quadrupeds represent in the conventional manner of picture-writing some real animal of the region, or some mythical composite creature such as other Algonquin tribes are apt to figure. The decorative shellwork is of a kind well known in North America. The shells used are Marginella; so far as Mr. Edgar A. Smith is able to identify them in their present weathered state, M. nivosa. They have been prepared for fastening on, in two different ways, which may be distinguished in the plate. In the animals and rounds, the shells have been perforated by grinding on one side, so that a sinew thread can be passed through the hole thus made and the mouth. In the man, the shells are ground away and rounded off at both ends into beads looking roughly ball-like at a distance.
The artistic skill of the North American Indians was not, as a rule, directed to represent the forms of animals with such accuracy as to allow of their identification as portraitures. Instead of attempting such accuracy they generally selected some prominent feature such as the claws of the bear, which were drawn with exaggeration, or the tail of the mountain lion which was portrayed of abnormal length over the animal’s back. Those animals were, therefore, recognized by those selected features in much the same manner as if there had been a written legend—“this is a bear” or “a mountain lion,” the want of iconographic accuracy being admitted. In the animals represented on the mantle no such indicating feature is obvious, and the general resemblance to the marten is the only guide to identification.
The habitat of the marten does not include Virginia as a whole, but the animal is found in the elevated regions of that state. This local infrequency is not, however, of much significance. If regarded as a clan totem, as is probable, it may well be that the clan of Powhatan was connected with the clans of the more northern Algonquian tribes among whom the marten frequently appears as a clan totem. What is generally termed the Powhatan confederacy was a union, not apparently ancient, of a large number of tribal divisions or villages, and it is not known to which clan (probably extending through many of these tribal divisions) the head chief Powhatan belonged. There is almost nothing on record of the clan system of those Virginian Indians, but it is supposed to be similar to that of the northern and eastern members of the same linguistic family, among whom the marten clan was and still is found.
The topic of wampum which, considered as to its material, belongs to the division of shellwork, is with regard to the purposes of the present paper, discussed under the head of “Mnemonic,” Chap. IX, Sec. 3.
The highly important work, The Mountain Chant, a Navajo Ceremony, in the Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, by Dr. Washington Matthews, U. S. Army, and that of Mr. James Stevenson, Ceremonial of Hasjelti Dailjis and Mythical Sand Painting of the Navajo Indians, in the Eighth Annual Report of that Bureau, give accounts of most interesting sand paintings by the Navajo Indians, which were before unknown. These paintings were made upon the surface of the earth by means of sand, ashes, and powdered vegetable and mineral matter of various colors. They were highly elaborate, and were fashioned with care and ceremony immediately preceding the observance of specific rites, at the close of which they were obliterated with great nicety. The subject is further discussed by Dr. W. H. Corbusier, U. S. Army, in the present paper (see Chap. XIV, Sec. 5).
Mr. Frank Hamilton Cushing, of the Bureau of Ethnology, kindly contributes the following remarks with special reference to the Zuñi:
A study of characteristic features in these so-called sand pictures of the Navajos would seem to indicate a Pueblo origin of the art, this notwithstanding the fact that it is to-day more highly developed or at least more extensively practiced amongst the Navajos than now, or perhaps ever, amongst the Pueblos. When, during my first sojourn with the Zuñi, I found this art practice in vogue among the tribal priest magicians and members of cult societies, I named it dry or powder painting. I could see at a glance that this custom of powder painting had resulted from the effort to transfer from a vertical, smooth, and stable surface, which could be painted on, to a horizontal and unstable surface, unsuited to like treatment, such symbolic and sacramental pictographs as are painted on the walls of the kivas, temporarily, as appurtenances to the dramaturgic ceremonials of the cult societies, and as supposed aids to the magical incantations and formulæ of all the monthly, semiannual, and quadrennial observances and fasts of the tribal priests; sometimes, also, in the curative or “Betterment” ceremonials of these priests. It is noteworthy that, with the exception of the invariable “Earth terrace,” “Pathway of (earth) life,” and a few other conventional symbols of mortal or earthly things (nearly always made of scattered prayer meal), powder painting is resorted to amongst the Zuñi only in ceremonials pertaining to all the regions or inclusive of the lower region. In such cases paintings typical of the North, West, South, and East are made on the four corresponding walls of the kiva, whilst the lower region is represented by appropriately powder or paint colored sand on the floor, and the upper region either by paintings on the walls near the ceiling or on stretched skins suspended from the latter. Thus the origin of the practice of floor powder painting may be seen to have resulted from the effort to represent with more dramatic appropriateness or exactness the lower as well as the other sacramental regions, and to have been incident to the growth from the quaternary of the sextenary or septenary system of world division so characteristic of Pueblo culture. Hence it is that I attribute the art of powder or sand painting to the Pueblos, and believe that it was introduced both by imitation and by the adoption of Pueblo men amongst the Navajos. Its greater prevalence amongst them to-day is simply due to the fact that having, as a rule, no suitable vertical or wall surfaces for pictorial treatment, all their larger ceremonial paintings have to be made on the ground, and can only or best be made, of course, by this means alone.
It is proper to add, as having a not inconsiderable bearing on the absence generally of screen or skin painting among the Navajos, that, with the Pueblos at least, these pictures are—must be—only temporary; for they are supposed to be spiritually shadowed, so to say, or breathed upon by the gods or god animals they represent, during the appealing incantations or calls of the rites; hence the paint substance of which they are composed is in a way incarnate, and at the end of the ceremonial must be killed and disposed of as dead if evil, eaten as medicine if good.
Further light is thrown on this practice of the Zuñi in making use of these suppositively vivified paintings by their kindred practice of painting not only fetiches of stone, etc., and sometimes of larger idols, then of washing the paint off for use as above described, but also of powder painting in relief; that is, of modeling effigies in sand, sometimes huge in size, of hero or animal gods, sacramental mountains, etc., powder painting them in common with the rest of the pictures, and afterwards removing the paint for medicinal or further ceremonial use.
The construction of the effigies in high relief last above mentioned should be compared with the effigy mounds mentioned below in this section.
In connection with the ceremonial use, for temporary dry painting on the ground, of colored earth and sand and also that of sacred corn meal, a remarkable parallel is found in India. Mr. Edward Carpenter (a) mentions that the Devadásis, who are popularly called Nautch girls, as a part of their duty, ornament the floor of the Hindu temples with quaint figures drawn in rice flour.
The well known mounds or tumuli more or less distinctly representing animal forms and sometimes called effigy mounds, found chiefly in Wisconsin and Illinois, come in this category, but it is not possible to properly discuss them and also give space to the many other topics in this paper, the facts and authorities upon which are less known or less accessible. A large amount of information is published by Rev. S. D. Peet (a). Other articles are by Mr. T. H. Lewis in Science, September 7, 1888, and No. 318, 1889. One upon the Serpent mound of Ohio, by Prof. F. W. Putnam (a), is of special interest. It may be suggested as a summation that there is not sufficient evidence of the erection of this class of effigy mounds merely for burial purposes. They seldom exceeded 6 feet in height and varied in expanse from 30 to 300 feet. The animals most frequently recognizable in the constructions are lizards, birds, and several more or less distinct quadrupeds; serpents and turtles also are identified. The species of fauna represented are those now or lately found in the same region. There is a strong probability that the forms of the mounds in question were determined by totemic superstitions or tribal habitudes.
In England the pictographs styled “turf monuments” are sometimes made by cutting the natural turf and filling with chalk the part of the surface thus laid bare. Sometimes the color depends wholly upon the limestone, granite, or other rock exposed by removing the turf. Rev. W. C. Plenderleath (a) gives a full account of this variety of pictograph.
This is the only metal on which it is probable that the North American Indians made designs. To present comparisons of pictures by other peoples on that or other metals or alloys would be to enter into a field, the most interesting part of which is classed as numismatic, and which would be a departure from the present heading. That virgin copper was used for diverse purposes, generally ornamental, by the North American Indians, is now established, and there is a presentation of the subject in Prof. Cyrus Thomas’s (a) Burial Mounds. The most distinct and at the same time surprising account of a true pictographic record on copper is given by W. W. Warren (a), an excellent authority, and is condensed as follows:
The Ojibwa of the Crane family hold in their possession a circular plate of virgin copper, on which are rudely marked indentations and hieroglyphics denoting the number of generations of the family who have passed away since they first pitched their lodges at Shang-a-waum-ik-ong and took possession of the adjacent country, including the island of La Pointe.
When I witnessed this curious family register in 1843 it was exhibited to my father. The old chief kept it carefully buried in the ground and seldom displayed it. On this occasion he brought it to view only at the entreaty of my mother whose maternal uncle he was.
On this plate of copper were marked eight deep indentations, denoting the number of his ancestors who had passed away since they first lighted their fire at Shang-a-waum-ik-ong. They had all lived to a good old age.
By the rude figure of a man with a hat on its head, placed opposite one of these indentations, was denoted the period when the white race first made its appearance among them. This mark occurred in the third generation, leaving five generations which had passed away since that important era in their history.
Mr. I. W. Powell (a), Indian superintendent, in the report of the deputy superintendent-general of Indian affairs of Canada for 1879, gives an account of some tribes of the northwest coast, especially the Indians called in the report Newittees, a tribe now known as the Naqómqilis of the Wakashan family, who treasure pieces of copper peculiarly shaped and marked. The shape is that of one face of a truncated pyramid with the base upward. In the broad end appear marks resembling the holes for eyes and mouth, which are common in masks of the human face. The narrower end has a rough resemblance to an ornamental collar. These copper articles were made by the Indians originally from the native copper, and in 1879 a few were held by the chiefs who used them for presentation at the potlaches or donation feasts. The value which is attached to these small pieces of copper, which are intrinsically worthless, is astounding. For one of them 1,200 blankets were paid, which would at the time and place represent $1,800. Sometimes a chief in presenting one of them, in order to show his utter disregard of wealth, would break it into three or four pieces and give them away, each fragment being perhaps repurchased at an exorbitant sum. This competition in extravagance for display, under the guise of charity and humility, has had parallels in the silver-brick and flour-barrel auctions in parts of the United States, when the actors were white citizens. Apart from such public exhibitions, the copper tokens seem to partake of the natures both of fiat money and of talismans.
This division comprises:
(1) The living tree, of the use of which for pictographic purposes there are many descriptions and illustrations in this paper. In addition to them may be noted the remark made by Bishop De Schweinitz (a) in the Life and Times of Zeisberger, that in 1750 there were numerous tree carvings at a place on the eastern shore of Cayuga lake, the meaning of which was known to and interpreted by the Cayuga Indians.
This mode of record or notice is so readily suggested that it is found throughout the world, e. g., the “hieroglyph” in New Guinea, described by D’Albertis (a), being a drawing in black on a white tree.
(2) Bark.—The Abnaki and Ojibwa have been and yet continue to be in the habit of incising pictographic characters and mnemonic marks upon birch bark. Many descriptions and illustrations of this style are given in this paper, and admirable colored illustrations of it also appear in Pl. XIX of the Seventh Ann. Rept. Bureau of Ethnology. The lines appear sometimes to have been traced on the inner surface of young bark with a sharply pointed instrument, probably bone, but in other examples the drawings are made by simple puncturing. The strips of bark, varying from an inch to several feet in length, roll up after drying, and are by heating straightened out for examination.
Another mode of drawing on birch bark which appears to be peculiar to the Abnaki is by scratching the exterior surface, thus displaying a difference in color between the outermost and the second layer of the rind, which difference forms the figure. The lower character in Pl. XVI shows this mode of picturing. It is an exact copy of part of an old bark record made by the Abnaki of Maine.
They also use the mode of incision, many examples of which appear in the present work, but their mode of scratching produced a much more picturesque effect, as is shown also in Fig. 659, than the mere linear drawing.
(3) Manufactured wood.—The Indians of the northwest coast generally employ wood as the material on which their pictographs are to be made. Totem posts, boats, boat paddles, the boards constituting the front wall of a house, and wooden masks, are among the objects used.
Many drawings among the Indians of the interior parts of the United States are also found upon pipestems made of wood, usually ash. Among the Arikara boat paddles are used upon which marks of personal distinction are reproduced, as shown in Fig. 578.
Mortuary records are also drawn upon slabs of wood. (See Figs. 728 and 729). Mnemonic devices, notices of departure, distress, etc., are also drawn upon slips of wood.
The examples of the use of wood for pictographs which are illustrated and described in this paper are too numerous for recapitulation; to them, however, may be added the following from Wilkes’s (a) Exploring Expedition, referring to Fig. 160.
Near an encampment on Chickeeles river, near Puget Sound, Washington, were found some rudely carved painted planks, of which Mr. Eld made a drawing. These planks were placed upright and nothing could be learned of their origin. The colors were exceedingly bright, of a kind of red pigment.
Mr. James O. Pattie (a) gives an account of a wooden passport given to him in 1824 by a Pawnee chief. He describes it, without illustration, as a small piece of wood curiously painted with characters something like “hieroglyphics.” The chief told Mr. Pattie’s party if they saw any of his warriors to give them the stick, in which case they would be kindly treated, which promise was fulfilled a few days later when the party met a large band of the same tribe on the warpath.
Artificial objects may be classified, so far as is important for the present work, into, I, fictile fabrics and, II, textile fabrics.
A large number of articles of pottery bearing pictographs are figured in the illustrated collections by Mr. James Stevenson in the Second Annual Report, and by Mr. Stevenson and Mr. William H. Holmes in the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Pipes on which totemic designs and property marks appear are also common.
The art of pottery was at first limited to vessel-making. In the earlier stages of culture, vases were confined to simple use as receptacles, but as culture ripened they were advanced to ceremonial and religious offices and received devices and representations in color and in relief connected with the cult to which they were devoted. Among some tribes large burial vases were fashioned to contain or cover the dead. An infinite variety of objects, such as pipes, whistles, rattles, toys, beads, trowels, calendars, masks, and figurines, were made of pottery. Clays of varying degrees of purity were used, and sometimes these were tempered with powdered quartz, shell, or like materials. The vessels were frequently built by coiling. The surface was smoothed by the hands or the modeling implement or was polished with a stone or other smoothing tool. Much attention was given to surface embellishment. The finger nails and various pointed tools were used to scarify and indent, and elaborate figures and designs were incised. Stamps with systematically worked designs were sometimes applied to the soft clay. Cords and woven fabrics were also employed to give diversity to the surface. With the more advanced tribes, though these simple processes were still resorted to, engraving, modeling in relief and in the round, and painting in colors were employed.
Textile fabrics include those products of art in which the elements of their construction are filamental and mainly combined by using their flexibility. The processes employed are called wattling, interlacing, plaiting, netting, weaving, sewing, and embroidery. The materials generally used by primitive people were pliable vegetal growths, such as twigs, leaves, roots, canes, rushes, and grasses, and the hair, quills, feathers, and tendons of animals.
Unlike works in stone and clay, textile articles are seldom long preserved. Still, from historic accounts and a study of the many beautiful articles produced by existing Indian tribes, a fair knowledge of the range and general character of native fabrics may be obtained. In many cases buried articles of that character have been preserved by the impregnation of the engirding earths with preservative salts, and also some fabrics which had been wrapped about buried utensils, or ornaments of copper remained without serious decay. Charring has also been a means of preserving cloth, and much has been learned of the weaving done by ancient workers through impressions upon pottery which had been made by applying the texture while the clay was still soft. The weaving appliances were simple, but the results in plain and figured fabrics, in tapestry, in lace-like embroideries, and in feather-work are admirable.
This subject is discussed by Mr. W. H. Holmes in his paper, A Study of the Textile Art, etc., in the Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, in a manner so comprehensive as to embrace the field of pictography in its relation to woven articles.
Several examples of this application also appear in the present work. See Figs. 821, 976 and 1167. In addition the following are now presented.
Some of the California tribes are expert workers in grass and roots in the manufacture of baskets, upon which designs other than for mere ornamentation are frequently worked. The Yokuts, at Tule river Agency, in the southeastern part of the State, sometimes incorporate various human forms in which the arms are suspended at the sides of the body with the hands directed outward to either side. Above the head is a heavy horizontal line.
The following is extracted from Prof. O. T. Mason’s (a) paper on basket work, describing Fig. 161:
a is a rain hat of twined basketry in spruce root from Haida Indians. This figure is the upper view and shows the ornamentation in red and black paint. The device in this instance is the epitomized form of a bird, perhaps a duck. Omitting the red cross on the top the beak, jaws, and nostrils are shown; the eyes at the sides near the top, and just behind them the ears. The wings, feet, and tail, inclosing a human face, are shown on the margin. The Haida, as well as other coast Indians from Cape Flattery to Mount Saint Elias, cover everything of use with totemic devices in painting and carving.
b shows the conical shape of a. The painted ornamentation on these hats is laid on in black and red in the conventional manner of ornamentation in vogue among the Haidas and used in the reproduction of their various totems on all of their houses, wood and slate carvings, and implements.
Mr. Niblack (b) says, describing Fig. 162:
The Chilkat and cedar-bark blankets are important factors in all ceremonial dances and functions. Other forms of ceremonial blankets or mantles are made from Hudson Bay Company blankets, with totemic figures worked on them in a variety of ways. The usual method is to cut out the totemic figure in red cloth and sew it on to the garment (ornamenting it with borders of beads and buttons) by the method known as appliqué work; another method is to sew pieces of bright abalone or pearl shell or pearl buttons on to the garment in the totemic patterns. The illustration is a drawing of a vestment which hangs down the back, representing the totem or crest of the wearer.
This specimen is mentioned as the workmanship of the Tsimshian Indians, at Point Simpson, British Columbia, and represents the halibut.
So far as appears on ancient pictographic works the kind of instruments and materials with which they were made can be inferred only from its aspect, though microscopic examination and chemical analysis have sometimes been successfully applied. A few examples relating to the topic are given as follows, though other descriptions appear elsewhere in this treatise.
This title, as here used, is intended to include cutting, pecking, scratching, and rubbing. The Hidatsa, when scratching upon stone or rocks, as well as upon pieces of wood, employ a sharply pointed piece of hard stone, usually a fragment of quartz. The present writer successfully imitated the Micmac scratchings at Kejimkoojik lake, Nova Scotia, by using a stone arrow point upon the slate rocks.
The bow-drill was largely used by the Innuit of Alaska in carving bone and ivory. Their present method of cutting figures and other characters is by a small steel blade, thick, though sharply pointed, resembling a graver.
Many petroglyphs, e. g., those at Conowingo, Maryland, at Machiasport, Maine, and in Owens valley, California, present every evidence of having been deepened if not altogether fashioned by rubbing, either with a piece of wood and sand or with pointed stone.
To incise or indent lines upon birch bark the Ojibwa, Ottawa, and other Algonquian tribes used a sharply pointed piece of bone, though they now prefer an iron nail. Examples of scratching upon the outer surface of bark are mentioned elsewhere.
Several examples of producing characters on stone by pecking with another stone are mentioned in this paper, and Mr. J. D. McGuire (a), of Ellicott City, Maryland, has been remarkably successful in forming petroglyphs with the ordinary Indian stone hammer. Some of the results established by him are published in The American Anthropologist.
Drawings upon small slabs of wood, found among the Ojibwa, were made with a piece of red-hot wire or thin iron rod hammered to a point. Such figures are blackened by being burned in.
When in haste or when better materials are not at hand, the Hidatsa sometimes drew upon a piece of wood or the shoulder-blade of a buffalo with a piece of charcoal from the fire or with a piece of red chalk or red ocher, with which nearly every warrior is at all times supplied.
Mr. A. W. Howitt, in Manuscript Notes on Australian Pictographs, says:
Not having any process such as is used by some of the savage tribes to soften skins, the harshness of these rugs is remedied by marking upon them lines and patterns, which being partly cut through the skin give to it a certain amount of suppleness. In former times, before the white man enabled the black fellow to supplement his meager stock of implements with those of civilization, a Kumai made use of the sharp edge of a mussel shell (unio) to cut these patterns. At the present time the sharpened edge of the bowl of a metal spoon is used, partly because it forms a convenient instrument, partly, perhaps, because its bowl bears a resemblance in shape to the familiar ancestral tool.
Painting upon robes or skins is executed by means of thin strips of wood or sometimes of bone. Tufts of antelope hair are also used, by tying them to sticks to make a brush, but this is evidently a modern innovation. Pieces of wood, one end of which is chewed so as to produce a loose fibrous brush, are also used at times, as has been specially observed among the Teton Dakota.
The Hidatsa and other Northwest Indians usually employ a piece of buffalo rib or a piece of hard wood having an elliptical form. This is dipped in a solution of glue, with or without color, and a tracing is made, which is subsequently filled up and deepened by a repetition of the process with the same or a stronger solution of the color.
Of late years in the United States colors of civilized manufacture are readily obtained by the Indians for painting and decoration. Frequently, however, when the colors of commerce can not be obtained, the aboriginal colors are still prepared and used. The ferruginous clays of various shades of brown, red, and yellow occur in nature so widely distributed that these are the most common and leading tints. Black is generally prepared by grinding fragments of charcoal into a very fine powder. Among some tribes, as has also been found in some of the “ancient” pottery from the Arizona ruins, clay had evidently been mixed with charcoal to give better body. The black color made by some of the Innuit tribes is made with blood and charcoal intimately mixed, which is afterwards applied to incisions in ivory, bone, and wood.
Among the Dakota, colors for dyeing porcupine quills were obtained chiefly from plants. The vegetable colors, being soluble, penetrate the substance of the quills more evenly and beautifully than the mineral colors of eastern manufacture.
The black color of some of the Pueblo pottery is obtained by a special burning with pulverized manure, into which the vessel is placed as it is cooling after the first baking. The coloring matter—soot produced by smoke—is absorbed into the pores of the vessel, and does not wear off as readily as when colors are applied to the surface by brushes.
In decorating skins or robes the Arikara Indians boil the tail of the beaver, thus obtaining a viscous fluid which is thin glue. The figures are first drawn in outline with a piece of beef-rib, or some other flat bone, the edge only being used after having been dipped into the liquor. The various pigments to be employed in the drawing are then mixed with some of the same liquid, in separate vessels, when the various colors are applied to the objects by means of a sharpened piece of wood or bone. The colored mixture adheres firmly to the original tracing in glue.
When similar colors are to be applied to wood, the surface is frequently pecked or slightly incised to receive the color more readily.
Jacques Cartier, in Hakluyt (b), reports the Indian women of the Bay of Chaleur as smearing the face with coal dust and grease.
A small pouch, discovered on the Yellowstone river in 1873, which had been dropped by some fleeing hostile Sioux, contained several fragments of black micaceous iron. The latter had almost the appearance and consistence of graphite, so soft and black was the result upon rubbing with it. It had evidently been used for decorating the face as war-paint.
Mr. Wm. H. Dall (a), treating of the remains found in the mammalian layers in the Amakuak cave, Unalaska, remarks:
In the remains of a woman’s work-basket, found in the uppermost layer in a cave, were bits of this resin [from the bark of pine or spruce driftwood], evidently carefully treasured, with a little birch-bark case (the bark also derived from drift logs) containing pieces of soft hematite, graphite, and blue carbonate of copper, with which the ancient seamstress ornamented her handiwork.
The same author reports (f):
The coloration of wooden articles with native pigments is of ancient origin, but all the more elaborate instances that have come to my knowledge bore marks of comparatively recent origin. The pigments used were blue carbonates of iron and copper; the green fungus, or peziza, found in decayed birch and alder wood; hematite and red chalk; white infusorial or chalky earth; black charcoal, graphite, and micaceous ore of iron. A species of red was sometimes derived from pine bark or the cambium of the ground willow.
Stephen Powers (a) states that the Shastika women “smear their faces all over daily with choke-cherry juice, which gives them a bloody, corsair aspect.”
Mr. A. S. Gatschet, of the Bureau of Ethnology, reports that the Klamaths of southwestern Oregon employ a black color, lgú, made of burnt plum seeds and bulrushes, which is applied to the cheeks in the form of small round spots. This is used during dances. Red paint, for the face and body, is prepared from a resin exuding from the spruce tree, pánam. A yellow mineral paint is also employed, consisting probably of ocher or ferruginous clay. He also says that the Klamath spál, yellow mineral paint, is of light yellow color, but turns red when burned, after which it is applied in making small round dots upon the face. The white infusorial clay is applied in the form of stripes or streaks over the body. The Klamaths use charcoal, lgúm, in tattooing.
Mud and white clay were used by the Winnebago for the decoration of the human body and of horses. Some of the California Indians in the vicinity of Tulare river used a white coloring matter, consisting of infusorial earth, obtained there. The tribes at and near the geysers north of San Francisco bay procured vermilion from croppings of cinnabar. The same report is made with probability of truth concerning the Indians at the present site of the New Almaden mines, where tribes of the Mutsun formerly lived. Some of the black coloring matter of pictographs in Santa Barbara, California, proved on analysis to be a hydrous oxide of manganese. The Mojave pigments are ocher, clay, and charcoal mingled with oil.
Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, of the Bureau of Ethnology, reports regarding the Osage that one of their modes of obtaining black color for the face was by burning a quantity of small willows. When these were charred they were broken in small pieces and placed in pans, with a little water in each. The hands were then dipped into the pan and rubbed together and finally rubbed over the parts to be colored.
Dr. Hoffman reports that among the Hualpai, living on the western border of the Colorado plateau, Arizona, some persons appeared as if they had been tattooed in vertical bands from the forehead to the waist, but upon closer examination it was found that dark and light bands of the natural skin were produced in the following manner: When a deer or an antelope had been killed the blood was rubbed over the face and breast, after which the spread and curved fingers were scratched downward from the forehead over the face and breast, thus removing some of the blood; that remaining soon dried and gave the appearance of black stripes. The exposed portion of the skin retained the natural dark-tanned color, while that under the coating of coagulated blood became paler by being protected against the light and air. These persons did not wash off the marks and after a while the blood began to drop off by desquamation, leaving lighter spots and lines which for a week or two appear like tattoo marks. Similar streaks of blood have been held to have originated tattoo designs in several parts of the world to record success in hunting or in war, but such evolution does not appear to have resulted from the transient decoration in the case mentioned.
It is well known that the meal of maize called kunque is yet commonly used by the Zuñi for ceremonial coloration of their own persons and of objects used in their religious rites. Hoddentin is less familiarly known. It is the pollen of the tule, which is a variety of cat-tail rush growing in all the ponds of the southwestern parts of the United States. It is a yellow powder with which small buckskin bags are filled and those bags then attached to the belts of Apache warriors. They are also worn as amulets by members of the tribe. In dances for the cure of sickness the shaman applied the powder to the forehead of the patient, then to his breast in the figure of a cross; next he sprinkles it in a circle around his couch, then on the heads of the chanters and the assembled friends of the patient, and lastly upon his own head and into his own mouth.
Everard F. im Thurn (c) gives the following details concerning British Guiana:
The dyes used by the Indians to paint their own bodies, and occasionally to draw patterns on their implements, are red faroah, purple caraweera, blue-black lana, white felspathic clay and, though very rarely, a yellow vegetable dye of unknown origin.
Faroah is the deep red pulp around the seed of a shrub (Bixa orellana) which grows wild on the banks of some of the rivers, and is cultivated by the Indians in their clearings. It is mixed with a large quantity of oil. When it is to be used either a mass of it is taken in the palm of the hand and rubbed over the skin or other surface to be painted, or a pattern of fine lines is drawn with it by means of a stick used as a pencil.
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.
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.
This chapter is divided into (1) knotted cords and objects tied; (2) notched or marked sticks; (3) wampum; (4) order of songs; (5) traditions; (6) treaties; (7) appointment; (8) numeration; (9) accounting.
Dr. Hoffman reports a device among the Indians formerly inhabiting the mountain valleys north of Los Angeles, California, who brought or sent to the settlements blankets, skins, and robes for sale. The man trusted to transport and sell those articles was provided with a number of strings made of some flexible vegetable fiber, one string for each class of goods, which were attached to his belt. Every one confiding an article to the agent fixed the price, and when he disposed of it a single knot was tied to the proper cord for each real received, or a double knot for each peso. Thus any particular string indicated the kind of goods sold, as well as the whole sum realized for them, which was distributed according to the account among the former owners of the goods.
Mr. George Turner (a) says that among the South Sea Islanders tying a number of knots in a piece of cord was a common way of noting and remembering things in the absence of a written language.
A peculiar and ingenious mode of expressing thoughts without pronouncing or writing them in language is still met with among the Indian shepherds in the Peruvian Cordilleras, though it is practiced merely in the accounts of the flocks. This system consists of a peculiar intertwining of various strings into a net-like braidwork, and the diverse modes of tying these strings form the record, the knots and loops signifying definite ideas and their combination the connection of these ideas. This system of mnemonic device, which was practiced by the ancient Peruvians, was called quipu, and, though a similar knot-writing is found in China, Tartary, eastern Asia, on many islands of the Pacific, and even in some parts of Africa, yet in Peru, at the time of the Incas, it was so elaborately developed as to permit its employment for official statistics of the government. Of course, as this writing gave no picture of a word and did not suggest sounds, but, like the notched stick, merely recalled ideas already existing, the writing could be understood by those only who possessed the key to it; but it is noteworthy that when the Jesuit missions began their work in Peru they were able to use the quipus for the purpose of making the Indians learn Latin prayers by heart.
A more detailed account of the ancient quipu is extracted from Dr. von Tschudi’s Travels in Peru (a) with condensation as follows: