The face of the deceased is painted red and black. After the death of husband or wife the survivor must paint his legs and his blanket red. For three or four days he must not eat anything; then three men or women give him food, and henceforth he is allowed to eat.
In Bancroft (d) it is mentioned that the Guatemalan widower dyed his body yellow.
Carl Bock (b) describes the mourning solemnities in Borneo as being marked chiefly by white, the men and women composing the mourning processions being enveloped in white garments, and carrying white flags and weapons and ornaments, all of which were covered with white calico.
A. W. Howitt (h) says of the Dieri of Central Australia:
A messenger who is sent to convey the intelligence of a death is smeared all over with white clay. On his approach to the camp the women all commence screaming and crying most passionately. * * * Widows and widowers are prohibited by custom from uttering a word until the clay of mourning has worn off, however long it may remain on them. They do not, however, rub it off, as doing so would be considered a bad omen. It must absolutely wear off of itself. During this period they communicate by means of gesture language.
A. C. Haddon (b) tells that among the western tribes of Torres strait plastering the body with gray mud was a sign of mourning.
Elisée Reclus (c) says: “In sign of mourning the Papuans daub themselves in white, yellow, or black, according to the tribes.”
D’Albertis (d) reports that the women of New Guinea paint themselves black all over on the death of a relation, but that there are degrees of mourning among the men, e. g., the son of the deceased paints his whole body black, but other less related mourners may only paint the face more or less black. In Vol. II, p. 9, a differentiation is shown, by which in one locality the women daubed themselves from head to foot with mud. The same author says, in the same volume, p. 378, that the skulls preserved in their houses are always colored red and their foreheads frequently marked with some rough design.
In Armenia, as told in The Devil Worshipers of Armenia, in Scottish Geog. Mag., viii, p. 592, widows dress in white.
In Notes in East Equatorial Africa, Bull. Soc. d’Anthrop. de Brux. (b), it is told that in the region mentioned the women rub flour over their bodies on the death or departure of the husband.
Sir G. Wilkinson (a) writes that the ancient Egyptians in their mourning ceremonies wore white fillets, and describes the same use of the color white in the funeral processions painted on the walls of Thebes.
Dr. S. Wells Williams (a) reports of the Chinese mourning colors that “the mourners are dressed entirely in white or wear a white fillet around the head. In the southern districts half-mourning is blue, usually exhibited in a pair of blue shoes and a blue silken cord woven in the queue, instead of a red one; in the northern provinces white is the only mourning color seen.”
Herr von Brandt, in the Ainos and Japanese, Journal of the Anthrop. Inst. G. B. and I. (e), tells that the coffins of the deceased Mikados were covered with red, that is, with cinnabar.
These colors, respecting the Algonquian Indians, are mentioned in 1763, as published in Margry, to the effect that red feathers on the pipe signify war, and that other colors [each of which may have a modifying or special significance] mean peace.
W. W. H. Davis (b) recounts that “in 1680 the Rio Grande Pueblos informed the Spanish officers that they had brought with them two crosses, one painted red, which signified war, and the other white, which indicated peace, and they might take their choice between the two.”
Capt. de Lamothe Cadillac (b), writing in the year 1696 of the Algonquians of the Great Lake region near Mackinac, etc., describes their decorations for war as follows:
On the day of departure the warriors dress in their best. They color their hair red; they paint their faces red and black with much skill and taste, as well as the whole of their bodies. Some have headdresses with the tail feathers of eagles or other birds; others have them decorated with the teeth of wild beasts, such as the wolf or tiger [wild cat]. Several adorn their heads, in lieu of hats, with helmets bearing the horns of deer, roebuck, or buffalo.
Schoolcraft (r) says that blue signifies peace among the Indians of the Pueblo of Tesuque.
The Dakota bands lately at Grand river agency had the practice of painting the face red from the eyes down to the chin when going to war.
The Absaroka or Crow Indians generally paint the forehead red when on the warpath. This distinction of the Crows is also noted by the Dakota in recording pictographic narratives of encounters with the Crows.
Haywood (e) says of the Cherokees:
When going to war their hair is combed and annointed with bear’s grease and the red root, Sanguinaria canadensis, and they adorn it with feathers of various beautiful colors, besides copper and iron rings, and sometimes wampum or peak in the ears; and they paint their faces all over as red as vermilion, making a circle of black about one eye and another circle of white about the other.
H. H. Bancroft (e) tells that when a Modoc warrior paints his face black before going into battle it means victory or death, and that he will not survive a defeat. In the same volume, p. 105, he says that when a Thlinkit arms himself for war he paints his face and powders his hair a brilliant red. He then ornaments his head with a white eagle feather as a token of stern, vindictive determination.
Mr. Dorsey reports that when the Osage men go to steal horses from the enemy they paint their faces with charcoal. [Possibly this may be for disguise, on the same principle that burglars use black crape.] The same authority gives the following description of the Osage paint for war parties:
Before charging the foe the Osage warriors paint themselves anew. This is called the death paint. If any of the men die with this paint on them the survivors do not put on any other paint.
All the gentes on the “Left” side use the “fire paint,” which is red. It is applied by them with the left hand all over the face. And they use prayers about the fire: “As the fire has no mercy, so should we have none.” Then they put mud on the cheek, below the left eye, as wide as two or more fingers. The horse is painted with some of the mud on the left cheek, shoulder, and thigh.
The following extract is from Belden (b):
The sign paints used by the Sioux Indians are not numerous, but very significant. When the warriors return from the warpath and have been successful in bringing back scalps, the squaws, as well as the men, paint with vermilion a semicircle in front of each ear. The bow of the arc is toward the nose and the points of the half-circle on the top and bottom of the ear; the eyes are then reddened and all dance over the scalps.
John Lawson (a) says of the North Carolina Indians:
When they go to war * * * they paint their faces all over red, and commonly make a circle of black about one eye and another circle of white about the other, while others bedaub their faces with tobacco-pipe clay, lampblack, black lead, and divers other colors, etc.
De Brahm, in documents connected with the History of South Carolina (a), reports that the Indians of South Carolina “painted their faces red in token of friendship and black in expression of warlike intentions.”
Rev. M. Eells (a) says of the Twana Indians of the Skokomish reservation that when about to engage in war “they would tamanamus in order to be successful and paint themselves with black and red, making themselves as hideous as possible.”
The U. S. Exploring Expedition (b), referring to a tribe near the Sacramento river, tells that the chief presented them with a tuft of white feathers stuck on a stick about 1 foot long, which was supposed to be a token of friendship.
Dr. Boas, in Am. Anthrop. (b), says of the Snanaimuq that before setting out on war expeditions they painted their faces red and black.
Peter Martyr (b) says of the Ciguaner Indians:
The natives came out of the forest painted and daubed with spots. For it is their custom, when they go to war, to daub themselves from the face to the knee with black and scarlet or purple color in spots, which color they [obtain] from some curious fruits resembling “Pyren,” which they plant and cultivate in their gardens with the greatest care. Similarly they also cause the hair to grow in a thousand very curious shapes, if it is not by nature long or black enough, so that they look not otherwise than if the similar devil or hellish Circe came running out of hell.
Curr (c) tells that the Australians whitened themselves with white clay when about to engage in war. Some African tribes, according to Du Chaillu, also paint their faces white for war.
Haddon (c) says of the western tribe of Torres straits:
When going to fight the men painted their bodies red, either entirely so or partially, perhaps only the upper portion of the body and the legs below the knees, or the head and upper part of the body only. The body was painted black all over by those who were actually engaged in the death dance.
Du Chaillu (c) tells that among the Scandinavians there were peace and war shields, the former white and the latter red. When the white was hoisted on a ship it was a sign for the cessation of hostility, in the same manner that a flag of the same color is now used to procure or mark a truce. The red shield displayed on a masthead or in the midst of a body of men was the sign of hostility.
The following extract is translated, from Peter Martyr (c):
For the men are in body long and straight, possess a vivid and natural complexion which compares somewhat with a red and genuine flesh color. Their whole body and skin is lined over with sundry paints and curious figures, which they consider as a handsome ornament and fine decoration, and the uglier a man’s painting or lining over is the prettier he considers himself to be, and is also regarded as the most noble among their number.
Mr. Dorsey reports of the Osages that all the old men who have been distinguished in war are painted with the decorations of their respective gentes. That of the Tsicu wactake is as follows: The face is first whitened all over with white clay; then a red spot is made on the forehead and the lower part of the face is reddened; then with the fingers the man scrapes off the white clay, forming the dark figures by letting the natural color of the face show through.
H. H. Bancroft (f), citing authorities, says the central Californians (north of San Francisco bay) formerly wore the down of Asclepias (?) (white) as an emblem of royalty; and in the same volume, p. 691, it is told that the natives of Guatemala wore red feathers in their hats, the nobles only wearing green ones.
The notes immediately following are about the significant use of color, not readily divisible into headings.
Belden (c) furnishes the following remarks:
The Yanktons, Sioux, Santees, and Cheyennes use a great deal of paint. A Santee squaw paints her face the same as a white woman does, only with less taste. If she wishes to appear particularly taking she draws a red streak half an inch wide from ear to ear, passing it over the eyes, the bridge of the nose, and along the middle of the cheek. When a warrior desires to be left alone he takes black paint or lampblack and smears his face; then he draws zigzag lines from his hair to his chin by scraping off the paint with his nails. This is a sign that he is trapping, is melancholy, or in love.
A Sioux warrior who is courting a squaw usually paints his eyes yellow and blue and the squaw paints hers red. I have known squaws to go through the painful operation of reddening the eye-balls, that they might appear particularly fascinating to the young men. A red stripe drawn horizontally from one eye to the other means that the young warrior has seen a squaw he could love if she would reciprocate his attachment.
As narrated by H. H. Bancroft, the Los Angeles county Indian girls paint the cheeks sparingly with red ocher when in love. This also prevails among the Arikara, at Fort Berthold, Dakota.
La Potherie (e) says that the Indian girls of a tribe near Hudson bay, when they have arrived at the age of puberty, at the time of its sign, daub themselves with charcoal or a black stone, and in far distant Yucatan, according to Bancroft (h), the young men restricted themselves to black until they were married, indulging afterwards in varied and bright colored figures.
The color green is chiefly used symbolically as that of grass, with reference to which Father De Smet’s MS. on the dance of the Tinton Sioux contains these remarks: “Grass is the emblem of charity and abundance; from it the Indians derive the food for their horses and it fattens the wild animals of the plains, from which they derive their subsistence.”
Brinton (d) gives the following summary:
Both green and yellow were esteemed fortunate colors by the Cakchiquels, the former as that of the flourishing plant, the latter as that of the ripe and golden ears of maize. Hence, says Coto, they were also used to mean prosperity.
The color white, zak, had, however, by far the widest metaphorical uses. As the hue of light, it was associated with day, dawn, brightness, etc.
Marshall (b) gives as the explanation why certain gracious official documents are sealed with green that the color expresses youth, honor, beauty, and especially liberty.
H. M. Stanley (a) gives the following use of white as a sign of innocence: “Qualla drew a piece of pipeclay and marked a broad white band running from the wrist to the shoulder along each arm of Ngalyema, as a sign to all men present that he was guiltless.”
H. Clay Trumbull (a) says:
The Egyptian amulet of blood friendship was red, as representing the blood of the gods. The Egyptian word for “red” sometimes stood for “blood.” The sacred directions in the Book of the Dead were written in red; hence follows our word “rubrics.” The rabbis say that, when persecution forbade the wearing of the phylacteries with safety, a red thread might be substituted for this token of the covenant with the Lord. It was a red thread which Joshua gave to Rahab as a token of her covenant relations with the people of the Lord. The red thread, in China, to-day, binds the double cup, from which the bride and bridegroom drink their covenant draught of “wedding wine,” as if in symbolism of the covenant of blood. And it is a red thread which, in India, to-day, is used to bind a sacred amulet around the arm or the neck. * * * Upon the shrines in India the color red shows that worship is still living there; red continues to stand for blood.
Mr. Mooney, in the Seventh Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology, shows that to the Cherokee the color blue signifies grief or depression of spirits, a curious parallel to the colloquial English phrase “has the blues” and wholly opposite to the poetical symbol of blue for hope.
The notes above collected on the general topic of color symbolism might be indefinitely extended. Those presented, however, are typical and perhaps sufficient for the scope of the present work. In regarding ideography of colors the first object is to expunge from consideration all merely arbitrary or fanciful decorations, which is by no means easy, as ancient customs, even in their decadence or merely traditional, preserve a long influence. But as a generalization it seems that all common colors have been used in historic times for nearly all varieties of ideographic expression by the several divisions of men, and that they have differed fundamentally in the application of those colors. Yet there was an intelligent origin in each one of those applications of color. With regard to mourning the color black is now considered to be that of gloom. It was still earlier expressed by casting ashes or earth over the head and frame, and possibly the somber paint was adopted for cleanliness, the concept being preserved and indeed intensified by durable blackness instead of the mere transient dinginess of dirt, although the actual defilement by the latter is thereby only symbolized. This gloom is the expression of the misery of the survivors, perhaps of their despair as not expecting any happiness to the dead or any hope of a meeting in another world. Other lines of thought are shown by blue, considered as the supposed sky or heavenly home of the future, and by green, as suggesting renewal or resurrection, and those concepts determine the mourning color of some peoples. Red or yellow may only refer to the conceptions of the colors of flames, and therefore might simply be an objective representation of the disposition of the corpse, which very often was by cremation. But sometimes these colors are employed as decoration and display to proclaim that the dead go to glory. White, used as frequently by the populations of the world as other funeral colors, may have been only to assert the purity and innocence of the departed, an anticipation of the flattering obituary notices or epitaphs now conventional in civilized lands.
With regard to the color red, it may be admitted that it originally represents blood; but it may be, and in fact is, used for the contradictory concepts of war and peace. It is used for war as suggesting the blood of the enemy, for peace and friendship to signify the blood relation or blood covenant, the strongest tie of love and friendship.
So it would seem that, while colors have been used ideographically, the ideas which determined them were very diverse and sometimes their application has become wholly conventional and arbitrary. A modern military example may be in point which has no connection with the well-known squib of an English humorist. One of the officers of the U. S. Army of the last generation when traveling in Europe was much disgusted to observe that a green uniform was used in some of the armies for the corps of engineers and for branches of the service other than rifles or tirailleurs. He insisted that the color naturally and necessarily belongs to the Rifles, because the soldiers of that arm when clad with that color were most useful as skirmishers in wooded regions. This reason for the selection of green for the riflemen who composed a part of the early army of the United States is correct, but in the necessity for the distinction of special uniforms for the several component parts of a military establishment, whether in Europe or America, the original and often obsolete application of color was wholly disregarded and colors were selected simply because they were not then appropriated by other branches of the service. So in the late formation of the signal corps of the U. S. Army, the color of orange, which had belonged to the old dragoons, was adopted simply because it was a good color no longer appropriated.
With these changes by abandonment and adoption comes fashion, which has its strong effect. It is even exemplified where least expected, i. e., in Stamboul. Every one knows that the descendants of the Prophet alone are entitled to wear green turbans, but a late Sultan, not being of the blood of Mohammed, could not wear the color, so the emirs who could do so carefully abstained from green in his presence and the color for the time was unfashionable.
As the evolution of clothing commenced with painting and tattooing, it may be admitted that what is now called fashion must have had its effect on the earlier as on the later forms of personal decoration. Granting that there was an ideographic origin to all designs painted on the person, the ambition or vanity of individuals to be distinctive and to excel must soon have introduced varieties and afterward imitations of such patterns, colors, or combinations as favorably struck the local taste. The subject therefore is much confused.
An additional suggestion comes from the study of the Mexican codices. In them color often seems to be used according to the fancy of the scribe. Compare pages 108 and 109 of the Codex Vaticanus, in Kingsborough, Vol. II, with pages 4 and 5 of the Codex Telleriano Remensis, in part 4 of Kingsborough, Vol. I, where the figures and their signification are evidently the same, but the coloration is substantially reversed.
A comparison of Henry R. Schoolcraft’s published coloration with the facts found by the recent examination of the present writer is set forth with detail on page 202, supra.
In his copious illustrations colors were exhibited freely and with stated significance, whereas, in fact, the general rule in regard to the birch-bark rolls is that they were never colored at all; indeed, the bark was not adapted to coloration. His colors were painted on and over the true scratchings, according to his own fancy. The metaphorical coloring was also used by him in a manner which, to any thorough student of the Indian philosophy and religions, seems absurd. Metaphysical significance is attached to some of the colored devices, or, as he calls them, symbols, which could never have been entertained by a people in the stage of culture of the Ojibwa, and those devices, in fact, were ideograms or iconograms.
Among people where a system of ideographic gesture signs has prevailed it would be expected that their form would appear in any mode of pictorial representation used with the object of conveying ideas or recording facts. When a gesture sign had been established and it became necessary or desirable to draw a character or design to convey the same idea, nothing could be more natural than to use the graphic form or delineation which was known and used in the gesture sign. It was but one more step, and an easy one, to fasten upon bark, skins, or rocks the evanescent air pictures of the signs.
In the paper “Sign language among the North American Indians,” published in the First Ann. Rep. of the Bureau of Ethnology, a large number of instances were given of the reproduction of gesture lines in the pictographs made by those Indians, and they appeared to be most frequent when there was an attempt to convey subjective ideas. It was suggested, therefore, that those pictographs which, in the absence of positive knowledge, are the most difficult of interpretation were those to which the study of sign-language might be applied with advantage. The topic is now more fully discussed. Many pictographs in the present work, the meaning of which is definitely known from direct sources, are noted in connection with the gesture-signs corresponding with the same idea, which signs are also understood from independent evidence or legitimate deduction.
Dr. Edkins (c) makes the following remarks regarding the Chinese characters, which are applicable also to the picture-writing of the North American Indians, and indeed to that of all peoples among whom it has been cultivated:
The use of simple natural shapes, such as the mouth, nose, eye, ear, hand, foot, as well as the shape of branches, trees, grass, caves, holes, rivers, the bow, the spear, the knife, the tablet, the leaf—these formed, in addition to pictures of animals, much of the staple of Chinese ideographs.
Attention should be drawn to the fact that the mouth and the hand play an exceptionally important part in the formation of the symbols.
Men were more accustomed then than now to the language of signs by the use of these organs. Perhaps three-twentieths of the existing characters are formed by their help as one element.
This large use of the mouth and hand in forming characters is, as we may very reasonably suppose, only a repetition of what took place when the words themselves were made.
There is likely to be a primitive connection between demonstratives and names for the hand, because the hand is used in pointing.
Fig. 983 is a copy of a colored petroglyph on a rock in the valley of Tule river, California, further described on page 52, et seq., supra.
a, a person weeping. The eyes have lines running down to the breast, below the ends of which are three short lines on either side. The arms and hands are in the exact position for making the gesture for rain. See h in Fig. 999, meaning eye-rain, and also Fig. 1002. It was probably the intention of the artist to show that the hands in this gesture should be passed downward over the face, as probably suggested by the short lines upon the lower end of the tears. It is evident that sorrow is portrayed.
b, c, d, six persons apparently making the gesture for “hunger” by passing the hands towards and backward from the sides of the body, suggesting a gnawing sensation. The person, d, shown in a horizontal position, may possibly denote a “dead man,” dead of starvation, this position being adopted by the Ojibwa, Blackfeet, and others as a common device to represent a dead body. The varying lengths of head ornaments denote different degrees of status as warriors or chiefs.
e, f, g, h, i. Human forms of various shapes making gestures for negation, or more specifically “nothing, nothing here,” a natural and universal gesture made by throwing one or both hands outward toward either side of the body. The hands are extended, and, to make the action apparently more emphatic, the extended toes are also shown on e, f, g, and i. The several lines upon the leg of i probably indicate trimmings upon the leggings.
The character at j is strikingly similar to the Alaskan pictographs (see b of Fig. 460), indicating self with the right hand, and the left pointing away, signifying to go.
k. An ornamented head with body and legs. It may refer to a Shaman, the head being similar to the representations of such personages by the Ojibwa and Iroquois.
Similar drawings occur at a distance of about 10 miles southeast of this locality as well as at other places toward the northwest, and it appears probable that the pictograph was made by a portion of a tribe which had advanced for the purpose of selecting a new camping place, but failed to find the quantities of food necessary for sustenance, and therefore erected this notice to inform their followers of their misfortune and determined departure toward the northwest. It is noticeable that the picture is so placed upon the rock that the extended arm of j points toward the north.
The following examples are selected from a large number that could be used to illustrate those gesture signs known to be included in pictographs. Others not referred to in this place may readily be noticed in several parts of the present paper where they appear under other headings.
Fig. 984.—Coward.
Fig. 984.—Afraid-of-him. Red-Cloud’s Census. The following is the description of a common gesture sign used by the Dakotas for afraid, fear, coward:
Crook the index, close the other fingers, and, with its back upward, draw the right hand backward about a foot, from 18 inches in front of the right breast. Conception, “Drawing back.”
Fig. 985.—Coward.
Fig. 985.—Afraid-of-him. Red-Cloud’s Census. This is obviously the same device without clear depiction of the arm, which is explained by the preceding.
Fig. 986.—Little-Chief.
Fig. 986.—Little-Chief. Red-Cloud’s Census. A typical gesture sign for chief is as follows:
Raise the forefinger, pointed upwards, in a vertical direction and then reverse both finger and motion; the greater the elevation the “bigger” the chief. In this case the elevation above the head is slight, so the chief is “little.”
Fig. 987.—Hit.
Fig. 987.—The Dakotas went out in search of the Crows in order to avenge the death of Broken-Leg-Duck. They did not find any Crows, but, chancing on a Mandan village, captured it and killed all the people in it. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1787-’88.
The mark on the tipi is not the representation of a hatchet or tomahawk, but is explained by the gesture sign for “hit by a bullet from a gun,” made by the Dakotas as follows:
With the hands in the position of the completion of the sign for discharge of a gun, draw the right hand back from the left, that is, in toward the body; close all the fingers except the index, which is extended, horizontal, back toward the right, pointing straight outward, and is pushed forward against the center of the stationary left hand with a quick motion. Conception, “Bullet comes to a stop. It struck.”
Fig. 988.—Cow.
Fig. 988.—The first stock cattle were issued to them. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1875-’76. The figure represents a cow surrounded by people. A common gesture sign distinguishing the cattle brought by Europeans from the buffalo is as follows:
Make sign for buffalo, then extend the left forefinger and draw the extended index across it repeatedly at different places. Literally, spotted buffalo.
Fig. 989.—Two.
Fig. 989.—Kills-two. Red-Cloud’s Census. In this figure only the suggestion of number is in point. Two fingers are extended.
Fig. 990.—Sign for Dakota.
Fig. 990.—Four Crow Indians killed by the Minneconjou Dakotas. The-Swan’s Winter Count, 1864-’65.
The four heads and necks are shown. The pictograph shows the tribe of the conquerors and not that of the victims. The gesture sign for Dakota is as follows:
Forefinger and thumb of right hand extended (others closed) are drawn from left to right across the throat as though cutting it. The Dakotas have been named the “cut-throats” by some of the surrounding tribes.
Fig. 991.—Noon.
Fig. 991.—Noon. Red-Cloud’s Census. A Dakotan gesture sign for noon is as follows:
Make a circle with the thumb and index for sun, and then hold the hand overhead, the outer edge uppermost.
Fig. 992.—Hard.
Fig. 992.—Hard. Red-Cloud’s Census. This is the representation of a stone hammer and coincides with the Dakotan gesture sign for hard as follows:
Same as the sign for stone, which is: With the back of the arched right hand strike repeatedly in the palm of the left, held horizontal, back outward, at the height of the breast and about a foot in front; the ends of the fingers point in opposite directions. Refers to the time when the stone hammer was the hardest pounding instrument the Indians knew.
Fig. 993.—Moon.
Fig. 993.—Little-Sun. Red-Cloud’s Census. The moon is expressed both in gestural and oral language as sun-little.
Fig. 994.—Old-Cloud.
Fig. 994.—Old-Cloud. Red-Cloud’s Census. Cloud is drawn in blue in the original; old is signified by drawing a staff in the hand of the man. The Dakotan gesture for old is described as follows:
With the right hand held in front of right side of body, as though grasping the head of a walking-stick, describe the forward arch movement, as though a person walking was using it for support. “Decrepit age dependent on a staff.”
Fig. 995.—Call-for.
Fig. 995.—Call-for. Red-Cloud’s Census. The gesture for come or to call to one’s self is shown in this figure. This is similar to that prevalent among Europeans, and so requires no explanation.
Fig. 996.—Wise-Man.
Fig. 996.—The-Wise-Man was killed by enemies.
Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1797-’98. The following gesture sign explains this figure:
Touch the forehead with the right index and then make the sign for big directly in front of it. Conception, “Big brain.”
In this as in other delineations of gesture the whole of the sign could not be expressed, but only that part of it which might seem to be the most suggestive.
Fig. 997.—Sign for pipe.
Fig. 997 is taken from the winter count of Battiste Good and is drawn to represent the sign for pipe, which it is intended to signify. The sign is made by placing the right hand near the upper portion of the breast, the left farther forward, and both held so that the index and thumb approximate a circle, as if holding a pipe-stem. The remaining fingers are closed.
The point of interest in this character is that, instead of drawing a pipe, the artist drew a human figure making the sign for pipe, showing the intimate connection between gesture-signs and pictographs. The pipe, in this instance, was the symbol of peace.
Fig. 998.—Searches-the-Heavens.
Fig. 998.—Mahpiya-wakita, Searches-the-Heavens; from the Oglala Roster. The cloud is drawn in blue, the searching being derived from the expression of that idea in gesture by passing the extended index of one hand (or both) forward from the eye, then from right to left, as if indicating various uncertain localities before the person, i. e., searching for something. The lines from the eyes are in imitation of this gesture.
Fig. 999.—Water symbols.
The Chinese character for to give water is a, in Fig. 999, which may be compared with the common Indian gesture to drink, to give water, viz: “Hand held with the tips of fingers brought together and passed to the mouth, as if scooping up water” (see Fig. 1000), obviously from primitive custom, as with Mojaves, who still drink with scooped hands, throwing the water to the mouth.
Fig. 1000.—Gesture sign for drink.
Another common Indian gesture sign for water to drink—I want to drink—is: “Hand brought downward past the mouth with loosely extended fingers, palm toward the face.” This appears in the Mexican character for drink, b, in Fig. 999, taken from Pipart (a). Water, i. e., the pouring out of water with the drops falling or about to fall, is shown in Fig. 999, c, taken from the same author (b), being the same arrangement of them as in the Indian gesture-sign for rain, shown in Fig. 1002, the hand, however, being inverted. Rain in the Mexican picture-writing is sometimes shown by small circles inclosing a dot, as in the last two designs, but not connected together, each having a short line upward marking the line of descent. Several other pictographs for rain are given below.
Fig. 1001.—Water, Egyptian.
With the gesture sign for drink may be compared Fig. 1001, the Egyptian goddess Nu in the sacred sycamore tree, pouring out the water of life to the Osirian and his soul represented as a bird, in Amenti, from a funereal stelē in Cooper’s Serpent Myths (b).
The common Indian gesture for river or stream—water—is made by passing the horizontal flat hand, palm down, forward and to the left from the right side in a serpentine manner.
The Egyptian character for the same is d in Fig. 999, taken from Champollion’s Dictionary (b). The broken line is held to represent the movement of the water on the surface of the stream. When made with one line less angular and more waving it means water. It is interesting to compare with this the identical character in the syllabary invented by a West African negro, Mormoru Doalu Bukere, for water, e, in Fig. 999, mentioned by Dr. Tylor (b).
The abbreviated Egyptian sign for water as a stream is f, in Fig. 999, taken from Champollion, loc. cit., and the Chinese for the same is as in g, same figure.
In the picture writing of the Ojibwa the Egyptian abbreviated character, with two lines instead of three, appears with the same signification.
Fig. 1002.—Gesture for rain.
The Egyptian character for weep, h, in Fig. 999, i. e., an eye with tears falling, is also found in the pictographs of the Ojibwa, published by Schoolcraft (o), and is also made by the Indian gesture of drawing lines by the index repeatedly downward from the eye, though perhaps more frequently made by the full sign for rain—made with the back of the hand downward from the eye—“eye rain.” The sign is as follows, as made by the Shoshoni, Apache, and other Indians: Hold the hand (or hands) at the height of and before the shoulder, fingers pendent, palm down, then push it downward a short distance, as shown in Fig. 1002. That for heat is the same, with the difference that the hand is held above the head and thrust downward toward the forehead; that for to weep is made by holding the hand as in rain, and the gesture made from the eye downward over the cheek, back of the fingers nearly touching the face.
Fig. 1003.—Water sign. Moki.
The upper design in Fig. 1003, taken from the manuscript catalogue of T.V. Keam, is water wrought into a meandering device, which is the conventional generic sign of the Hopitus. The two forefingers are joined as in the lower design in the same figure.
In relation to the latter, Mr. Keam says: “At the close of the religious festivals the participants join in a parting dance called the ‘dance of the linked finger.’ They form a double line, and crossing their arms in front of them they lock the forefingers of either hand with those of their neighbors, in both lines, which are thus interlocked together, and then dance, still interlocked by this emblematic grip, singing their parting song. The meandering designs are emblems of this friendly dance.”
The Arapaho sign for child, baby, is the forefinger in the mouth, i. e., a nursing child, and a natural sign of a deaf-mute is the same. The Egyptian figurative character for the same is seen in Fig. 1004 a. Its linear form is b, same figure, and its hieratic is c, Champollion (c).
These afford an interpretation to the ancient Chinese form for son, d in same figure, given in Journ. Royal Asiatic Society, I, 1834, p. 219, as belonging to the Shang dynasty, 1756-1112 B. C., and the modern Chinese form, e, which, without the comparison, would not be supposed to have any pictured reference to an infant with hand or finger at or approaching the mouth, denoting the taking of nourishment. Having now suggested this, the Chinese character for birth, f in same figure, is understood as a parallel expression of a common gesture among the Indians, particularly reported from the Dakota, for born, to be born; viz, place the left hand in front of the body a little to the right, the palm, downward and slightly arched, then pass the extended right hand downward, forward, and upward, forming a short curve underneath the left, as in Fig. 1005 a. This is based upon the curve followed by the head of the child during birth, and is used generically. The same curve, when made with one hand, appears in Fig. 1005 b.
It may be of interest to compare with the Chinese child the Mexican abbreviated character for man, Fig. 1004 g, found in Pipart (c). The character on the right is called the abbreviated form of the one by its side.