212 ffoiv Ancient America Wrote. 



ages and innumerable minds. Rude and clumsy in the beginning, 

 through perseverance and meditation it was wrought out to a more or 

 less perfect system. 



Leaving aside the efforts of the nations of the old world, let us trace 

 the different methods by which the aborigines of this continent, 

 unaided by foreign influence, succeeded in solving this difficult 

 problem. It forms one of the most interesting chapters in the history 

 of their civilization. 



When the savage hunter of the dark forests of the north put each 

 day a pebble in his moshkimut, to mark the days of absence from his 

 dear ones ; when the herdsman of the high plateaux of the Andes 

 made knots in a string to record the number of his flocks, they were 

 leading the way to the wampum and quippos, the former of which 

 became the official notation of the Algonquins, the latter that of the 

 children of the sun. When the proud warrior of the plains tattoed 

 his totem on his breast, or painted his slain enemies, pierced with 

 arrows, on his buffalo robe as a proof of his bravery, he practised the 

 rudiments of that famous writing which received its final touch from 

 the ingenious sons of Aztlan. 



Why the American aborigines resorted to such poor and simple 

 shifts for the transmission of thought, can be partly explained by the 

 peculiarity of their language. The natiye dialects abound in figurative 

 and paraphrastical expressions, thus furnishing readily the symbols for 

 an ideographic notation. Moreover, their polysynthetic construction, 

 unitino- the leading idea with all its relations and modifications into one 

 long polysyllabic word, at once formidable to the eye and ear, pointed 

 in the same direction. How much labor and time did it save to the 

 Blackfoot, when he could represent the moon, which he called Na-too- 

 cou-cou-i with a cusped figure, or the war club (ma-ni-qua-pe-cac-sa-que) 

 Avith its simple emblem? How convenient was it for the Ojibway, to 

 denote a skull, which he terms Osh-tig-wa-nee-ge-gan, with a circle 

 and a few dots, or for the Mohawk, the river, (Ka-ih-ogh-ho) with a 

 waving line? 



There is another peculiarity, or rather defect, in the native tongues, 

 which had a remarkable influence on the mode of writing. Offering 

 marvelous facilities, (to quote Dr. Brinton), for defining the perceptions 

 of the senses Avith the utmost accuracy, but, regarding everything in the 

 concrete,the native dialects are unfriendly to the nobler labors of the mind 

 — to abstraction and generalization. For such a limited sphere of mental 

 activity there is no need of a high-wrought system by which the most 

 delicate shades of thought can be recorded. Philosophical treatises 

 the Red man could not and would not write. What he did intend to 



