220 How Ancient America Wrote. 



outlines their real meaning. Hence for the whole figure only the 

 prominent parts or characteristic features were depicted — for a turtle 

 only its feet ; for a deer only the head ; a heart or triangle with a circle 

 for a man. Painted headless, a human figure indicated death ; the 

 proper name was placed above, the totem beneath it. Again by 

 moulding the partial figures together, new fantastical symbols for cor- 

 relative notions were formed. 



The relation of the various figures to each other was indicated by 

 straight connecting lines, the close of a sentence by a few vertical 

 dashes or strokes. This kind of notation, the Kekeewin, was under- 

 stood by all tribes from Hudson's Bay to the Gulf, although each one 

 had its own symbols, and Heckewelder remarks that they could as easily 

 read a pictograph as we can a letter. The Iroquis are said to have 

 surpassed the other nations in the more skillful handling of the pencil, 

 while the Dacotahs painted the rudest figures. No wonder ; it would 

 be a paradox if it were otherwise. 



Aside from the Kekeewin there existed a sacred pictography, the 

 Kekeenowin, but, like the hieratic hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, 

 intelligible only to the initiated. It was employed by the Medas and 

 Jessokeeds of the Algonquins and Dacotahs at the recitation of their 

 magic songs and ceremonies, each verse, pause and gesticulation having 

 its own conventional symbol to which a suj^ernatural power was ascribed. 

 The symbols served merely as a mnemonic aid. The sorcerer had to 

 know by heart the text of the song ; since the mystic figures did not 

 in the least suggest their hidden meaning. 



Poor and defective as these means of notation were, they mark at 

 least the advancement from a mere figurative to an ideographic writ- 

 ing, which acquired the highest development in the didactic painting 

 of Tula. The restless and wandering life of the hunter tribes left no 

 leisure for more favorable results. When a people has settled down, 

 when the building of cities has divided labor and formed social classes, 

 Avhen the mollifying influence of agi'iculture has softened manners, 

 when the wants and necessities of life have increased, when ideas and 

 language have been enriched, and arts and sciences encouraged, then 

 the enlarged sphere of mental activity calls urgently for an improved 

 form of notation. We might then expect that the exiles of old Tla- 

 palan, after having founded a new seat of a rich civilization, would 

 refine the pictographic system, which they had brought along, to a 

 high degree of perfection. As early as the sev'enth century, Huema- 

 tzin, one of their savants, composed in pictorial characters the sacred 

 Amoxtli, containing the sum of their knowledge and doctrines, their 

 travels, institutions, rituals and legends. Later, Quetzalcoatl, the 



