THE PAINTING OF HUMAN BONES AMONG THE 



INDIANS.* 



By Ales IIrdi.icka. 



Painting of human bones is one of the ethnic phenomena of a 

 relatively high differentiation found unaccountably in various, widely 

 separated parts of the world; and the custom has probably existed 

 in i^rehistoric as well as historic times. Painted skulls or bones 

 have been found in the York Islands (Finsch), in Polynesia, and 

 among the Papuans, in Australia (W. Krause), New Zealand (Thi- 

 lenius, Martin), and Andaman Islands. A skull of a child (No. 

 164763, U. S. National Museum) from the Andaman Islands shows 

 on the vault, bilaterally, a geometrical design, including a line 

 of connected diamond-shaped figures, in red j^aint; and on the vault 

 (»f an adult female skull (No. 164765, U. S. National Museum), 

 from the same locality, are four lines, running from before backward, 

 of similar but smaller diamond-shaped figures })ainted in white. 

 I>ones covered more or less by red pigment — in many instances it 

 has not been definitely settled whether intentionally or accidentally — 

 are very common in the older kourgans over large regions in Cau- 

 casus and southern Eussia (Vasselovski, Antonovitch, Zaborovski, 

 Spizyn, and others), in Moravia (Makovsky), Bohemia (Matiegka), 

 Switzerland (Martin), Italy (Pigorini), France (d'Acy, Piette, 

 etc.), and Germany (Krause). A curious habit of placing inscrip- 

 tions of name, date of l)irth and date of death of the person upon the 

 skull, and surrounding this with a hand-painted design, has existed 

 until recent years in the Tyrolean Alps. The U. S. National Mu- 

 seum possesses three examples of such skulls (from Professor Koll- 

 man, in Basel), one of which is here illustrated (fig. 1, pi. i), and I 

 have seen a number of others in Professor ZuckerkandTs collection in 

 Vienna. 



On the American continent bone painting has been reported by 

 some of the old chroniclers, as well as some modern students. I 



« INIodified, with some additions, from the author's A Painted Skeleton from 

 Northern Mexico, witli Notes on Bone Painting among the American Aborigi- 

 nes, printed in American Anthropologist, n. s., vol. .3, Sept.-Dcc, 1001, pp. 

 701-725. 



607 



