770 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1895. 



reduced as to be of no value in the study of pictoi^rapliic representa- 

 tion of objects, ideas, or gestures. 

 Mr. Murdocli ' remarks furthermore : 



The only thins^ tli:it Ave saw of the nature of numerical records were the series of 

 animals engraved upon ivory, already alluded to. In most cases we were unable to 

 learn whether the figures really represented an actual record or not, though the hag- 

 handle already figured was said to contain the actual score of whales killed hy old 

 Yii'ksma. The custom does not appear to he so prevalent as at Norton Sound. * * * 

 With one exception they only record the capture of whales or reindeer. The excep- 

 tion * ' * presents a series of ten boarded seals. The reindeer are usually 

 depicted in a natural attitude, and some of the circumstances of the hunt are usually 

 represented. For instance, a man is figured aiming with a bow and arrow toward a 

 line of reindeer, indicating that such a number were taken by shooting, while a 

 string of deer, represented without legs as they would appear swimming, followed, 

 by a rude figure of a man in a kaiak, means that so many were lanced in the water. 

 Other incidents of the excursion are also sometimes represented. On these records 

 the whole is always represented by a rude figure of the tail cut off at the "small," 

 and often represented as hanging from a horizontal line. 



We also brought home four engraved i)ieces of ivory, which arc nothing else than 

 records of real or imaginary scenes. 



The above remarks, with the description of the four specimens else- 

 where rejjrodiiced, comprise about all the attention that this interesting 

 subject appears to have received during a three years' residence at 

 Point Barrow among natives who suri>ass almost any other peoples in 

 North America in the graphic arts. 



It is fortunate that the National Museum has in its possession the 

 rich collections made by Messrs. Nelson and Turn(^r, both of whom 

 appreciated the value of such material and availed themselves of the 

 opportunity of securing it, as well as information pertaining to the 

 interpretation of many of the pictographic ideas shown. 



In his medical and anthropological notes relating to the natives of 

 Alaska, Doctor Irving C. Rosse^ remarks: 



Some I have met with show a degree of intelligence and aii^^reciation in regard to 

 charts and pictures scarcely to bo expected from such a source. From walrus ivory 

 they sculpture figures of birds, quadrupeds, marine animals, and even the human 

 form, which display considerable individuality notwithstanding their crude delinea- 

 tion and imperfect detail. * * * Evidences of decoration are sometimes seen on 

 their canoes, on which are found rude pictures of walruses, etc., and they have a 

 kind of picture writing by means of which they commemorate certain cA'ents in 

 their lives, just as Sitting Bull has done in an autobiography thatmay beseenat the 

 Army Medical Museum. 



When we were searching for the missing whales off the Siberian coast, some 

 natives were come across with whom we were unable to connnunicate exce])t by 

 signs, and wishing to let them know the object of our visif, a ship was drawn in :i 

 notebook and shown to them with accompanying gesticulations, which they (piickly 

 comprehended, and one fellow, taking the pencil and note book, drew correctly a i)air 

 of reindeer horses on the ship's jib boom — a fact whicli identified lieyond doubt the 

 derelict vessel they had seen. * » * 



'Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology for 1887-88, 18112, p. 361. 

 2 Cruise of the Revenue-Cutter Corivin in Alaska and the Northwest Arctic Ocean, 

 in 1881. Washington, D. C, 1883, p. 37. 



