Hamilton. — Notes from Murihiku. 171 



Cave do not strike me as requiring to be interpreted by the 

 imagination of the observer. 



The officers of the American Bureau of Ethnology have 

 recently published an enormous volume full of pictographs 

 from the three Americas and other parts of the world, and 

 these are some of their general conclusions : " The most 

 important lesson to be learnt from these studies is that no 

 attempt should be made at symbolical interpretation unless 

 the symbolical nature of the particular character under 

 examination is known, or can be logically inferred from inde- 

 pendent facts. To start with a theory, or even an hypothesis, 

 that the rock-writings are all symbolical, and may be inter- 

 preted by the imagination of the observer, or by translations 

 either from or into known symbols of similar form found in 

 other regions, were a limitless delusion. Doubtless many of 

 the characters are genuine symbols or emblems, and some 

 have been ascertained to be such. Specially convenient 

 places for halting and resting on a journey, either by land or 

 water, generally exhibit petroglyphs if rocks of proper cha- 

 racter are favourably situated there. The markings may be 

 mere idle scrawls or the result of more serious intention. 

 Some points may be ascertained with regard to the motives 

 of the painters and sculptors on rocks. Some of the charac- 

 ters were mere records of the visits of individuals to important 

 springs or to fords on regularly-established trails. In this 

 practice there may have been, in the intention of the natives, 

 very much the same spirit which induces the civilised (?) man 

 to record his name or initials upon objects in the neighbour- 

 hood of places of public resort. But there was real utility in 

 the Indian practice, which more nearly approached the signa- 

 tures in a visitors' -book at an hotel or public building — both 

 to establish the identity of the traveller and to give the news 

 to his friends of his presence and passage." 



The work-'' shows a surprising resemblance between the 

 typical form among the petroglyphs found in Brazil, Vene- 

 zuela, Peru, Guiana, part of Mexico, the Pacific slope of 

 North America, and even Japan and Nevr Zealand. Interest 

 has been felt in pictographs because it has been supposed that 

 if interpreted they would furnish records of vanished peoples 

 or races. All suggestions of this kind should be at once 

 abandoned. The practice of pictography does not belong to 

 civilisation, and declines when an alphabet becomes popularly 

 known. Though the figures found do not disclose the kind of 

 information hoped for by some enthusiasts, they surely are 

 valuable as marking the steps in human evolution, and in pre- 

 senting evidences of man's early practices. It is not denied 



* " Picture-writingf5 of the American Indians." Garrick Mallory : 

 Rep. Bureau Ethnol., 1888-89. 



