FACULTY IN" ABOEIGINAL RACES. 101 



chrouicliug of au important eveiiit has been repeatedly described, and aptly ilhistrates its 

 practical application. AVheu Cortez held his first interview with the emissaries of Monte- 

 zuma, one of the attendants of Teuhtlile, the chief Aztec noble, was observed sketching the 

 novel visitors, their peculiar costumes and arms, their horses and ships ; and by such means 

 a report of all that pertained to the strange iuA'aders of his dominion was transmitted to 

 the Aztec sovereign. The skill with which every object was delineated excited the admi- 

 ration of the Spaniards. But however superior this may have been as a piece of art, it was 

 manifestly no advance on the principle of Indian picture-writing ; nor can we be in much 

 doubt as to its style of execution, since Lord Kings borough's elaborate work furnishes 

 many facsimiles of nearly contemporary Mexican drawings. In the majority of these, the 

 totemic symbols, and the representations of individuals by means of their animal or other 

 cognomens, are abundantly apparent. The specific aim of the artist has to be kept in view. 

 The figures are for the most part grotesciue, from the necessity of giving predominance to 

 the special feature in which the symbol is embodied. To the generation for w^hich such 

 were produced, the connection between the sign, and the person or thing signiiied, would 

 be manifest ; and as a mnemonic aid, supplemented by verbal descriptions of the trained 

 official registrars, the record would be ample. But a brief interval suffices to render such 

 abbreviated symbols obscure, if not wholly unintelligible ; and within less than a century 

 after the Conquest, de Alva could not find more than two surviving Mexicans, both very 

 aged, who were able to interpret the native pictorial records. Nevertheless a system of 

 picture-writing, originating among the rude forest tribes with the simple employment of 

 the imitative faculty in the representation of familiar objects, with their associated ideas, 

 had advanced on this continent to the very same stage from which, in ancient Egypt, the 

 next step was taken, resulting in the eA'olution of a phonetic alphabet, and so of all that is 

 implied in letters in the largest sense. 



To this grand aim of ideography, or an equivalent of written speech, may, as it 

 appears to me, be traced the earliest efforts at drawing and painting, reaching back to that 

 strange dawn of intellectual vigour revealed to us in the graphic art of the men of 

 Europe's Palœolithic Age. The same eiFort at written speech underlies all the manifesta- 

 tions of the artistic faculty, common alike to the semi-civilized and to the barbarous native 

 races of this continent ; and in the terms by which they express the graphic art in their 

 various dialects, the common significance of drawing and wfiting is generally apparent. 

 But the aesthetic faculty was thus stimulated into activity with results which tended to 

 develop art in all its forms of carving, modelling, sculpture, and painting. An apprecia- 

 tion of colour, not merely for personal adornment, but in its artistic application — alike as 

 a decorative art, and as the means whereby natural objects can be presented with A'ivid 

 truthfulness to the eye, — is widely diffused ; though the mastery of form by the modeller 

 or sculptor long precedes that of chiaroscuro, or aerial perspective. Aboriginal painting is 

 crude, consisting mainly of colour without tone or shading, even where the drawing is 

 correct. But paints and dyes, both of mineral and vegetable origin, are largely in use by 

 many Indian tribes. The Eskimo execute tasteful patterns on their skin robes in diverse 

 colours ; and the northern tribes both to the east and west of the Eocky mountains dye 

 porcupine quills and grasses, and with them work ornamental patterns on their dresses and 

 in basket work. The pottery of the Pueblo Indians is elaborately decorated in colours ; 

 and in various other ways, as in the colouring of their masks, and the painting of their 



