206 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. IV. 



dance in conjunction with all the other totem-people, each of whom 

 would then personate his own particular totem. Fmally would take 

 place the potlatch of the newly initiated "bear," who would not forget to 

 present his captor with at least a whole dressed skin. 



The initiation to the " Darding- Knife" was quite a theatrical perform- 

 ance. A lance was prepared which had a very sharp point so arranged 

 that the slightest pressure on its tip would cause the steel to gradually 

 sink into the shaft. In the sight of the multitude crowding the lodge, 

 this lance was pressed on the bare chest of the candidate and apparently 

 sunk in his body to the shaft, when he would tumble down simulating 

 death. At the same time a quantity of blood — previously kept in the 

 mouth — would issue from the would-be corpse, making it quite clear to 

 the uninitiated gazers on that the terrible knife had had its effect, when 

 lo ! upon one of the actors striking up one of the chants specially made 

 for the circumstance and richly paid for, the candidate would gradually 

 rise up a new man, the particular protege oi the " Darding Knife." 



Pictography. 



" All the known graphic systems originate in a picture-writing as rude 

 as that of the American Indian or of the South African Bushman. All 

 have advanced from the picture to the conventionalized hieroglyphic 

 representing an idea or a word ; while from the hieroglyph has sprung 

 the syllabary represented by rougher sketches of the monumental 

 emblems, and requiring a smaller number of necessary symbols. Finally 

 among the more civilized of ancient races the alphabet was gradually in- 

 troduced as a simplification of the syllabary which reduced the necessary 

 emblems to about a fifth of their previous number."* Gauged after this 

 criterion, the Western Denes may be said to have been in a state of 

 transition between the first and the second stage of graphic culture ; 

 or perhaps, it would be as correct to say that they were already in 

 the second while retaining lingering reminiscences of the first. Their 

 petroglyphs were in a large measure pictures with some admixture of 

 conventionalized forms ; but their usual means of communication while 

 travelling and their tattoo marks had, to a great extent, become the 

 mere shadows of the original pictographs. 



Of their rock inscriptions I cannot find any better specimen than that 

 reproduced in fig. 190. Its most conspicuous character represents a 

 grizzly bear, the tracks of which may be seen some distance behind. 

 The waving lines at the bottom stand for water, wherefrom a sturgeon 



•From an article in the "Edinburgh Review," reproduced in Little's Living Age, Aug. 23, 

 1890, p. 451- 



