114 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTK. [VoL. V. 



PICTURE-WRITING OF THE BLACKFEET. 



By Rev. John Maclean, Ph.D. 



{^Read ryi/i March, 18^4.'] 



The natives of the American Continent preserved their legends and 

 traditions through the agency of men who kept an accurate remembrance 

 of them with important historical events by means of wampum records. 

 A more permanent form, however, was needed for the recording of 

 events and conveying them to others, which originated and developed 

 the system of picture-writing. Etchings made upon rocks and trees, 

 pictures painted on the lodges, birch bark and buffalo-robes retained the 

 knowledge of events for future generations. The totem-posts of the 

 Tshimpsheans and the grave-posts of the Ojibwa}^s represent one kind 

 of picture-writing limited in its application and )'et necessary for record- 

 ing facts. From the most primitive form of writing has this system 

 developed, in the rough outline or full picture rudely drawn, through a 

 symbolic stage until the perfect stage of writing was produced. In the 

 Ojibway pictography the symbol for lightning is a rattlesnake. Colonel 

 Mallery in explaining this development says: — "It can be readily seen 

 how a hawk with bright eye and lofty flight might be selected as a 

 symbol of divinity and royalty, and that the crocodile should denote 

 darkness, while a slightly further step in metaphysical symbolism made 

 the ostrich feather, from the equality of its filaments, typical of truth." 

 In some of the pictographs the name of a man is made by making the 

 head of a man and then placing the bird or animal which represents his 

 name over the crown of the head, as in designating Chief Red Croiv 

 (Mikasto) a crow painted red is placed in position. Another method is 

 to place the animal which represents the name upon the pictograph. 

 This is shown in the Selkirk Treaty, where the chiefs signed their names 

 by drawing animals representing them, which were placed opposite the 

 tracts of land which they claimed. The appended copy of the signatures 

 of the contracting parties to the Selkirk Treaty is taken from " The 

 Treaties of Canada with the Indians of Manitoba, the North-West 

 Territories and Keewatin." 



