770 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1895. 



reduced as to be of no value in the study of pictographic representa 

 tion of objects, ideas, or gestures. 

 Mr. Murdoch l remarks furthermore : 



The ouly thing that we saw of the nature of numerical records were the series f 

 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 

 Yu ksina. The custom does not appear to be 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 bearded 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 

 lino 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 &quot; small, ; 

 and often represented as hanging from a horizontal line. 



We also brought home four engraved pieces of ivory, which are nothing else than 

 records of real or imaginary scenes. 



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

 where reproduced, comprise about all the attention that this interesting 

 subject appears to have received during a three years residence at 

 Point Barrow among natives who surpass 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 Turner, 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 2 remarks: 



Some I have met with show a degree of intelligence and appreciation in regard to 

 charts and pictures scarcely to be 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 events in 

 their lives, just as Sitting Bull has done in an autobiography that may be seen at the 

 Army Medical Museum. 



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

 natives were come across with whom we were unable to communicate except by 

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

 notebook and shown to them with accompanying gesticulations, which they quickly 

 comprehended, and one fellow, taking the pencil and note book, drew correctly a pair 

 of reindeer horses on the ship s jib boom a fact which identified beyond doubt the 

 derelict vessel they had seen. * * * 



1 Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology for 1887-88, 1892, p. 361. 

 -Cruise of the Revenue-Cutter Cor win in Alaska and the Northwest Arctic Ocean, 

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



