GRAPHIC ART OF THE ESKIMOS. 799 



Iii the illustration shown in figure 33, the idea of many and much is 

 expressed in the same line of thought or conception as in gesture lan 

 guage. The herd of animals, instead of being indicated by drawing 

 the bodies of those in the foreground singly and complete, and only 

 parts of those beyond being perceivable to the beholder, is represented, 

 with one individual exception, by a single figure of a long body, the 

 thirteen heads being subsequently placed at proper intervals above it, 

 while a certain, though deficient, number of legs and feet are drawn 

 beneath and extending to the ground. These are all drawn as if escap 

 ing from the hunter. 



At the extreme end of the engraving is the representation of a 

 hunter, armed with bow, and indications of arrows. Parts of the figure 

 have become obliterated by frequent use of the ivory drill bow. The 

 deer next to the hunter does not face in an opposite direction, as if 

 escaping, but is drawn with the head lowered and directed toward him. 

 The attitude has perhaps no special signification, further than that 

 this deer was secured by being shot with an arrow, whereas the 

 remainder of the herd which the hunter saw escaped. Compare also 

 figure of herds in plate 65, fig. 4. 



Plate 21, fig. 3, represents the convex side of a drill bow, on the right 

 half of which are thirty transverse figures representing that number 

 of wolf pelts. To the right is one otter skin and the outlines of ten 

 bearskins. As will be observed, these figures are deeply cut and rather 

 conventionalized. The great amount of coloring matter and deep inci 

 sions represent the bold, strong work, characteristic of the natives of 

 Kotzebue Sound. The lateral edges are ornamented with parallel 

 longitudinal lines. 



The regular order of the outline of pelts and hides is perhaps not only 

 illustrative of the great number of animals killed, but the regularity and 

 repetition of specific parts of the animal s body, and the concavity of 

 the sides of the bears skins, is a tendency toward conventionalizing. 

 On the whole, the record is a good illustration of synecdoche. 



As there will be occasion to refer to another curious subject in pictog 

 raphy the transmission of special characters, or the utilization of 

 native symbolic characters to serve as substitutes to replace imported 

 or intrusive forms it may not be amiss to refer in this connection 

 to the interesting result noted in British coins, in which the native 

 Britons copied the obverse and reverse engravings which they found 

 upon the gold stater of Philip of Macedon. The coins were introduced 

 into the country of the littoral tribes through traffic with the Gauls, 

 while the latter obtained possession of them after Greece was plundered 

 by Brennus, B. C. 279. 



The reverse of the typical stater bears a charioteer in a biga, th^ 

 two horses in the attitude of running, while behind is the outline of a 

 wheel, usually elliptical, as the space was not sufficiently large to permit 

 a circle as large as the extreme length of the ellipse to be recorded. 



