GRAPHIC ART OF THE ESKIMOS. 927 



especially noticeable in Zufii and Algonkian pictography to represent 

 what is designated as the life line. This consists of a line drawn from 

 the month, or very near it, backward into the body, where it terminates 

 in a line, or more generally a triangular figure, to denote the head. It 

 is a shamanistic figure, and indicates that the shaman who possessed 

 it had influence over the life of the animal so portrayed. This subject 

 has been more clearly described in connection with the shamanistic 

 ceremonies of the Ojibwa Indians in the en 

 graving of the Mide/wiwin or Grand Medicine 

 Society of the Ojibwa, published in the Four 

 teenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Eth 

 nology. 



toi 



VOTIVE OFFERINGS AND MORTUARY. Fig UQ 



VOTIVE OFFERING. 



Fig. 146 is copied from a piece of walrus 



ivory in the museum of the Alaska Commercial Company, San Fran 

 cisco, California, and was interpreted to the present writer in San 

 Francisco in 1882. 



The left-hand figure is a votive offering or shaman stick,&quot; com 

 monly designated a medicine stick, erected to the memory of one 

 departed. The &quot;bird&quot; carvings are considered typical of &quot; good 

 spirits,&quot; -and the above was erected by the remorse- 

 X^-A^/ stricken individual who had killed the person shown. 

 / / The headless body represents the man who was killed. 



In this respect the Ojibwa manner of portraying a man 

 &quot;killed&quot; or &quot;dead&quot; is similar. Comparison w r ith another 

 fT** Eskimo drawing, designating a &quot;killed whale&quot; by the 

 presence in the back of a harpoon, maybe made herewith 

 as another conception of the idea of &quot;dead&quot; or &quot;killed.&quot; 

 The right-hand figure represents the homicide who 

 erected the &quot;grave post&quot; or &quot;shaman stick.&quot; The arm 

 is thrust downward toward the earth, to represent the 

 gesture for Mil. This is common, likewise, to the gesture 

 for the same idea as made by the Blackfeet and Dakota 

 Indians. 



In fig. .147 is reproduced an inscription from a grave 

 post commemorating a hunter, as land animals are shown 

 Fig. 147. to be his chief pursuit. The following is the explanation 

 INSCRIPTION ON of the characters : 



No. a is the baidarka, or boat, holding two persons. 

 The occupants are shown, as are also the paddles, which project below 

 the horizontal body of the vessel. 



No. 1} is a rack for drying skins and fish. A pole is added above it, 

 from which are seen floating streamers of calico or cloth. No. c is a 

 fox. No. d is a laud otter, while No. e is the hunter s summer habita- 



