GRAPHIC ART OF THE ESKIMOS. 947 



foration so as to give additional strength to that part. The specimen 

 is slightly decorated on one side with the outline of a human being 

 with arms extended, a line extending from the head along the middle 

 toward the perforation; on one side is the drawing of a wolf, while 

 beneath it is a flintlock gun. Upon the other side is the representa 

 tion of a reindeer, with two smaller animal forms incised, while beneath 

 the former is the rude portrayal of another flintlock gun, the flint being 

 indicated by an unusually strong line projecting from the raised hammer. 



The general outline of these animal forms appears at a first and 

 careless glance to be very like the examples figured by Messrs. Lartet 

 and Christy, but upon close inspection the difference between the sev 

 eral types becomes more and more apparent. As before intimated, 

 if the cave dwellers of France were in such an intellectual status as is 

 usually claimed, the artistic work as evidenced in their etchings on 

 horn appears vastly superior to that of many peoples far in advance in 

 civilization. 



Further discussion on this subject is not deemed appropriate in this 

 connection, but will be renewed in a paper the purport of which is 

 intended to be an examination of the relative merits of the art work 

 of primitive peoples. 



Similarities of design with divers significations, and dissimilar pat 

 terns with like purport, occur in all parts of the habitable globe, and, 

 as before intimated, the concept giving origin to such designs should in 

 all instances, where practicable, be sought for among the peoples who 

 are the authors thereof. In like manner, it is of the highest importance 

 to obtain the native artists interpretation of any obscure or conven 

 tionalized characters, as such are often apparently intelligible from 

 their resemblance to characters of known signification, whereas the 

 result of inquiry may sometimes be rather startling, if not open to the 

 suspicion that the uncultured artist is himself unconsciously m error. 



APPENDIX. 



The following list of gesture signs were collected during the summer 

 of 1882 in San Francisco, California, where an intelligent Kadiak half- 

 caste was met with under circumstances which enabled him to devote his 

 exclusive attention to the subject of the transmission of thought with 

 out the use of oral speech. This person was the offspring of a Russian 

 father and a Kadiak mother, and during his youth had almost con 

 stantly accompanied his father in trading and collecting peltries for 

 the Eussian Fur Company. After the transfer to the United States of 

 Alaska, this man, Vladimir Naomoff, continued in the service of the 

 Alaska Commercial Company, of San Francisco, California, visiting the 

 various settlements of natives on the mainland and inland to the Cop 

 per River Indians [Kutchin or Kenai], a tribe of the Athabaskan lin 

 guistic family. In this manner Naomoff became thoroughly familiar 

 not only with Kussian, English, and the Kadiak dialect, but with half 



