LVI ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR 



course of his studies naturally tended to ascertain, collocate, 

 ami compare facts, but to eschew suppositions. At the same 

 time, the author by no means denies or forgets that poetry and 

 imagination may be discerned in the Indian pictographs as 

 well as in their o-esture speech and in their spoken languages- 

 He acknowledges, and illustrates by examples given, thai pic- 

 tographs are, in many cases, figurative, metaphoric, ami sym- 

 bolic. It is also recognized that in a very few instances devices 

 may he so far esoteric as to have been adopted as emblems, 

 with some concealed significance, by the secret religious asso- 

 ciations long known to have existed among the tribes. This 

 admission is not, however, to allow of resort to mystic symbol- 

 ism as a normal mode of interpretation. In the examination 

 of pictographs of the North American Indians, so far as it has 

 progressed, the order in which to direct interpretation is the 

 same as that of theoretic evolution and of ascertained historic 

 sequence. The probability is that they are, 1st, objective rep- 

 resentations; 2d, that they are ideographic, and 3d, with the 

 burden of proof against the proposition, that they have some 

 connection with symbolism. It is well understood that any 

 desigaprimarily objective can be adopted as an ideograph and 

 furthermore can be used symbolically. An example of this 

 used by the author is the cross, which design appears in many 

 significations given in the paper with reference exclusively to 

 North American Indians, and many other instances of this mill- 

 tifarious use in all parts of the world are familiar. It is one 

 of the most readily executed devices and has been employed 

 bv all peoples objectively, ideographically, and symbolically. 

 The author has, therefore, presented the facts so far known 

 to him, simply as facts. When a pictograph has appeared from 

 intrinsic or extrinsic evidence to convey an idea beyond its 

 objectivity, the fact has been noted. Decisive extrinsic evi- 

 dence in each case is required for the adoption of mystic sym- 

 bolism as the true mode of interpretation. By this method of 

 treatment, the subject of pictographs lias been rescued from 

 the limbo of morbid fancy to be marshaled with proper place 

 in the evolutionary order of human culture. 



