1 I PICTOGRAPHS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 



requirement of inference or hypothesis, in actual existence as applied 

 to records and communications. Furthermore, its transition into signs of 



sound is apparent in the Aztec and the Maya characters, in which stage it 

 was only arrested by foreigu conquest. The earliest lessons of the birth 

 and growth of culture in this most important branch of investigation 

 can therefore be best learned from the Western Hemisphere. In this 

 connection it may lie noticed that picture-writing is found in sustained 

 rigor on the same continent where sign-language has prevailed or con- 

 tinued in active operation to an extent unknown in other parts of the 

 world. These modes of expression, i.e., transient and permanent idea- 

 writing, are so correlated in their origin and development that neither 

 can be studied with advantage to the exclusion of the other. 



The limits assigned to this paper allow only of its comprehending 

 the Indians north of .Mexico, except as the pictographs of other peoples 

 are introduced for comparison. Among these no discovery has \ et been 

 made of any of the several devices, such as the rebus, or the initial, 

 adopted elsewhere, by which the element of sound apart from signifi- 

 cance has been introduced. 



The first stage of picture-writing as recognized among the Egyptians 

 was the representation of a material object in such style or connection 

 as determined it not to be a mere portraiture of that object, but figura- 

 tive of some other object or person. This stage is abundantly exhibited 

 among the Indians. Indeed, their personal and tribal names thus ob- 

 jectively represented constitute the largest part of their picture-writing 

 so far thoroughly understood. 



The second step gained by the Egyptians was when the picture be- 

 came used as a symbol of some quality or characteristic. It can be 

 readily seen how a hawk with bright eye and lofty flight might be se- 

 lected as a symbol of divinity and royalty, and that the crocodile should 

 denote darkness, while a slightly further step in metaphysical symbolism 

 made the ostrich feather, from the equality of its filaments, typical of 

 truth. It is evident from examples given in the present paper that the 

 North American tribes at the time of the Columbian discovery had 

 entered upon this second step of picture-writing, though with marked 

 inequality between tribes and regions in advance therein. None of 

 them appear to have reached such proficiency in the expression of con- 

 nected ideas by picture as is shown in the sign-language existing among 

 some of them, in which even conjunctions and prepositions are indi- 

 cated. Still many truly ideographic pictures arc known. 



A consideration relative to the antiquity of mystic symbolism, and 

 its position in the several culture-periods, arises in this connection. It 

 appears to have been an outgrowth of human thought, perhaps in the 

 nature of an excrescence, useful for a time, but abandoned after a cer- 

 tain stage of advancement. 



A criticism has been made on the whole subject of pictography by 

 Dr. Richard Andree, who, in his work, Ethnographische Parallelen und 

 Yergleiche, Stuttgart, 1S7S, has described and figured a large number of 



