MAi.Fiivl SIGNIFICANCE OF PICTOGRAPHY 15 



examples of petroglyphs, a name given by bim to rock-drawings and 

 adopted by the present writer. His view appears to be that these 

 figures are frequently the idle marks which, among civilized people, 

 boys <>r ignorant persons cut with their pen-knives on the desks 

 and walls of school-rooms, or scrawl on the walls of lanes and re- 

 tired places. From this criticism, however, Dr. Andree carefully ex- 

 cludes the pictographs of the North American Indians, his conclusion 

 being that those found in other parts of the world generally occupy a 

 transition stage lower than that conceded for the Indians. It is possi- 

 ble that significance may yet be ascertained in many of the characters 

 found in other regions, and perhaps this may be aided by the study of 

 those in North America : but no doubt should exist that the latter have 

 purpose and meaning. Any attempt at the relegation of such picto- 

 graphs as are described in the present paper, and have been the subject 

 of the study of the present writer, to any trivial origin can be met by 

 a thorough knowledge of the labor and pains which were necessary in 

 the production of some of the petroglyphs described. 



All criticism in question with regard to the actual significance of 

 North American pictographs is still better met by their practical use by 

 historic Indians for important purposes, as important to them as the art 

 of writing, of which the present paper presents a large number of con- 

 clusive examples. It is also known that when they now make picto- 

 graphs it is generally done with intention and significance. 



Even when this work is undertaken to supply the demand for painted 

 robes as articles of trade it is a serious manufacture, though sometimes 

 imitative in character and not intrinsically significant. All other in- 

 stances known in which pictures are made without original design, as 

 indicated under the several classifications of this paper, are when they 

 are purely ornamental; but in such cases they are often elaborate and 

 artistic, never the idle scrawls above mentioned. A main object of this 

 paper is to call attention to the subject in other parts of the world, and 

 to ascertain whether the practice of pictography does not still exist in 

 some corresponding manner beyond what is now published. 



A general deduction made after several years of study of pictographs 

 of all kinds found among the North American Indians is that they 

 exhibit very little trace of mysticism or of esotericism in any form. 

 They are objective representations, and cannot be treated as ciphers or 

 cryptographs in any attempt at their interpretation. A knowledge of 

 the customs, costumes, including arrangement of hair, paint, and all 

 tribal designations, and of their histories and traditions is essential to 

 the understanding of their drawings, for which reason some of those 

 particulars known to have influenced pictography are set forth in this 

 paper, and others are suggested which possibly had a similar influence. 



Comparatively few of their picture signs have become merely conven- 

 tional. A still smaller proportion are either symbolical or emblematic, 

 but some of these are noted. By far the larger part of them are merely 



