ABSTRACT IDEAS SYMBOLISM. 



221 



Figure 146, from the record of Battiste Good for the year 1826-27, signi- 

 fies "pain." He calls the year "Ate-a-whistle-and-died winter,'" and ex- 

 plains that six Dakotas, on the war path, had nearly perished with hun- 

 ger when they found and ate the rotting carcass of an old buffalo, on 

 which the wolves had been feeding. Thev were seized soon after with 



Fig. 145.— Starvation. Ottawa 

 and l'ottawatomi. 



FIG. 146.— Pain. Died of 

 "whistle." Dakota. 



pains in the stomach, their bellies swelled, aud gas poured from the 

 mouth and the anus, and they died of a whistle, or from eating a whistle. 

 The sound of gas escaping from the mouth is illustrated in the figure. 

 The character on the abdomen and on its right may be considered to be 

 the ideograph for pain in that part of the body. 



SYMBOLISM. 



The writer has, in a former publication, suggested the distinction to 

 be made between a pictorial sign, an emblem, and a symbol; but it is 

 not easy to preserve the discrimination iu reference to ideographic char- 

 acters which have often become conventionalized. To partly express 

 the distinction, nearly all of the characters in the Dakota Winter Counts 

 are regarded as pictorial signs, and the class represented by tribal signs, 

 personal insignia, etc., is considered to belong to the category of em- 

 blems. There is uo doubt, however, that true symbols exist among the 

 Indians, as they must exist to some extent among all peoples not devoid 

 of poetic imagination. Some of them are shown iu this paper. The 

 pipe is generally a symbol of peace, although in certain positions and 

 connections it sometimes signifies preparation for war, and again sub- 

 sequent victory. The hatchet is a common symbol for war, aud closed 

 hands or approaching palms denote friendship. The tortoise has been 

 clearly used as a symbol for land, and many other examples can be 

 admitted. If Schoolcraft is to be taken as uncoutroverted authority, 

 the symbolism of the Ojibwa rivalled that of the Egyptians, and the 

 recent unpublished accounts of the Zulu, Moki, and Navajo before men- 

 tioned indicate the frequent employment of symbolic devices by those 

 tribes which are notably devoted to mystic ceremonies. Nevertheless, 



