234 PICTOGRAPHS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 



Ill the paper "Sign Language among the North American Indians," 

 published in the First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, a large 

 number of instances were given of the reproduction of gesture lines in 

 the pictographs made by the North American Indians, and they ap- 

 peared to be most frequent when there was an attempt to convey sub- 

 jective ideas. These were beyond the range of an artistic skill limited 

 to the rough presentation of objects in outline. It was suggested, there- 

 fore, that the part of pictographs which is the most difficult of inter- 

 pretation in the absence of positive knowledge, was the one in the 

 elucidation of which the study of sign-language would assist. Many 

 pictographs in the present paper, the meaning of which is definitely 

 known from direct sources, are noted in connection with the gesture- 

 signs corresponding with the same idea, which signs are also under- 

 stood from independent evidence. 



So numerous and conclusive are these examples, that it is not neces- 

 sary to add to them save by presenting the pictograph copied in Figure 

 155, as one of special importance in this connection. 



During the summer of 1882 Dr. W. J. Hoffman visited the Tule River 

 Agency, California, where he found a large rock painting, of which Fig- 

 ure 155 is a copy made by him, the following being his description: 



The agency is located upon the western side of the Sierra Nevada in 

 the headwater canons of the branches of the south fork of Tule River. 

 The country is at present occupied by several tribes of the Yokuts lin- 

 guistic stock, and the only answer received to inquiries respecting the 

 age or origin of the record was, that it was found there when the an- 

 cestors of the present tribes arrived. The local migrations of the vari- 

 ous Indian tribes of this part of ( Jalifornia are not yet known with suffi- 

 cient certainty to determine to whom the records may be credited, but 

 all appearances with respect to the weathering and disintegration of the 

 l'ock upon which the l'ecord is etched, the appearance of the coloring 

 matter subsequently applied, and the condition of the small depressions 

 made at the time for mixing the pigments with a viscous substance 

 would indicate that the work had been performed about a century ago. 



The Tulare Indians have been residents of that part of the State for 

 at least one hundred years, and the oldest now living state that the 

 records were found by their ancestors, though whether more than two 

 generations ago could not be ascertained. 



The drawings were outlined by pecking with a piece of quartz orother 

 silicions rock, to the depth of from a mere visible depression to a third 

 of an inch. Having thus satisfactorily depicted the several ideas, col- 

 ors were applied which upon examination appearto have penetrated the 

 slight interstice's between the crystalline particles of the rock, which 

 had been bruised and slightly fractured by hammering with a piece <>!' 

 stone. It appears probable, too, that the hammering was repeated after 

 application of the colors to insure better results. 



Upon a small bowlder, under the natural archway formed by the 



