170 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
The following remarks by Prof. de Lacouperie (b) are quoted on ac- 
count of the eminence of his authority, though the subject is still under 
discussion : 
The character of eastern India, the Vengi-Chalukya, was also carried to north 
Celebes islands. The people have not remained at the level required for the prac- 
tical use of a phonetic writing. It is no more used as an alphabet. Curiously 
enough, it is employed as pictorial ornaments on the MSS. they now write in a picto- 
graphic style of the lowest scale. This I have seen on the facsimile (Bilderschriften 
des Ostindischen Archipels, Pl. 1, 1, 11) published by Dr. A. B. Meyer, of Dresden, 
in his splendid album on the writings of this region. 
In the Easter island, or Vaihu, some fourteen inscriptions have been found incised 
on wooden boards, perhaps of driftwood, The characters are peculiar. Most of them 
display strange shapes, in which, with a little imagination, forms of men, fishes, 
trees, birds, and many other things have been fancied. A curious characteristic is 
that the upper part of the signs are shaped somewhat like the head of the herronia 
Se RI a Ee ee 
ih ey eee vas 
a 
Fig. 136.—Tablet from Easter island. 
or albatross. A pictorial tendency is obvious in all of these. Some persons in Eu- 
rope have taken them for hieroglyphies, and have ventured to find a connection 
with the flora and fauna of the island. The knowledge of this writing is now lost; 
and it is not sure that the few priests and other men of the last generation who 
boasted of being able to read them could do so thoroughly. Anyhow, in 1770, some 
chiefs were still able to write down their names on a deed of gift when the island 
was taken in the name of Carlos III of Spain. 
In examining carefully the characters I was struck by the forked heads of many 
of tuem, which reminded me of the forked matras of the Vengi-Chalukya inserip- 
tions. A closer comparison with Pls. i to viii of the Elements of South Indian 
Paleography (A. C. Burnell, Elements of South Indian Paleography, from the 
fourth to the seventeenth century A. D., being An Introduction to the Study of 
South Indian Inscriptions and MSS., 2d edit., London and Mangalore, 1878; Pls. i, vii, 
viii are specially interesting for the forked matras) soon showed me that I was on 
the right track, and a further study of the Vaihu characters, and their analysis by 
comparing the small differences (vocalic notation) existing between several of them, 
convinced me that they are nothing else than a decayed form of the above writing 
of southern India returning to the hieroglyphical stage. With this clue, the in- 
