CHAPTER VI. 
PICTOGRAPHS GENERALLY. 
In leaving the geographic distribution of petroglyphs to examine 
the comprehensive theme of pictographs in general, the first and correct 
impression is that the mist of the archaic and unknown is also left and 
that the glow of current significance is reached. The pictographs of 
the American Indians are seldom if ever cryptographs, though very 
often conventional and sometimes, for special reasons, preconcerted, 
as are their signals. They are intended to be understood without a 
key, and nearly all of those illustrated below in the present work are 
accompanied by an interpretation. As the art is in actual daily use it 
is free from the superstition pending from remote antiquity. 
It will be noticed that a large proportion of the pictographs to be now 
presented, which are not petroglyphs, are Micmac, Abnaki, Dakota, and 
Ojibwa, although it is admitted that as many more could be obtained 
from other tribes, such as the Zuni and the Navajo. The reason for the 
omission of details regarding the latter is that they are already pub- 
lished, or are in the course of publication, by Mrs. Stevenson, Dr. 
Matthews, Mr. Cushing, Mr. Fewkes, and other writers, who have 
specially devoted themselves to the peoples mentioned and the region 
occupied by them. 
The present writer obtained a valuable collection of birch-bark picto- 
graphs immemorially and still made by the Passamaquoddy and Pe- 
nobseot tribes of Abnaki in Maine, showing a similarity in the use of 
picture-writing between the members of the widespread Algonquian 
stock in the regions west of the great lakes and those on the north- 
eastern seaboard. He also learned that the same art was common to 
the less known Montagnais and Nascapees in the wooded regions north 
of the St. Lawrence. This correlation of the pictographic practice, in 
manner and extent, was before inferentially asserted, but no satisfac- 
tory evidence of it had been furnished until the researches of the Bureau 
of Ethnology, in 1887 and 1888, made by the writer, brought into direct 
comparison the pictography of the Ojibwa with that of the Micmaes 
andthe Abnaki. Many of the Indians of the last-named tribes still use 
marks and devices on birch bark in the ordinary affairs of life, especially 
as notices of departure and direction and for warning and guidance. 
The religious use of original drawings among them, which is still prom- 
inent among the Ojibwa, has almost ceased, but traces of it remain. 
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