204 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
To express his views clearly he gave to this writer in a manuscript 
communication his own classification of pictography (which is not in all 
respects approved) as follows: 
I. Picturing.—([This is the method called by Prof. Brinton (b) icono- 
graphic writing.| This shows a simple representation of a thing or 
event in picture, as of a bear, a man’s hand, a battle. 
IT. Ideography.—This arbitrarily, though significantly, recalls an idea 
or abstract quality, as love or goodness. 
III, Picture-writing.—This will, in picture and character, arbitrarily 
or otherwise, recite a connected story, there being a picture or charac- 
ter for every word, even for conjunctions and prepositions. 
IV. Phonetic writing—This gives phonetic value to every picture 
and spells out the words by sound, almost as in later alphabets, as if 
a lion should stand for the “1” sound, a bear for the ‘‘b” sound, ete., 
and from this last by modification came alphabets. [This is the familiar 
theory, which is accurate so far as it is applicable, of the initial sound, 
but other elements are disregarded, such as the “rebus,” for which 
special class Prof. Brinton, loc. cit., has invented the title of the Icono- 
matic method. | 
Accepting this chronologic if not evolutionary arrangement, Mr. 
Hinman decided that the Dakota picture-writing had passed through 
stage I and was already entering upon stage II when it was first 
observed by the European explorers. Of III and IV he found no ex- 
amples in Dakota pictography, though in sign language the Dakota 
had progressed further and had entered upon III. 
As a summary of the topic it seems that pictographs other than pe- 
troglyphs which presumably are more modern than most of the lat- 
ter, can be studied, not by geographic distribution, but by their ascer- 
tainable intent and use. Unless the classification of the remaining 
part of this work under its various headings has been defective, further 
discussion in this chapter is unnecessary. 
