372 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
D; then a piece of feather, c; and, lastly, a single cowrie turned in the same direc- 
tion as all the others. The interpretation is: 
“Your ways agree with mine very much. Your ways are pleasing to me and I 
like them. 
“Deceive me not, because the spice would yield nothing else but a sweet and gen- 
uine odor unto God. 
“T shall never deal doubly with you all my life long. 
“The weight of your words to me is beyond all description. 
“As it is on the same family mat we have been sitting and lying down together, I 
send to you. 
“Tam, therefore, anxiously awaiting and hoping to hear from you.” 
The following account of “African Symbolic Messages,” condensed 
from the paper of the Rey. C. A. Gollmer, which appeared in Jour. 
Anthrop. Inst. of Gr. Bn. and I., x1v, p. 169, et. seq., is highly interest- 
ing as showing the ideography attached to the material objects trans- 
mitted. The step in evolution by which the graphic delineation of 
those objects was substituted for their actual presence was probably 
delayed only by the absence of convenient material, such as birch bark, 
parchment, or other portable rudimentary form of paper on which to 
draw or paint, or at least by the want of a simple invention for the 
application of such material: 
The natives in the Yoruba country, West Africa, in the absence of writing, and as 
a substitute for it, send to one another messages by means of a variety of tangible 
objects, such as shells, feathers, pepper, corn, stone, coal, sticks, powder, shot, razors, 
ete., through which they convey their ideas, feelings, and wishes, good and bad, and 
that in an unmistakable manner. The object transmitted is seen, the import of it 
known and the message verbally delivered by the messenger sent, and repeated by 
one or more other persons accompanying the messenger for the purpose as the im- 
portance of the message is considered to require. 
Cowry shells in the symbolic language are used to convey, by their number and 
the way in which they are strung, a variety of ideas. One cowry may indicate 
“defiance and failure;” thus: A cowry (having a small hole made at the back part, 
so as to be able to pass a string through it and the front opening) strung on a short 
bit of grass fiber or cord, and sent to a person known as a rival, or one aiming at 
injuring the other, the message is: ‘‘As one finger can not take up a cowry (more 
than one are required), so you one I defy; you will not be able to hurt me, your evil 
intentions will come to nothing.” 
Two cowries may indicate ‘‘ relationship and meeting;”’ thus: Two cowries strung 
together, face to face, and sent to an absent brother or sister, the message is: ‘‘ We 
are children of one mother, were nursed by the same breasts.” 
Two cowries may indicate ‘‘ separation and enmity;” thus: Two cowries strung 
back to back and sent to a person gone away, the message is: ‘‘You and I are now 
separated.” 
Two cowries and a feather may indicate ‘‘ speedy meeting ;”’ thus: Two cowries 
strung face to face, with a small feather (of a chicken or other bird) tied between 
the two cowries, and sent to a friend at a distance, the message is: ‘I want to see 
you, as the bird (represented by the feather) flies straight and quickly, so come as 
quickly as you can.” 
The following fivefold painful symbolic message was sent by D., whilst in eap- 
tivity at Dahomey, to his wife, who happened to be staying with Mr. Gollmer, at 
jadagry, at the time. The symbols were a stone, a coal, a pepper, corn, and a rag. 
During the attack of the King of Dahomey, with his great army of Amazons and 
