398 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
The figures represented upon the several Indians met with, as above- 
mentioned, were not all of totemic signification, one arm, for instance, 
bearing the figure of the totem of which the person is a member, while 
the other arm presents the outline of a mythic being, as shown in Fig. 
517, copied from the arms of a woman. The left device is taken 
from the left forearm, and represents kul, the skulpin, a totemic animal, 
whereas the right hand device, taken from the right arm of the same 
subject, represents mamathlona, the dragon fly, a mythic insect. 
In Fig. 518 two forms of the thunderbird are presented, copied from 
Fig. 518.—Haida tattoo, thunder-bird. 
the right and left forearms and hands, respectively, of a Haida woman. 
The right hand device is complete, but that on the left, copied from the 
opposite forearm and hand, is incomplete, and it was expected that the 
design would be entirely finished at the “potlatch” which was to be 
heldin the autumn of 1884. Inthecompleted design the transverse curve 
in the body of the tail was red, as also the three diagonal lines upon the 
body of the bird running outward from the central vertical toward the 
radial side of the hand. The brace-shaped lines within the head orna- 
ment had also been tattooed in red. 
