442 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
chiefly horseshoes and crosses, as in Fig. 578, referring to the capture of 
the enemy’s ponies and to coups in warfare. The entire tribe being inti- 
mately acquainted with the courage and 
actions of all its members, imposition and 
fraud in the delineation of any character 
Fig. 578.—Boat paddle. Arikara. are not attempted, as such would surely 
be detected, and the impostor would be ridiculed if not ostracised. 
The brands upon cattle in Texas and other regions of the United 
States where ranches are common illustrate the modern use of 
property marks. A collection of these brands made by the 
writer compares unfavorably for individuality and ideography 
with the genuine marks of Indians for similar purposes. 
The following translation from Kunst and Witz der Neger 
in Das Ausland (a), describing Fig. 579, is inserted for com- 
parison: 
Whenever a pumpkin of surprisingly fine appearance is growing, which 
promises to furnish a desirable water vase, the proprietor hurries to dis- 
=) 
es 
= 
tinguish it by cutting into it some special mark with his knife, and proba- 
bly superstitious feelings may codperate in this act. I have reproduced 
herewith the best types of such property marks which I have been able to 
discover. 
Sir John Lubbock (a) tells that many of the arrows found at 
Nydam, Slesvick, had owner’s marks on them, now reproduced 
in Fig. 580 as a and ¢, resembling those on the modern Esqui- 
maux arrows shown in the same figure as D. 
Prof. Anton Schiefner (b) gives a remarkable parallel between 
Tie epee Runie alphabet and the property marks of the Finns, 
African Lapps, and Samoyeds. 
eg 
PERSONAL NAMES. 
The names of Indians as formerly adopted by or bestowed among them- 
selves were generally connotive. 
They very often refer to some animal 
and predicate an attribute or position 
of that animal. On account of their 
sometimes objective and sometimes 
ideographic nature, they almost in- 
variably admit of being expressed in 
sign language; and for the same rea- 
son they can readily be portrayed in | 
pictographs. The device generally } 
adopted by the Dakotan tribes to sig- |) 
nify that an object drawn in connec- |} 
tion with a human figure was a to- 
temic or a personal name of the indi- 
vidual, is to connect that object with HIGH EsO =e Owneriamenkayslesvicle 
the figure by a line drawn to the head or, more frequently, to the 
te I A, ee aarti, aT RT Bay 
