584 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
more or less conventionalized. Chapter XIX is devoted specially to 
that branch of the general subject. : 
SECTION 1. 
ABSTRACT IDEAS EXPRESSED PICTORIALLY. 
The first stage of picture- writing, as considered in the present chapter, 
was the representation of a material object in such style or connection 
as determined it not to be a mere portraiture of that object, but figura- 
tive of some other object or person. This stage is abundantly exhibited 
among the American Indians. Indeed, their personal and tribal names 
thus objectively represented constitute the largest part of their picture- 
writing so far thoroughly understood. 
The second step was when a special quality or characteristic of an 
object, generally an animal, became employed to express a general 
quality, i. e., an abstract idea. It can be readily seen how, among the 
Egyptians, a hawk with bright eye and lofty flight might be selected 
to express divinity and royalty, and that the crocodile should denote 
darkness, while a slightly further advance in metaphors made the ostrich 
feather, from the equality of its filaments, typical of truth. All peoples 
whose rulers used special objective designations of their rank, made 
those objects the signs for power, whether they were crowns or um- 
brellas, eagle feathers, or colored buttons. A horse meant swiftness, 
a serpent life—or immortality when drawn as a circle—a dog was 
watchfulness, and a rabbit was fecundity. It is evident from examples 
given in the present paper that the American tribes at the time of the 
Columbian discovery had entered upon this second step of picture- 
writing, though with marked inequality between tribes and regions in 
advance therein. None of them appear to have reached such profi- 
ciency in the expression of connected ideas by picture, as is Shown in the 
sign-language existing among some of them, which may be accounted 
for by its more frequent use required by the constant meeting of many 
persons speaking different languages. There is no more necessary con- 
nection between abstract ideas and sounds, the mere signs of thought 
that strike the ear, than there is between the same ideas and signs ad- 
dressed only to the eye. The success and scope of either mode of 
expression depends mainly upon the amount of its exercise, in which 
oral language undoubtedly has surpassed both sign-language and pic- 
ture-writing. ; 
The examples now following in this chapter are by no means all the 
graphic representations of abstract ideas collected. Indeed many 
others are contained in the work under other headings, but the follow- 
ing are selected for grouping here with an attempt at order. In the 
popular definition, or want of definition, some of them would be classed 
as symbols. 
