674 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
of the dice and other implements of divination which they use in their witcheraft. 
Therefore, these hieroglyphics are nothing else than signs more or less symbolical 
and arbitrary, known to a small number of initiated who transmit their knowledge 
to their eldest son and successor in their profession of sorcerers. Such is the exact 
value of the Mo-so manuscripts; they are not a current and common writing; they 
are hardly a sacred writing in the limits indicated above. 
However, they are extremely important for the general theory of writing, inasmuch 
as they do not pretend to show in that peculiar hieroglyphical writing any survival 
of former times. According to these views, it was apparently made up for the pur- 
pose by the tom-bas or medicine men. This would explain, perhaps, the anomalous 
mixture of imperfect and bad imitations of ancient seal characters of China, pictorial 
figures of animals and men, bodies and their parts, with several Tibetan and Indian 
characters and Buddhist emblems. 
It is not uninteresting to remark here that a kind of meetway or toomsah, i. e., 
priest, has been pointed out among the Kakhyens of Upper Burma. The description 
is thus quoted: 
“A formal avenue always exists as the entrance to a Kakhyen village. 
On each side of the broad grassy pathway are a number of bamboo posts, 4 feet high 
or thereabouts, and every 10 paces or so, taller ones, with strings stretching across 
the path, supporting smal) stars of split rattan and other emblems. There are also 
certain hieroglyphics which may constitute a kind of embryo picture-writing but 
are understood by none but the meetway or priest.” 
* * # 
PICTOGRAPHS IN ALPHABETS. 
Mr. W. W. Rockhill, in Am. Anthrop., rv, No. 1, p. 91, notices the 
work of M. Paul Vial, missionary, etc., De la langue et de l’écriture in- 
digénes au Yinan, with the following remarks: 
Pére Vial has published a study upon the undeciphered script of the Lolos of 
Western China, of which the first specimen was secured some twelve years ago by 
E. Colborne Baber. Prof. Terrien de Lacouperie endeavored to establish a connec- 
tion between these curious characters and the old Indian script known as the 
southern Ashoka alphabet. The present, Pere Vial’s, work gives them a much less 
glorious origin. He says of them: ‘‘The native characters were formed without 
key, without method. It is impossible to decompose them. They are written 
not with the strokes of a brush, but with straight, curved, round, or angular 
lines, as the shape chosen for them requires. As the representation could not be 
perfect, they have stopped at something which can strike the eye or mind—form, 
motion, passion, a head, a bird’s beak, a mouth, right or left, lightness or heaviness; 
in short, at that portion of the object delineated which is peculiarly characteristic 
of it. But all characters are not of this expressive kind; some even have no connec- 
tion with the idea they express. This anomaly has its reason. The native charac- 
ters are much less numerous than the words of the language, only about thirty per 
cent. Instead of increasing the number of ideograms, the Lolos have used one for 
several words. As aresult of this practice the natives have forgotten the original 
meaning of many of their characters.” 
A summary of the original cuneiform characters, numbering one 
hundred and seventy, gives many of them as recognizable sketches of 
objects. The foot stands for “go,” the hand for “take,” the legs for 
“run,” much as in the Egyptian and in the Maya and other American 
systems. The bow, the arrow, and the sword represent war; the vase, 
the copper tablet, and the brick represent manufacture; boats, sails, 
huts, pyramids, and many other objects are used as devices, 
