MALLERY.] TREE AND GROW. 693 
It would be very remarkable if precisely the same character were not 
used by different or even the same persons or bodies of people with 
wholly distinct significations. The graphic forms for objects and ideas 
are much more likely to be coincident than sound is for similar expres- 
sions, yet in all oral languages the same precise sound, sometimes but 
not always distinguished by different literation, is used for utterly 
diverse meanings. The first conception of different objects could not 
have been the same. It has been found, indeed, that the homophony 
of words and the homomorphy of ideographic pictures is noticeable in 
opposite significations, the conceptions arising from the opposition 
itself. The same sign and the same sound may be made to convey dif- 
ferent ideas by varying the expression, whether facial or vocal, and by 
the manner accompanying their delivery. Pictographs likewise may 
be differentiated by modes and mutations of drawing. The differentia- 
tion in picturing or in accent is a subsequent and remedial step not 
taken until after the confusion had been observed and had become in- 
convenient. Such confusion and contradiction would only be eliminated 
from pictography if it were far more perfect than is any spoken lan- 
guage. 
This heading, for convenience, though not consistently with its defi- 
nition, may also include those pictographs which convey different ideas 
and are really different in form of execution as well as in conception, 
yet in which the difference in form is so slight as practically to require 
attention and discrimination. Examples are given below in this sec- 
tion, and others may be taken from the closely related sign-language, 
one group of which may now be mentioned. 
The sign used by the Dakota, Hidatsa, and several 
other tribes for “tree” is made by holding the right hand 
before the body, back forward, fingers and thumb sepa- 
rated; then pushing it slightly upward, Fig. 1115; that 
for “grass” is the same, made near the ground; that for 
“orow” is made like “ grass,” though, instead of holding is 
the back of the hand near the ground, the hand is pushed F: 1!25—Tree- 
upward in an interrupted manner, Fig. 1116. For 
“smoke” the hand (with the back down, fingers point- 
ing upward as in grow) is then thrown upward several 
times from the same place instead of continuing the 
whole motionupward. Frequently the fingers are thrown 
forward from under the thumb with each successive up- 
ward motion. For “fire” the hand is employed as in the 
gesture for smoke, but the motion is frequently more 
waving, and in other cases made higher from the ground. 
Symmorphs, a term suggested by the familiar ‘“syno- 
nym,” are designs not of the same form, but which are (Qe 
used with the same significance or so nearly the same as 
to have only a slight shade of distinction and which some- 
times are practically interchangeable. The comprehen- F': 1116—Grow. 
