694 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
sive and metaphorical character of pictographs renders more of them 
interchangeable than is the case with words; still, like words, some 
pictographs with essential resemblance of meaning have partial and 
subordinate differences made by etymology or usage. Doubtless the 
designs are purposely selected to delineate the most striking outlines 
of an object or the most characteristic features of an action; but differ- 
ent individuals and likewise different bodies of people would often 
disagree in the selection of those outlines and features. In an attempt 
to invent an ideographic, not an iconographic, design for “bird,” any 
one of a dozen devices might have been agreed upon with equal appro- 
priateness, and, in fact, a number have been so selected by several 
individuals and tribes, each one, therefore, being a symmorph of the 
other. Gesture language gives another example in the signs for 
“deer,” designated by various modes of expressing fleetness, also by his 
gait when not in rapid motion, by the shape of his horns, by the color 
of his tail, and sometimes by combinations of those characteristics. 
Each of these signs and of the pictured characters corresponding with 
them may be indefinitely abbreviated and therefore create indefinite 
diversity. Some examples appropriate to this line of comparison are 
now presented. 
SKY. 
The Indian gesture sign for sky, heaven, is generally made by passing 
the index from east to west across the zenith. This curve is apparent 
a a aa 
Fic. 1)17.—Sky. 
in the Ojibwa pictograph, the left-hand character of Fig. 1117, reported 
in Schooleraft (q), and is abbreviated in the Egyptian character with 
the same meaning, tihe middle character of the same figure, from Cham- 
+668 
he th 
Fic. 1118.—Sun. Oakley springs. 
pollion (e): A simpler form of the Ojibwa picture sign for sky is the 
right-hand character of the same figure, from Copway (h). 
SUN AND LIGHT. 
Fig. 1118 shows various representations of the sun taken from a 
petroglyph at Oakley springs. 
