MALLERY. ] OBJECTS USED SYMBOLICALLY. 771 
some instances their age may show the antiquity and continuity of the 
present rites. 
A potent reason for caution in making deductions based only on 
copies of figures published incidentally in works of travel is that it can 
seldom be ascertained with exactness what is the true depiction of those 
figures as actually existing or as originally made. The personal equa- 
tion affects the drawings and paintings intended to be copies from the 
rock surfaces and also the engravings and other forms of reproductions, 
and the student must rely upon very uncertain reproductions for most 
of his material. The more ancient petroglyphs also require the aid of 
the imagination to supply eroded lines or faded colors. Travelers and 
explorers are seldom so conscientious as to publish an obscure copy of 
of the obscure original. It is either made to appear distinct or is not 
furnished at all, and if the author were conscientious the publisher 
would probably overrule him, 
Thorough knowledge of the historic tribes, including their sociology, 
sophiology, technology, and especially their sign language, will prob- 
ably result in the interpretation of many more petroglyphs than are 
now understood, but the converse is not true. The rock characters 
studied independently will not give much primary information about 
customs and concepts, though it may and does corroborate what has 
been obtained by other modes of investigation. A knowledge of In- 
dian customs, costumes, including arrangement of hair, paint, and all 
tribal designations, and of their histories and traditions, is essential 
to the understanding of their drawings; for which reason some of those 
particulars known to have influenced pictography have been set forth 
in this work and objects have been mentioned which were known to 
have been portrayed graphically with special intent. 
Other objects are used symbolically or emblematically which, so far 
as known, have never appeared in any form of pictographs, but might 
be found in any of them. For instance, Mr. Schoolcraft says of the 
Dakotas that ‘‘some of the chiefs had the skins of skunks tied to their 
heels to symbolize that they never ran, as that animal is noted for its 
slow and self-possessed movements.” This is one of the many customs 
to be remembered in the attempted interpretations of pictographs. The 
present writer does not know that a skunk skin or a strip of skin which 
might be supposed to be a skunk skin attached to a human heel has 
ever been separately used pictorially as the ideogram of courage or 
steadfastness, but with the knowledge of this objective use of the skins, 
if they were found so represented pictorially, the interpretation would 
be suggested without any direct explanation from Indians. 
A partial view of petroglyphs has excited hope that by their corre- 
lation the priscan homes and migrations of peoples may be ascertained. 
Undoubtedly striking similarities are found in regions far apart from as 
well as near toeach other. A glance atthe bas-reliefs of Boro Boudour 
in Java, now copied and published by the Dutch authorities, at once re- 
calls figures of the lotus and ureus of Egypt, the horns of Assyria, the 
