54 SYMBOLS, EMBLEMS AND SIGNS. 



than directly suggested by it, is invented to express it by some representa- 

 tion or analogy, while a symbol may be evolved by a process of thought 

 from the concept itself ; but it is no very exhaustive or practically useful 

 distinction. Symbols are less obvious and more artificial than mere signs, 

 require convention, are not only abstract, but metaphysical, and often need 

 explanation from history, religion, and customs. Our symbols of the ark, 

 dove, olive branch, and rainbow would be wholly meaningless to people 

 unfamiliar with the Mosaic or some similar cosmology, as would be the 

 cross and the crescent to those ignorant of history. The last-named objects 

 appeared in the lower class of emblems when used in designating the con- 

 flicting powers of Christendom and Islamism. Emblems do not necessarily 

 require any analogy between the objects representing and those, or the 

 qualities, represented, but may arise from pure accident. . After a scurrilous 

 jest the beggar's wallet became the emblem of the confederated nobles, the 

 Gueux, of the Netherlands ; and a sling, in the early minority of Louis XIV, 

 was adopted from the refrain of a song by the Frondeur opponents of 

 Mazarin. The several tribal signs for the Sioux, Arapaho, Cheyenne, &c, 

 are their emblems precisely as the star-spangled flag is that of the United 

 States, but there is nothing symbolic in any of them. So the signs for indi- 

 vidual chiefs, when not merely translations of their names, are emblematic 

 of their family totems or personal distinctions, and are no more symbols 

 than are the distinctive shoulder-straps of army officers. The crux ansata 

 and the circle formed by a snake biting its tail are symbols, but consensus 

 as well as invention was necessary for their establishment, and our Indians 

 have produced nothing so esoteric, nothing which they intended for herme- 

 neutic as distinct from mnemonic purposes. Sign-language can undoubtedly 

 be employed to express highly metaphysical ideas, indeed is s"o employed 

 by educated deaf-mutes, but to do that in a system requires a development 

 of the mode of expression consequent upon a similar development of the 

 mental idiocrasy of the gesturers far beyond any yet found among historic 

 tribes north of Mexico. A very few of their signs may at first appear to 

 be symbolic, vet even those on closer examination will probably be rele- 

 gated to the class of emblems, as was the case of that for " Partisan" given 

 by the Prince of Wied. By that title he meant, as indeed was the common 



