ABBREVIATION AND REDUCTION. 55 



expression of the Canadian voyageurs, a leader of an occasional or volunteer 

 Avar party, and the sign he reports as follows : " Make first the sign of the 

 pipe, afterwards open the thumb and index-finger of the right hand, back 

 of the hand outward, and move it forward and upward in a curve." This 

 is explained by the author's account in a different connection, that to become 

 recognized as a leader of such a war party as above mentioned, the first 

 act among the tribes using the sign was the consecration, by fasting suc- 

 ceeded by feasting, of a medicine pipe without ornament, which the leader 

 of the expedition afterward bore before him as his badge of authority, and 

 it therefore naturally became an emblematic sign. There may be inter- 

 est in noting that the "Calendar of the Dakota Nation" (Bulletin U. S. 

 Gr. and G. Survey, vol iii, No 1), gives a figure (No. 43, A. D. 1842) 

 showing "One Feather," a Sioux chief who raised in that year a large 

 war party against the Crows, which fact is simply denoted by his hold- 

 ing out demonstratively an unornamented pipe. The point urged is that 

 while any sign or emblem can be converted by convention into a symbol, 

 or be explained as such by perverted ingenuity, it is futile to seek for 

 symbolism in the stage of aboriginal development, and to interpret the con- 

 ception of particular signs by that form of psychologic exuberance were to 

 fall into mooning mysticism. This was shown by a correspondent of the 

 present writer, who enthusiastically lauded the Dakota Calendar (edited by 

 the latter, and a mere figuration of successive occurrences) as a numerical 

 exposition of the great doctrines of the Sun religion in the equations of 

 time, and proved to his own satisfaction that our Indians preserved her- 

 meneutically the lost geometric cultus of pre-Cushite scientists. He might 

 as well have deciphered it as the tabulated dynasties of the pre-Adamite 

 kings. 



A lesson was learned by the writer as to the abbreviation of signs, and 

 the possibility of discovering the original meaning of those most obscure, 

 from the attempts of a Cheyenne to convey the idea of old mom. He held 

 his right hand forward, bent at elbow, fingers and thumb closed sidewise. 

 This not conveying any sense he found a long stick, bent his back, and sup- 

 ported his frame in a tottering step by the stick held, as was before only 

 imagined. There at once was decrepit age dependent on a staff. The 



