ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 133 



of view, suppresses half the features, and is not diagrammatic or symbol- 

 ical of all the separate parts. Negroes and North American Indians 

 cannot understand profile: they ask what has become of the other eye. 



Perhaps Mr Allen derives his idea of the inability of the 

 Indians to understand profiles from a statement of Catlin, 

 which I have seen used for this and other purposes, by dif- 

 ferent anthropologists until it seems to have become a fa- 

 vorite fact. 



Turning to Catlin's " Letters and Notes on the Manners, 

 Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians" 

 (Vol. 2, page 2,) Ave find him saying : 



After I had painted these and many more, whom I have not time at 

 present to name, I painted the portrait of a celebrated warrior of the Sioux, 

 by the name of Mah-to-chee-ga, (the little bear,) who was unfortunately 

 slain in a few moments after the picture was done, by one of his own tribe ; 

 and which was very near costing me my life for having painted a side view 

 of his face, leaving one-half of it out of the picture, which had been 

 the cause of the affray ; and supposed by the whole tribe to have been in- 

 tentionally left out by me, as " good for nothing." This was the last pic- 

 ture that I painted amongst the Sioux, and the last, undoubtedly, that I 

 shall ever paint in that place. So tremendous and so alarming was the 

 excitement about it, that my brushes were instantly put away, and I 

 embarked the next day on the steamer for the sources of the Missouri, and 

 was glad to get under weigh. 



Subsequently Mr. Catlin elaborates this incident into the 

 " Story of the Dog," Vol. 2, page 188 ct seq. 



Now, whatsoever of truth or of fancy there may be in 

 this story, it cannot be used as evidence that the Indians 

 could not understand or interpret profile pictures, for Mr. 

 Catlin himself gives several plates of Indian pictographs 

 exhibiting profile faces. In my cabinet of pictographs I 

 have hundreds of side views made by Indians of the same 

 tribe of which Mr. Catlin was speaking. 



It should never be forgotten that travelers and other per- 

 sons who write for the sake of making good stories must be 

 used with the utmost caution. Catlin is only one of a thou- 

 sand such who can be used with safety only by persons so 

 thoroughly acquainted with the subject that they are able 



