90 PICTURE-WRITING AND WOED-WRITING. 



nexion witli America in the wliole matter, except that the docu-- 

 ment is said to have come into the hands of a collector, in com- 

 pany with an Iroquois dictionary, and that the editor says it is 

 written on Canadian paper, but he gives no reason for thinking 

 so. So far as one can judge from the published copy, it may 

 have been done by a German boy in his own country. One of 

 the drawings shows a man with what seems a mitre on his head, 

 speaking to three figures standing reverently before him. This 

 personage is entitled " grosshud " (great-hat), a common term 

 among the German Jews, who speak of their rabbis, in all 

 reverence, as the " great hats." 



The Abbe Domenech had spent many years ia America, and 

 was, no doubt, well acquainted with Indian pictures. More- 

 over, the resemblance which struck him as existing between 

 the pictures he had been used to see among the Indians, and 

 those in the " Book of the Savages," is quite a real one. A 

 great part of the pictures, if painted on birch-bark or deer- 

 skins, might pass as Indian work. The mistake he made was 

 that his generalization was too narrow, and that he founded his 

 argument on a likeness which was only caused by the similarity 

 of the early development of the human mind. 



Map-making is a branch of picture-writing with which the 

 savage is quite familiar, and he is often more skilful in it than 

 the generality of civilized men. In Tahiti, for instance, the 

 natives were able to make maps for the guidance of foreign 

 visitors.^ Maps made with raised lines are mentioned as in use 

 in Peru before the Conquest,^ and there is no doubt about the 

 skill of the North American Indians and Esquimaux in the 

 art, as may be seen by a number of passages in Schoolcraft 

 and elsewhere.^ The oldest map known to be in existence 

 is the map of the -^Ethiopian gold-mines, dating from the 

 time of Sethos I., the father of Eameses II.,* long enough 



^ Gustav Klemm, ' Allgemeine Cultur-Greschiclite der Menscblieit ; ' Leipzig, 

 1843-52, Tol. iv. p. 396. 



- Eivero and v. Tschudi, ' Antigiiedades Peruanas ; ' Vienna, 1851, p. 124. 

 Prescott, ' Peru ; ' vol. i. p. 116. 



' Schoolcraft, part i. pp. 334, 353 ; part iii. pp. 256, 485. Harmon, ' Journal ;' 

 Andover, 1820, p. 371. Klemm, C. G., vol. ii. pp. 189, 280. 



* Birch, in ' Archseologia,' vol. xxxiv. p. 382. 



