PICTUEE-WEITING AND WORD-WRITTNG. 91^ 



before tlie time of tte bronze tablet of Aristagoras^ on wHch 

 was inscribed the circuit of the whole earthy and all tbe sea and 

 all rivers. ■'■ 



Tlie highest development of the art of picture-writing is to 

 be found among the ancient Mexicans. Their productions of 

 this kind are far better known than those of the Red Indians, 

 and are indeed much more artistic, as well as being more 

 systematic and copious. Some of the most characteristic 

 specimens have been drawn and described by Alexander von 

 Humboldt, and Lord Kingsborough's great work contains a 

 huge mass of them, which he published in facsimile in support 

 of his views upon that philosopher's stone of ethnologists, the 

 Lost Tribes of Israel. 



The bulk of the Mexican paintings *are mere pictures, directly 

 representing migrations, wars, sacrifices, deities, arts, tributes, 

 and such matters, in a way not differing in principle from that 

 of the lowest savages. But in the historical records and calen- 

 dars, the events are accompanied by a regular notation of years, 

 and sometimes of divisions of years, which entitles them to be 

 considered as regularly dated history. The art of dating events 

 was indeed not unknown to the Northern Indians. A resident 

 among the Kristinaux (generally called for shortness, Crees), 

 who knew them before they were in their present half-civilized 

 state, says that they had names for the moons which make up 

 the year, calling them "whirlwind moon,'' "moon when the 

 fowls go to the south," " moon when the leaves fall off from the 

 trees," and so on. When a hunter left a record of his chase 

 pictured on a piece of birch-bark, for the information of others 

 who might pass that way, he would draw a picture which 

 showed the name of the month, and make beside it a drawing 

 of the shape of the moon at the time, so accurately, that an 

 Indian could tell within twelve or twenty-four hours, the month 

 and the day of the month, when the record was set up.^ 



It is even related of the Indians of Virginia, that they re- 

 corded time by certain hieroglyphic wheels, which they called 

 " Sagkokok Quiacosough," or " record of the gods." These 

 wheels had sixty spokes, each for a year, as if to mark the 

 > Herod, v. 49. * Harmou, p. 371. 



