998 The American Naturalist. [November, 
The interpretation which has suggested itself is as follows: 
The likeness to a dance-mask or dance-tablet is so close that the 
possibility of its being a representation of some of the parapher- 
nalia of the dances occurred to me. - Familiar with similar masks 
and elaborate tablets borne on the head by the Pueblo Indians at 
the present day in several of their ceremonial dances, the likeness 
of the appendage represented on the head of the Nova Scotia 
pictograph suggested that it might have a similar sacred impor- 
tance. It is not uncommon to find dance-masks represented in 
the pictographs made by the Indians. The pictographs of 
human faces which one finds in such abundance in the neighbor- 
hood of Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico, often represent those personages 
who take part in the sacred dances. This is more especially 
true where human beings are represented, and it is not rare to 
find heads of Ko kös, of Sha’la’kos, and even of the Ko' yea masAe, 
represented so truthfully that they can be readily recognized. It 
is not uncommon to find the masks alone of dancers represented, 
and it is believed that in all such cases there is a certain religious 
significance in the pictograph, and a sacred meaning ín such rep- 
resentations. Such also, it may be surmised, is the meaning of 
the figure portrayed in the Micmac pictograph. We may have 
here a representation of an old dance-figure wearing on the head 
a mask not unlike the masks still carried by the tribes which have 
preserved to the present day their ancient religious rites. If this 
interpretation of the head-dress of the pictograph from Nova 
Scotia is a correct one, as seems plausible, it may give us an in- 
sighf into the character of the dress of the dancers in ancient 
Micmac ceremonials. 
I have also seen, in the same collection above referred to, 
pointed rectangular pictographs, with one side inclined to the 
other, which would also seem to be representations of former 
head-dresses for use or ornament. Some of these are repre- - 
sented elaborately ornamented with cross-lines, as in our figure, 
and some are surmounted with feathers, as in the pictograph rep- 
resented in the cut. Isolated examples of these are often cut on 
the rocks, while their frequency would indicate that they have 
a meaning of some kind. We often find in the collection the 
same rectangular structure on the. heads of human figures, but 
