Garrick Mallery

“ It was obvious in cross-examining the old men of the Algonquians that the performances of jugglery were exhibitions of the pretended miraculous power of an adventurer whereby he obtained a reputation above his rivals and derived subsistence and authority by the selling of charms and pretended superhuman information. The charms and fetiches which still are bought from the few shamans who yet have a credulous clientele are of three kinds—to bring death or disease on an enemy, to lure an enemy into an ambush, and to excite a return to sexual love. ”

“ The way of declaring war by the Canadian Algonquian Indians is this: They send back to the nation that they have a mind to quarrel with a slave of the same country, with orders to carry to the village of his own nation an axe, the handle of which is painted red and black. ”

“ After the writer had inspected the rocks and discovered their characteristics, and learned how to distinguish and copy their markings, it seemed that, with the exception of a few designs recently dug or chipped out by lumbermen or visitors, almost always initials, the only interesting or ancient portions were scratchings which could be made on the soft slate by any sharp instrument. The faces of the rocks were immense soft and polished drawing-slates, presenting to any person who had ever drawn or written before an irresistible temptation to draw or write. ”

“ That of the nation is above the one representing the family, and the beak or muzzle of the former is so placed that it corresponds to the place of his right ear, as if this symbolic figure of his nation represented its spirit, which inspires him. If this Indian is returning from war, he represents beneath his portrait the number of warriors composing the party which he leads, and beneath the warriors the number of prisoners made and those whom he has killed by his own hand. ”

“ Les chefs prennent des bâtons de la longueur d’un pied autant en nombre qu’ils sont et signalent par d’autres un peu plus grands, leurs chefs; puis vont dans le bois et esplanadent une place de cinq ou six pieds en quarré où le chef comme Sergent Major, met par ordre tous ces bâtons comme bon luy semble; puis appelle tous ses compagnons, qui viennent tous armez, et leur monstre le rang et ordre qu’ils deuvont tenir lors qu’ils se battront avec leurs ennemis. ”

“ With this account from the Pacific coast a similar determination of emblems by the Indians in the northeastern parts of the United States may be compared. The objects seen by them in their fasting visions not only were decisive of their names but were held to show the course of their lives. If a youth saw an eagle or bear he was destined to be a warrior; if a deer he would be a man of peace; and a turkey buzzard or serpent was the sign that he would be a medicine man. ”

“ In one line ascending from the part of the rock nearest the river there is a tortoise; a spread eagle, executed with great expression, particularly the head, to which is given a shallow relief, and a child, the outline of which is very well drawn. In a parallel line there are other figures, but among them that of a woman only can be traced. These are very indistinct. Upon the side of the rock there are two awkward figures which particularly caught my attention. One is that of a man with his arms uplifted, and hands spread out as if engaged in prayer. ”

“ There is a symbolism so natural, that, like certain implements peculiar to the stone age, it does not belong to any particular race, but constitutes a characteristic trait of mankind at a certain phase of its development. Of this class are representations of the sun by a disk or radiating face, of the moon by a crescent, of the air by birds, of water by fishes or a broken line, of thunder by an arrow or a club, etc. ”

“ We ought, perhaps, to add a few more complicated analogies, as those which lead to symbolizing the different phases of human life by the growth of a tree, the generative forces of nature by phallic emblems, the divine triads by an equilateral triangle, or in general by any triple combination the members of which are equal, and the four principal directions of space by a cross. How many theories have been built upon the presence of the cross as an object of veneration among nearly all the peoples of the Old and New Worlds? ”

“ IDEOGRAPHY.
The imagination is stimulated and developed by the sense of sight more than by any other sense, perhaps more than by all of the other senses combined. The American Indians, and probably all savages, are remarkable for acute and critical vision, and also for their retentive memory of what they have once seen. When significance is once attached to an object seen, it will always be recalled, though often with false deductions. ”

“ Other lines of thought are shown by blue, considered as the supposed sky or heavenly home of the future, and by green, as suggesting renewal or resurrection, and those concepts determine the mourning color of some peoples. Red or yellow may only refer to the conceptions of the colors of flames, and therefore might simply be an objective representation of the disposition of the corpse, which very often was by cremation. But sometimes these colors are employed as decoration and display to proclaim that the dead go to glory. ”

“ The Man-Who-Dreamed-of-a-Wolf, seen at the upper part of the circle, with bow and arrow in hand, then shot the chief bull of the herd with his medicine or sacred arrow; at this, the women all cried out with joy, “He has killed the chief bull!” On hearing them shout the man with bow and arrow on the opposite side, The-Man-Who-Dreamed-of-the-Thunder-and-received-an-arrow-from-the-Thunder-Bird (wakinyan, accurately translated “the flying one”) shot a buffalo cow, and the women again shouted with joy. Then all the men began to shout, and they killed as many as they wished. ”

“ The otter approaches him and he seizes it, kills it with the blow of a club, and takes out the tongue, after which he is able to understand the language of all inanimate objects, of birds, animals, and other living creatures. ”

“ A warrior returns from the field stained with blood from an honorable wound, the scars of which he afterwards proudly displays. It would be strictly in the line of ideography to make artificial scars or to paint the semblance of wounds on the person as designations of honor, and from such origin quite as well as from a totemic representation all other forms and uses may have been evolved. For instance, the vigor of manhood being thus signified, the similar use would show the maturity of women. Yet some of the practices of tattoo may have originated independently of either totem or glory mark. ”

“ They draw heads of gazelles, elephants, and hippopotami astonishingly well. They sketch them in their caves and paint them with ochre or chisel them out in rocks with stone implements, and on the tops of mountains we may see representations of all the animals which have lived in those parts in former times. ”

“ In leaving the geographic distribution of petroglyphs to examine the comprehensive theme of pictographs in general, the first and correct impression is that the mist of the archaic and unknown is also left and that the glow of current significance is reached. The pictographs of the American Indians are seldom if ever cryptographs, though very often conventional and sometimes, for special reasons, preconcerted, as are their signals. They are intended to be understood without a key, and nearly all of those illustrated below in the present work are accompanied by an interpretation. ”

“ All partisans carry on their backs a medicine pipe in a case which other warriors dare not have. To become a chief (Numakschi) a man must have been a partisan and then kill an enemy when he is not a partisan. If he follows another partisan for the second time he must have first discovered the enemy, have killed one and then possessed the hide of a white buffalo cow complete with the horns to pretend to the title of chief (Numakschi) . * * * All the warriors wear small war pipes round their necks, which are often very elegantly ornamented with porcupine quills. ”

“ The study of different systems of writing—such as the Chinese, the Assyrian, and the Egyptian—shows that no people ever invented an arbitrary system of writing or originated a true alphabet by any fixed predetermination. All the known graphic systems originated in picture-writing. All have passed through the stage of conventionalism to that commonly called the hieroglyphic, while from the latter, directly or after an intermediate stage, sprang the syllabary which used modifications of the old ideograms and required a comparatively small number of characters. ”

“ Almost all of the Indian women of the northwest coast have tattoo marks on their hands and arms, and some on the face; but as a general thing these marks are mere dots or straight lines having no particular significance. With the Haidas, however, every mark has its meaning; those on the hands and arms of the women indicate the family name, whether they belong to the bear, beaver, wolf, or eagle totems, or any of the family of fishes. As one of them quaintly remarked to me, “If you were tattooed with the design of a swan, the Indians would know your family name.” ”

“ We learn how mischievous are these superstitions when we are informed that they are the principal men of the Metai, who thus wander about the villages in the disguise of a bear, to wreak their hatred on a sleeping rival or their malice on an unsuspecting adversary. But the customs of the Indians require of anyone who may see a medicine man on one of these excursions to take his life immediately, and whoever does so is accounted guiltless. ”

“ The human head or face is somewhat larger than life; it is neatly hollowed out to the nearly uniform depth of one-fourth of an inch, and is slightly polished over most of the surface. Ear lobes are seen at the right and left, and an arched line, possibly intended for a plume, rises from the left side of the head. A crescent-shaped band of red extends across the face, and within this the eyes are indistinctly marked. The mouth is encircled by a dark line and shows six teeth, the spaces between being filled in with red. ”

“ Design f is an animal difficult to characterize; its head and tail may be guessed at. The body is covered with ornaments and the legs, very incomplete, are in the attitude of running. Design g represents probably a tree with an appendix of undulating lines; design h, a head surmounted by a complicated headgear. This is the first distinctly human representation that we have found in the country. The strange combinations of designs j, k, and l exhibit the dots at the end of the lines which we have already spoken of. Design m resembles an M; design n shows a circle with plane face. ”

“ They generally represent some animal, such as the turtle, bear, wolf, buffalo, elk, and the human form. The “crane’s foot” is the most common; next is the image of men; next the turtle. It would seem as if any warrior or hunter who had been successful and happened to pass here left his tribute of thanks to the great spirit in a rude representation of his game and perhaps a figure of himself on the rocks about these bowlders, or perhaps had in a similar way invoked the good offices of the spirits of his clan when about to enter on some expedition. ”

“ Same figure, c, four-fifths real size, is the neck of a Marajo vase representing, by engraving and painting, all the conventional characters of the different parts of the human face employed by the mound-builders of Marajo. This vase preserves perfectly the primitive colors, which show vermilion lines on a white ground. A double protuberance from each ear, the design which forms the eyes, and that which surrounds and outlines the mouth, the nose, and the ears, are characteristic traces of the decorative art of the human face which few heads present in such perfection. ”

“ The council agreed that, to obviate such an abuse, which would confound brave men with cowards, he who had wrongfully adorned himself with the figure of a club on his skin, without ever having struck a blow at war, should have the mark torn off; that is, the place should be flayed, and that the same should be done to all who would offend in the same case.
The Indian women are allowed to make marks all over their body, without any bad consequences; they endure it firmly, like the men, in order to please them, and to appear handsomer to them. ”

“ On the day of departure the warriors dress in their best. They color their hair red; they paint their faces red and black with much skill and taste, as well as the whole of their bodies. Some have headdresses with the tail feathers of eagles or other birds; others have them decorated with the teeth of wild beasts, such as the wolf or tiger [wild cat] . Several adorn their heads, in lieu of hats, with helmets bearing the horns of deer, roebuck, or buffalo.
Schoolcraft (r) says that blue signifies peace among the Indians of the Pueblo of Tesuque. ”

“ None of them appear to have reached such proficiency in the expression of connected ideas by picture, as is shown in the sign-language existing among some of them, which may be accounted for by its more frequent use required by the constant meeting of many persons speaking different languages. There is no more necessary connection between abstract ideas and sounds, the mere signs of thought that strike the ear, than there is between the same ideas and signs addressed only to the eye. ”