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Indian Pictography
Observations on the Pictographic Method of Communicating
Ideas by Symbolic and
Representative Devices of the North American Indians.
Pictographic scrolls and devices, rudely
cut or painted on wood, rocks, or the
scarified trunks of trees, and even songs
recorded by this method, are well known
traits of our aboriginal tribes. Nothing,
indeed, is more common. It was thought due
to the character of the tribes to examine
the subject, with a view to determine the
system of symbols, if system it may be
called; and to discover the rules by which
the symbols are to be interpreted.
Perhaps the art merits the term of picture
writing. It offers, at least, a new point of
comparison and resemblance between our wild
hunter tribes and other barbaric nations,
and particularly the more advanced
communities of Mexico and Peru. If we
mistake not, the system is radically the
same. Both are largely mnemonic, and it is
essential to their explanation that the
interpreter be acquainted, not only with the
characteristic points and customs of their
history, but with their peculiar mythology,
idolatry, and mode of worship. It is
certainly the only method these tribes
possess of communicating ideas. But whatever
rank may be assigned the system, the topic
is curious and important in considering the
mental capacities of the race; and it could
not well be omitted in any enlarged view of
them.
Preliminary
Considerations
Pictorial and symbolical Representations
constitute one of the earliest observed
traits in the Customs and Arts of the
American Aborigines. This Art found to
assume a systematic Form, among the rude
Hunter Tribes of North America, in the year
1820, when it was noticed on the Source of
the Mississippi. This Instance given, with a
Drawing. The Hint pursued.
The practice of the North American tribes,
of drawing figures and pictures on skins,
trees, and various other substances, has
been noticed by travelers and writers from
the earliest times. Among the more northerly
tribes, these figures are often observed on
that common substitute for the ancient
papyrus among these nations, the bark of the
betula papyracea, or white birch: a
substance possessing a smooth surface,
easily impressed, very flexible, and capable
of being preserved in rolls. Often these
devices are cut, or drawn in colors, on the
trunks of trees, more rarely on rocks or
boulders, when they are called muzzinabiks.
According to Golden and Lafitou, records of
this rude character were formerly to be
seen, on the blazed surface of trees, along
the ancient paths and portages leading from
the sources of the rivers of New York and
Pennsylvania which flow into the Atlantic,
and in the Valley of the St. Lawrence.
Pictorial drawings, and symbols of this
kind, are now to be found only on the
unreclaimed borders of the great area west
of the Alleghanies and the Lakes; in the
wide prairies of the West; or along the
Missouri and the Upper Mississippi. It is
known that such devices were in use, to some
extent, at the era of the discovery, among
most of the tribes situated between the
latitudes of the capes of Florida and Hudson
s Bay, although they have been considered as
more particularly characteristic of the
tribes of the Algonquin type. In a few
instances, these simple pictorial
inscriptions have been found to partake of a
monumental cast, by being painted or stained
on the faces of rocks, or on large loose
stones on the banks of streams; and still
more rarely, devices were scratched or
pecked into the surface, as is found on
Cunningham s Island, in Lake Erie, and in
the Valley of the Alleghany, at Venango.
Those who are intent on observations of this
kind will find figures and rude
inscriptions, at the present time, on the
grave-posts which mark the places of Indian
sepulture at the West and North. The tribes
who rove over the western prairies, inscribe
them on the skins of the buffalo. North of
latitude 42, the southern limit of the
birch, which furnishes at once the material
of canoes, wigwams, boxes, and other
articles, and constitutes, in fact, the
Indian paper, tablets of hard-wood are
confined to devices which are hieratic, and
are employed alone by their priests,
prophets, and medicine-men; and these
characters uniformly assume a mystical or
sacred import. The recent discovery, on one
of the tributaries of the Susquehanna, of an
Indian map drawn on stone, with intermixed
devices, a copy of which appears in the
first volume of the collections of the
Historical Committee of the American
Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, proves,
although it is thus far isolated, that stone
was also employed in that branch of
inscription. This discovery was in the area
occupied by the Lenapees, who are known to
have practised the art, which they called
Ola Walum.
Colden, in his history of the Five Nations,1
informs us that when, in 1696, the Count de
Frontenac marched a well-appointed army into
the Iroquois country, with artillery and all
other means of regular military offence, he
found, on the banks of the Onondaga, now
called Oswego River, a tree, on the trunk of
which the Indians had depicted the French
army, and deposited two bundles of cut
rushes at its foot, consisting of 1434
pieces; an act of symbolical defiance on
their part, which was intended to inform
their Gallic invaders that they would have
to encounter this number of warriors. In
speaking, in another passage, of the general
traits of the Five Nations, he mentions the
general custom prevalent among the Mohawks
going to war, of painting with red paint on
the trunk of a tree, such symbols as might
serve to denote the object of their
expedition. Among the devices was a canoe
pointed towards the enemy s country. On
their return, it was their practice to visit
the same tree, or precinct, and denote the
result pictographically; the canoe being, in
this case, drawn with its bows in the
opposite or home direction. Lafitou, in his
account of the nations of Canada, makes
observations on this subject which denote
the general prevalence of the custom in that
quarter. Other writers, dating as far back
as Smith and De Br4, bear testimony to the
existence of this trait among the Virginia
tribes. Few have, however, done more than
notice it, and none are known to have
furnished any amount of connected details.
A single element in the system attracted
early notice. I allude to the institution of
the Totem, which has been well known among
the Algonquin tribes from the settlement of
Canada. By this device, the early
missionaries observed that the natives
marked their division of a tribe into clans,
and of a clan into families, and the
distinction was thus very clearly preserved.
Affinities were denoted and kept up; long
after tradition had failed in its testimony.
This distinction, which is marked with much
of the certainty of heraldic bearings as
known in the feudal system, was seen to mark
the arms, the lodge, and the trophies of the
North American chief and warrior. It was
likewise employed to give identity to the
clan of which he was a member, on his
ad-je-dá-tig, or grave-post. This record
went but little farther in communicating
information; a few strokes or geometric
devices were drawn on these simple
monuments, to denote the number of men he
had slain in battle.
It has not been suspected, in any notices to
which I have had access, that there was what
may be called a pictorial alphabet, or a
series of homophonous figures, in which, by
the juxtaposition of symbols representing
acts, as well as objects of action, and by
the introduction of simple adjunct signs, a
series of disjunctive, yet generally
connected ideas, were denoted; or that the
most prominent incidents of life and death
could be recorded so as to be transmitted
from one generation to another, as long, at
least, as the monument and the people
endured. Above all, it was not anticipated
that there should have been found, as will
be observed in the subsequent details, a
system of symbolic notation for the songs
and incantations of the Indian medas and
priests, making an appeal to the memory for
the preservation of language and musical
notes.
Persons familiar with the state of the
western tribes of this continent,
particularly in the higher northern
latitudes, have long been aware that the
songs of the Indian priesthood and wabenoes,
were sung from a kind of pictorial notation,
made on bark.
It is a fact which has often come to the
observation of military officers performing
duties on those frontiers, and of persons
exercising occasional functions in civil
life, who have passed through their
territories. But there is no class of
persons to whom the fact of such notations
is so well known, as the class of Indian
traders and interpreters who visit or reside
a part of the season at the Indian villages.
I have never conversed with any of this
latter class of persons, to whom the fact of
such inscriptions, made in various ways, was
not so familiar as in their view to excite
no surprise, or seldom to demand remark.
My attention was first called to the subject
in 1820. In the summer of that year I was a
member of the United States exploring
expedition to the sources of the
Mississippi. At the mouth of the small river
Huron, on the banks of the Lake Superior,
there was an Indian grave fenced around with
saplings, and protected with much care. At
its head stood a post, a tabular stick, upon
which was drawn the figure of the animal
which was the symbol of the clan to which
the deceased chief belonged. Strokes of red
paint were added, to denote either the
number of war parties in which he had been
engaged, or the number of scalps he had
actually taken from the enemy. The
interpreter who accompanied us, and who was
himself of part Indian blood, gave the
latter, as the true import of these marks.
On quitting the river St. Louis, which flows
into the head of the lake at the Fond du
Lac, to cross the summit dividing its waters
from those of the Mississippi, the way led
through dense and tangled woods and swamps,
and the weather proved dark and rainy, so
that, for a couple of days together, we had
scarcely a glimpse of the sun.
The party consisted of sixteen persons, with
two Indian guides; but the latter, with all
their adroitness in threading the mazes of
the wilderness, were completely lost for
nearly an entire day. At night, during the
bewilderment, we lay down on ground elevated
but a few inches above the level of a swamp.
The next morning, as we prepared to leave
the camp, a small strip of birch bark,
containing devices, was observed elevated on
the top of a split sapling, some eight or
ten feet high. One end of this pole was
thrust firmly into the ground, leaning in
the direction we were to go. On going up to
this object, it was found, with the aid of
the interpreter, to be a symbolic record of
the circumstances of our crossing this
summit, and of the night s encampment at
this spot. Each person was appropriately
depicted, distinguishing the soldiers from
the officer in command, and the latter from
the savans of the party. The Indians
themselves were depicted without hats; a hat
being, as we noticed, the general symbol for
a white man or European. The entire record,
of which a figure is annexed, (Plate 47,
fig. D,) accurately symbolized the
circumstances; and they were so clearly
drawn, according to their conventional
rules, that the intelligence would be
communicated thereby to any of their people
who might chance to wander this way. This
was the object of the inscription. The
scroll was interpreted thus:
Fig. No. 1 represents the subaltern officer
in command of the party of the United States
troops. He is drawn with a sword to denote
his official rank. No. 2 denotes the person
who officiated in quality of secretary. He
is represented as holding a book; the
Indians having understood him to be an
attorney. No. 3 denotes the geologist and
mineralogist of the party. He is drawn with
a hammer. Nos. 4 and 5 are attaches; No. 6,
the interpreter.
The group of figures marked 9, represents
eight infantry soldiers, each of whom, as
shown in group No. 10, was armed with a
musket. No. 15 denotes that they had a
separate fire, and constituted a separate
mess. Figs. 7 and 8 represent the two
Chippewa guides, the principal of whom,
called Chamees, or the Pouncing-hawk, led
the way over this dreary summit. These are
the only human figures depicted on this
unique bark-letter, who are drawn without
the distinguishing symbol of a hat. This was
the characteristic seized on by them, and
generally employed by the tribes, to
distinguish the Red from the White race.
Figs. 11 and 12 represent a prairie hen, and
a green tortoise, which constituted the sum
of the preceding day s chase, which were
eaten at the encampment. The inclination of
the pole was designed to show the course
pursued from that particular spot: there
were three hacks in it below the scroll of
bark, to indicate the estimated length of
this part of the journey, computing from
water to water; that is to say, from the
head of the portage Aux Couteaux, on the St.
Louis river, to the open shores of Sandy
Lake, the Ka-ma-ton-go-gom-ag, or Comtaguma
of the Odjibwas.
The story was thus briefly and simply told;
and this memorial was set up by the guides
to advertise any of their countrymen, who
might chance to wander in that direction, of
the adventure for it was evident, both from
the course taken, and the dubiousness which
had marked the prior day s wanderings, that
they regarded our transit over this broad
savannah in this light.
Before we had penetrated quite to this
summit, we came to another evidence of their
skill in this species of knowledge,
consisting of one of those contrivances
which they denominate Man-i-to-wa-tig, or
sacred structures. On reaching this spot,
our guides shouted, whether from
superstitious impulse, or the joy of having
found the spot, we could not tell: we judged
the latter. It consisted of eight poles, of
equal length, shaved smooth and round,
painted with yellow ochre, and set so as to
enclose a square area. It appeared to have
been one of those rude temples, or places of
incantation or worship, known to the medas
or priests, where certain rites and
ceremonies are per formed. But it was not an
ordinary medicine lodge. There had been far
more care in its construction.
On reaching the village of Sandy Lake, on
the upper Mississippi, the figures of
animals, birds, and other devices, were
found on the rude coffins or wrappings of
their dead, which were scaffolded around the
precincts of the fort, and upon the open
shores of the lake. Similar devices were
also observed here, as at other points in
this region, upon their arms, war-clubs,
canoes, and other pieces of movable
property, as well as upon their grave-posts.
In the descent of the Mississippi, we
observed pictorial devices painted on a
rock, below and near the mouth of Elk River,
and at a rocky island in the river, at the
Little Falls. In the course of our descent
to the Falls of St. Anthony, we observed
another bark-letter, (A, Plate 48,) as the
party now began to call these inscriptions,
suspended on a high pole, on an elevated
bank of the river, on its west shore. At
this spot, where we encamped for the night,
and which is just opposite a point of highly
crystallized hornblende rock, which, from
this rude memorial, we called the Peace
Rock, there were left standing the poles or
skeletons of a great number of Sioux lodges.
On inspecting this scroll of bark, we found
it had reference to negotiations for
bringing about a permanent peace between the
Sioux and Chippewas. A large party of the
former, from St. Peters, headed by their
chief, had proceeded thus far, in the hope
of meeting the Chippewa hunters, on their
summer hunt. They had been countenanced or
directed in this step by Colonel
Leavenworth, the commanding officer of the
new post, just then about to be erected. The
inscription, which was read off at once by
the Chippewa chief Babesacundabee, who was
with us, told all this; it gave the name of
the chief who had led the party, and the
number of his followers, and imparted to
that chief the first assurance he had that
his mission, for the same purpose, from the
sources of the Mississippi, would be
favorably received by the Sioux. This
scroll, denoting the same art to be
possessed by the Dacota family of tribes, is
described in Plate 48.
After our arrival at St. Anthony s Falls, it
was found that this system of picture
writing was as familiar to the Dacotah, as
we had found it among the Algonquin race. At
Prairie du Chien, and at Green Bay, the same
evidences were observed, in their memorials
of burial, among the Menomonies and the
Winnebagoes; at Chicago among the
Pottawatomies, and at Michillimackinac,
among the Chippewas and Ottawas who resort,
in such numbers, to that Island. While at
the latter place, I went to visit the grave
of a noted chief of the Menomonie tribe, who
had been known by his French name of TOMA,
i. e., Thomas. He had been buried on the
hill west of the village; and on looking at
his Ad-je-da-tig or grave-post, it bore a
pictorial inscription of this kind,
commemorating some of the prominent
achievements of his life.
These hints served to direct my attention to
the subject, when I returned to the country
in an official capacity, in 1822. It was
observed that the figures of a deer, a bear,
a turtle, and a crane, according to this
system, stand respectively for the names of
men, and preserve the language very well, by
yielding to the person conversant with it
the corresponding words, of Addick, Muckwa,
Mickenack, and Adjeejauk. Marks, circles,
dots, and drawings of various kinds, were
employed to symbolize the number of warlike
deeds. Adjunct devices appeared to typify or
explain adjunct acts. The character itself,
they called KEKEEWIN. If the system went no
farther, the record would yield a kind of
information both gratifying and useful to a
people without letters. There was abundant
evidence in my first year s observation, to
denote that this mode of communication was
in vogue generally and well understood by
the northern tribes, for burial, and what
may be called geographical purposes; but it
hardly seemed susceptible of a farther or
extended use. A personal acquaintance with
one of their Medas named SHINGWAUKONCE, a
man of much intelligence, and well versed in
their customs, religion, and history,
denoted a more enlarged application of it. I
observed in the hands of this man a tabular
piece of wood, covered over on both sides
with a series of devices cut between
parallel lines, which he referred to, as if
they were the notes of his medicine and
mystical songs. I heard him sing these
songs, and observed that their succession
was, to a great extent, fixed and uniform.
By cultivating his acquaintance, and by
suitable attentions and presents, such as
the occasion rendered proper, he consented
to explain the meaning of each figure, the
object symbolized, and the words attached to
each symbol. By this revelation, which was
made with closed doors, I became, according
to his notions, a member or initiate of the
Medicine Society, and also of the Wabeno
Society. Care was taken to write each
sentence of the songs and chants in the
Indian language, with its appropriate
devices, and to subjoin a literal
translation in English. When this had been
done, and the system considered, it was very
clear that the devices were mnemonic that
any person could sing from these devices,
very accurately, what he had previously
committed to memory, and that the system
revealed a curious scheme of symbolic
notation.
All the figures thus employed as the
initiatory points of study, related,
exclusively, to either the medicine dance,
or the wabeno dance; and each section of
figures related, exclusively, to one or the
other. There was some intermixture or
commingling of characters, as the class of
subjects was sometimes common to each. It
was perceived, subsequently, that the
pictographic signs permitted a
classification of symbols, applied to the
war-songs, to hunting, and to other specific
topics. The entire inscriptive system,
reaching from its first rudimental
characters in the ad-je-da-tig, or
grave-board, to the extended scroll of bark,
covered with the secret arts of their
magicians, jossa-keeds, and prophets,
derived a new interest from this feature.
Much comparative precision was imparted to
interpretations in the hands of the
initiated, which before, or to others, had
very little. An interest was thus cast over
it distinct from its novelty; and, in truth,
the entire pictorial system was invested
with a character of investigation, which
promised both interest and instruction.
It has been thought that a simple statement
of these circumstances would best answer the
end in view, and might well occupy the place
of a more formal or profound introduction.
In bringing forward the elements of the
system, after much reflection, it is
thought, however, that a few remarks on the
general character of this art may not be out
of place: for, simple as it is, we perceive
in it the native succedaneum for letters. It
is not only the sole graphic mode they have
for communicating ideas, but it is the mode
of communicating all classes of ideas
commonly entertained by them. So considered,
it reveals a new and unsuspected mode of
obtaining light on their opinions of a
deity, of the structure or cosmogony of the
globe, of astronomy, of the various classes
of natural objects, their ideas of
immortality and a future state, and the
prevalent notions of the union of spiritual
and material matter. So wide and varied,
indeed, is the range opened by the subject
of pictography, that we may consider the
Indian system of figure-writing as the
thread which ties up the scroll of the Red
Man's views of life and death; that it
reveals the true theory of his hopes and
fears, and denotes the relation he bears, in
the secret chambers of his own thoughts, to
his Maker. What a stoic and suspicious
temper would often hold him back from
uttering to another, and what limited
language would sometimes prevent his fully
revealing, if he wished, symbols and figures
can be made to represent and express. The
Indian is not a man prone to describe his
god, personal or general, but he is ready to
depict him by a symbol. He may conceal,
under the figures of a serpent, a turtle, or
a wolf, wisdom, strength, or malignity; or
convey, under the picture of a sun, the idea
of a Supreme, All-seeing Intelligence. But
he is not prepared to discourse upon these
things. What he believes on this head he
will not declare to a white man or a
stranger. His happiness and success in life
are thought to depend upon the secrecy of
that knowledge of the Creator and his
system, in the Indian view of benign and
malignant agents. To reveal this to others,
even to his own people, is, he believes, to
expose himself to the counteracting
influence of other agents known to his
subtle scheme of necromancy and
superstition, and to hazard success and life
itself. This conduces to make the Red Man
eminently a man of fear, suspicion, and
secrecy. But he cannot avoid some of these
disclosures in his pictures and figures.
These figures represent ideas whole ideas,
and their juxtaposition or relation on a
scroll of bark, a tree, or a rock, discloses
a continuity of ideas. This is the basis of
the system.
Picture-writing is indeed the literature of
the Indians. It cannot be interpreted,
however rudely, without letting one know
what the Red Man thinks and believes. It
shadows forth the Indian intellect, standing
in the place of letters for the unishinaba.2
It shows the Red Man, in all periods of our
history, both as he was and as he is; for
there is nothing more true than that, save
and except the comparatively few instances
where they have truly embraced experimental
Christianity, there has not been, beyond a
few customs, such as dress and other
externals, any appreciable and permanent
change in the Indian character since
Columbus first dropped anchor at the Island
of Guanahana.
1. London Edition, 1747,
page 190.
2. A generic term, denoting
the common people of the Indian race.
Archives Of
Aboriginal Knowledge
Archives Of Aboriginal
Knowledge, Henry R. Schoolcraft, 1860
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