ERRORS AND FRAUDS.
No large amount of space need be occupied in the mention of recognized pictographic frauds, their importance being small, but much more than is now allowed would be required for the discussion of controverted cases.
There is little inducement, beyond a disposition to hoax, to commit actual frauds in the fabrication of rock-carvings. The instances where inscribed stones from mounds have been ascertained to be forgeries or fictitious drawings have been about equally divided between simple mischief and an attempt either to increase the marketable value of some real estate, supposed to contain more, or to sell the specimens.
With regard to the much more familiar and more portable material of engraved pipes, painted robes and like curios, it is well known to all recent travelers in the West who have had former experience that the fancy prices paid by amateurs for those decorations have stimulated their wholesale manufacture by Indians at agencies (locally termed “coffee-coolers”), who make a business of sketching upon ordinary robes or plain pipes the characters in common use by them, without regard to any real event or person, and selling them as curious records.
This pictorial forgery would seem to show a gratifying advance of the Indians in civilization, but it is feared that the credit of the invention is chiefly due to some enterprising traders who have been known to furnish the unstained robes, plain pipes, paints, and other materials for the purpose, and simply pay a skillful Indian for his work, when the fresh antique or imaginary chronicle is delivered.
Six inscribed copper plates were said to have been found in a mound near Kinderhook, Pike County, Illinois, which were reported to bear a close resemblance to Chinese. This resemblance seemed not to be so extraordinary when it was ascertained that the plate had been engraved by the village blacksmith, copied from the lid of a Chinese tea-chest.
Mica plates were found in a mound at Lower Sandusky, Ohio, which, after some attempts at interpretation, proved to belong to the material known as graphic or hieroglyphic mica, the discolorations having been caused by the infiltration of mineral solution between the laminæ.
The following recent notice of a case of alleged fraud is quoted from Science, Vol. III, No. 58, March 14, 1884, page 334:
Dr. N. Roe Bradner exhibited [at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,] an inscribed stone found inside a skull taken from one of the ancient mounds at Newark, Ohio, in 1865. An exploration of the region had been undertaken in consequence of the finding of stones bearing markings somewhat resembling Hebrew letters, in the hope of finding other specimens of a like character. The exploration was supposed to have been entirely unproductive of such objects until Dr. Bradner had found the engraved stone, now exhibited, in a skull which had been given to him.
This was supplemented by an editorial note in No. 62 of the same publication, page 467, as follows:
A correspondent from Newark, Ohio, warns us that any inscribed stones said to originate from that locality may be looked upon as spurious. Years ago certain parties in that place made a business of manufacturing and burying inscribed stones and other objects in the autumn, and exhuming them the following spring in the presence of innocent witnesses. Some of the parties to these frauds afterwards confessed to them; and no such objects, except such as were spurious, have ever been known from that region.
The correspondent of Science probably remembered the operations of David Wyrick, of Newark, who, to prove his theory that the Hebrews were the mound-builders, discovered in 1860 a tablet bearing on one side a truculent “likeness” of Moses with his name in Hebrew, and on the other a Hebrew abridgment of the ten commandments. A Hebrew bible afterwards found in Mr. Wyrick’s private room threw some light on the inscribed characters.
As the business of making and selling archæological frauds has become so extensive in Egypt and Palestine, it can be no matter of surprise that it has been attempted by the enterprising people of the United States. The Bureau of Ethnology has discovered several centers of that fraudulent industry.
Without further pursuing the subject of mercenary frauds, an example may be mentioned which was brought forth during the researches of the present writer and his assistant, Dr. Hoffman, which is probably as good a case of a modern antique in this line as can be presented. Figure 208 is a copy of a drawing taken from an Ojibwa pipe-stem, obtained by Dr. Hoffman from an officer of the United States Army, who had procured it from an Indian in Saint Paul, Minnesota. On a later and more minute examination, it appeared that the pipe-stem had been purchased at a store in Saint Paul, which had furnished a large number of similar objects, so large as to awaken suspicion that they were in the course of daily manufacture. The figures and characters on the pipe-stem were drawn in colors. In the present figure, which is without colors, the horizontal lines represent blue and the vertical red, according to the heraldic scheme several times used in this paper. The outlines were drawn in a dark neutral tint, in some lines approaching black; the triangular characters, representing lodges, being also in a neutral tint, or an ashen hue, and approaching black in several instances. The explanation of the figures, made before there was any suspicion of their real character, is as follows:
Fig. 208.—Specimen of imitated pictograph.
The first figure is that of a bear, representing the individual to whom the record pertains. The three hearts above the line, according to an expression in gesture language, signifies a brave heart; increased numbers indicating much or many, i. e., a large brave heart.
The second figure, a circle inclosing a triradiate character, refers to the personal totem. The character in the middle resembles, to some extent, the pictograph sometimes found to represent stars, though in the latter the lines center upon the disks and not at a common point.
The seven triangular characters represent the lodges of a village to which the individual to whom reference is made belongs.
The serpentine line immediately below these signifies a stream or river, near which the village is located.
The two persons holding guns in their left hands, together with another having a spear, appear to be the companions of the speaker, all of whom are members of the turtle gens, as shown by that reptile.
The curve from left to right is a representation of the sky, the sun having appeared upon the left or eastern horizon when the transaction below mentioned was enacted. In an explanation by gesture, or by pictograph, the speaker always faces the south, or conducts himself as if he did so, and begins on the left side to convey the idea of morning, if day; the hand, or line, is drawn all the way from the eastern horizon to the western. The above, then, represents the morning when a female—headless body of a woman—a member of the crane gens, was killed.
The figure of a bear below is the same apparently as number one, though turned to the right. The heart is reversed to denote sadness, grief, remorse, as expressed in gesture-language, and to atone for the misdeed committed in the proceeding the pipe is brought and offering made to the “Great Spirit.”
Altogether, the act depicted appears to have been accidental, the woman belonging to the same tribe, as can be learned from the gens of which she was a member. The regret or sorrow signified in the bear, next to the last figure, corresponds with that supposition, as such feelings would not be congruous to the Indian in the case of an enemy.
The point of interest in this pictograph is, that the figures are very skillfully copied from the numerous characters of the same kind representing Ojibwa pictographs, and given by Schoolcraft. The arrangement of these copied characters is precisely that which would be natural in the similar work of Indians. In fact, the groups constitute a thoroughly genuine pictograph, and afford a good illustration of the manner in which a record can be made. The fact that it was made and sold under false representations is its objectionable feature.
An inscribed stone found in Grave Creek Mound, near the Ohio River, in 1838, has been the subject of much linguistic contention among those who admitted its authenticity. Twenty-four characters on it have been considered to be alphabetic and one is a supposed hieroglyphic sign. Mr. Schoolcraft says that twenty-two of the characters are alphabetic, but there has been a difference of opinion with regard to their origin. One scholar finds among them four characters which he claims are ancient Greek; another claims that four are Etruscan; five have been said to be Runic; six, ancient Gaelic; seven, old Erse; ten, Phœnician; fourteen, old British; and sixteen, Celteberic. M. Levy Bing reported at the Congress of Americanists at Nancy, in 1875, that he found in the inscription twenty-three Canaanite letters, and translated it: “What thou sayest, thou dost impose it, thou shinest in thy impetuous clan and rapid chamois.”(!) M. Maurice Schwab in 1857 rendered it: “The Chief of Emigration who reached these places (or this island) has fixed these statutes forever.” M. Oppert, however, gave additional variety by the translation, so that all tastes can be suited: “The grave of one who was assassinated here. May God to avenge him strike his murderer, cutting off the hand of his existence.”
For further particulars on this topic reference may be made to Colonel Charles Whittlesey’s Archæological Frauds, in several tracts, and to The Mound Builders, by J. P. MacLean, Cincinnati, 1879, p. 90, et seq.
From considerations mentioned in the introduction of this paper, and others that are obvious, any inscriptions purporting to be pre-Columbian showing apparent use of alphabetic characters, signs of the zodiac, or other evidences of a culture higher than that known among the North American Indians, must be received with caution, but the pictographs may be altogether genuine, and their erroneous interpretation be the sole ground of their being discredited.
In this connection some allusion may be made to the learned discussions upon the Dighton rock before mentioned. The originally Algonkian characters were translated by a Scandinavian antiquary as an account of the party of Thorfinn, the Hopeful. A distinguished Orientalist made out clearly the word melek (king). Another scholar triumphantly established the characters to be Scythian, and still another made them Phœnician. But this inscription has been so manipulated that it is difficult now to determine the original details.
The course above explained, viz., to attempt the interpretation of all unknown American pictographs by the aid of actual pictographers among the living Indians, should be adopted regarding all remarkable “finds.” This course was pursued by Mr. Horatio N. Rust, of Pasadena, California, regarding the much-discussed Davenport Tablets, in the genuineness of which he believes, and which is not here placed in question. Mr. Rust exhibited the drawings to Dakotas, with the result made public at the late Montreal meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and also in a letter, an extract from which is as follows:
As I made the acquaintance of several of the older and more intelligent members of the tribe, I took the opportunity to show them the drawings. Explaining that they were pictures copied from stones found in a mound, I asked what they meant. They readily gave me the same interpretation (and in no instance did either interpreter know that another had seen the pictures, so there could be no collusion). In Plate I, of the Davenport Inscribed Tablets [so numbered in the Proceedings of the Davenport Academy, Vol. II], the lower central figure represents a dome-shaped lodge, with smoke issuing from the top, behind and to either side of which appears a number of individuals with hands joined, while three persons are depicted as lying upon the ground. Upon the right and left central margins are the sun and moon, the whole surmounted by three arched lines, between each of which, as well as above them, are numerous unintelligible characters. * * * The central figure, which has been supposed by some to represent a funeral pile, was simply the picture of a dirt lodge. The irregular markings apparently upon the side and to the left of the lodge represent a fence made of sticks and brush set in the ground. The same style of fence may be seen now in any Sioux village.
The lines of human figures standing hand-in-hand indicate that a dance was being conducted in the lodge. The three prostrate forms at right and left sides of the lodge represent two men and a woman who, being overcome by the excitement and fatigue of the dance, had been carried out in the air to recover. The difference in the shape of the prostrate forms indicates the different sexes.
The curling figures or rings above the lodge represent smoke, and indicates that the dance was held in winter, when fire was used.
An example of forced interpretation of a genuine petroglyph is given by Lieutenant J. W. Gunnison, U. S. Top. Engineers, in his work entitled The Mormons, or, Latter-day Saints, in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, etc., Philadelphia, 1852, pp. 62, 63. He furnishes two illustrations of petroglyphs taken from the cliff in Sam Pete Valley, Utah, not reproduced in this paper, which resemble the general type of the Shoshonian system. On account of various coincidences which have occurred to strikingly keep alive in the mountain brethren their idea of being the chosen of the Lord, these etchings confirm them in the belief of the inspiration of the Book of Mormon. One of their Regents has translated one of them as follows:
I, Mahanti, the 2nd King of the Lamanites, in five valleys in the mountains, make this record in the 12 hundredth year since we came out of Jerusalem. And I have three sons gone to the South country to live by hunting antelope and deer.
Among the curiosities of literature in connection with the interpretation of pictographs may be mentioned La Vèritè sur le Livre des Sauvages, par L’Abbé Em. Domenech, Paris, 1861, and Researches into the Lost Histories of America, by W. S. Blacket, London and Philadelphia, 1884.
Under the head of errors some of the most marked have arisen from the determination of enthusiastic symbolists to discover something mystical in the form of the cross wherever found.
The following quotation is taken from a work by Gabriel de Mortillet, entitled Le Signe de la Croix avant le Christianisme (Paris, Reinwald, 1866), p. 173:
On voit qu’il ne peut plus y avoir de doute sur l’emploi de la Croix comme signe religieux, bien longtemps avant le christianisme. Le culte de la Croix, répandu en Gaule avant la conquête, existait déjà dans l’Émilie à l’époque du bronze, plus de mille aus avant Jésus-Christ.
C’est surtout dans les sépultures de Golasecca où ce culte s’est révélé de la manière la plus complète; et là, chose étrange, on a trouvé un vase portant le monogramme ancien du Christ, figure 117 [reproduced in the present paper by Figure 209; the right-hand figure being from the vase, and that on the left the recognized monogram of Christ], dessiné peut-être mille ans avant la venue de Jésus-Christ. La présence isolée de ce monogramme du Christ au milieu de nombreuses Croix est-elle un fait accidentel entièrement fortuit? Des recherches plus complètes peuvent seules permettre de répondre à cette question.
Un autre fait fort curieux, très-intéressant à constater, c’est que ce grand développement du culte de la Croix, avant la venue du Christ, semble toujours coïncider avec l’absence d’idoles et même de toute représentation d’objets vivants. Dès que ces objets se montrent, on dirait que les Croix deviennent plus rares et finissent même par disparaître.
La Croix a donc été, dans la haute antiquité, bien longtemps avant la venue de Jésus-Christ, l’emblème sacré d’une secte religieuse qui repoussait l’idolâtrie!!!
Fig. 209.—Symbols of the cross.
The author, with considerable naiveté, has evidently determined that the form of the cross was significant of a high state of religious culture, and that its being succeeded by effigies, which he calls idols, showed a lapse into idolatry. The fact is simply that, next to one straight line, the combination of two straight lines forming a cross is the easiest figure to draw, and its use before art could attain to the drawing of animal forms, or their representation in plastic material, is merely an evidence of crudeness or imperfection in designing. It is worthy of remark that Dr. Schliemann, in his “Troja,” page 107, presents as Fig. 38 a much more distinct cross than that given by M. Mortillet, with the simple remark that it is “a geometrical ornamentation.” An anecdote told by Dr. Robert Fletcher, U. S. Army, in connection with his exhaustive paper on Tattooing Among Civilized People, published in the Transactions of the Anthropological Society of Washington, Vol. II, page 40, is also in point. Some savants were much excited over the form of the cross found in tattoo marks on an Arab boy, but on inquiry of the mother as to why the cross had been placed there, she simply answered “because it looked pretty.” The present writer will add to the literature on the subject a reference to the cross as shown upon the arm of a Cheyenne in Cloud-Shield’s winter count for the year 1790-’91, page [132], ante. (See also page [173].) This is explained fully by one of the common gestures for the tribal sign, Cheyenne.
“The extended index, palm upward, is drawn across the forefinger of the left hand, palm inward, several times, left hand stationary; right hand is drawn toward the body until the index is drawn clear off; then repeat. Some Cheyennes believe this to have reference to the former custom of cutting the arm as offerings to spirits, while others think that it refers to a more ancient custom, the cutting of the enemy’s fingers for necklaces.” The pictograph is simply a graphic representation of this gesture sign. See also the Moki use of the Maltese cross, page [232], the form of which in a rock-painting appears in x on Plate II, page [35].
There is no doubt that among the Egyptians and several of the peoples of the eastern hemisphere, ancient and modern, the form of the cross was used symbolically, and there is no more doubt that it was employed in a similar manner by many American tribes with reference to the points of the compass, or rather the four winds. It was also used with many differing significations. See in this paper Figure 60, page [158], Figure 143, page [220], Figure 154, page [230], Figure 165, page [238], and Figure 168, page [240]. The ease with which the design was made would tend to its early adoption as a sign, an emblem, or a symbol.
Rev. S. D. Hinman states that among the Dakota, symbolic crosses always have the members equal, or of the “Greek” pattern, and are always worn resting on one foot, not two as in the St. Andrew’s cross. They represent the four winds issuing from the four caverns in which the souls of men existed before embodiment. The top of the cross is the cold, all-conquering giant, the north wind. As worn on the body it is nearest the head, the seat of intelligence. The top arm, covering the heart, is the east wind, coming from the seat of life and love. The foot is the burning south wind, indicating as it is worn the seat of passion and fiery lust. The right is the gentle west wind, blowing from the spirit land, covering the lungs, from which at last the breath goes out. The center of the cross is the earth and man, sometimes indicated at that point by a circle surrounding a dot. On the upper arm an arrow is sometimes drawn, on the left a heart, on the right a star, and on the lower a sun.