Pictographs of the North American Indians. A preliminary paper / Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1882-83, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1886, pages 3-256

by Garrick Mallery

SYMBOLISM.

The writer has, in a former publication, suggested the distinction to be made between a pictorial sign, an emblem, and a symbol; but it is not easy to preserve the discrimination in reference to ideographic characters which have often become conventionalized. To partly express the distinction, nearly all of the characters in the Dakota Winter Counts are regarded as pictorial signs, and the class represented by tribal signs, personal insignia, etc., is considered to belong to the category of emblems. There is no doubt, however, that true symbols exist among the Indians, as they must exist to some extent among all peoples not devoid of poetic imagination. Some of them are shown in this paper. The pipe is generally a symbol of peace, although in certain positions and connections it sometimes signifies preparation for war, and again subsequent victory. The hatchet is a common symbol for war, and closed hands or approaching palms denote friendship. The tortoise has been clearly used as a symbol for land, and many other examples can be admitted. If Schoolcraft is to be taken as uncontroverted authority, the symbolism of the Ojibwa rivalled that of the Egyptians, and the recent unpublished accounts of the Zuñi, Moki, and Navajo before mentioned indicate the frequent employment of symbolic devices by those tribes which are notably devoted to mystic ceremonies. Nevertheless, the writer’s personal experience is, that often when he has at first supposed a character to be a genuine symbol it has resulted, with better means of understanding, in being not even an ideograph but a mere objective representation. In this connection, the remarks on the circle on page [107], and those on Figure 206, on page [246], may be in point.

Another case for consideration occurs. The impression, real or represented, of a human hand is used in several regions in the world with symbolic significance. For instance, in Jerusalem a rough representation of a hand is reported by Lieutenant Conder (Palestine Exploration Fund, January, 1873, p. 16) to be marked on the wall of every house whilst in building by the native races. Some authorities connect it with the five names of God, and it is generally considered to avert the evil eye. The Moors generally, and especially the Arabs in Kairwan, employ the marks on their houses as prophylactics. Similar hand prints are found in the ruins of El Baird, near Petra. Some of the quaint symbolism connected with horns is supposed to originate from such hand marks. Among the North American Indians the mark so readily applied is of frequent occurrence, an instance, with its ascertained significance, being given on page [187], supra.

It has been recently ascertained that the figure of a hand, with extended fingers, is very common in the vicinity of ruins in Arizona as a rock-etching, and is also frequently seen daubed on the rocks with colored pigments or white clay. This coincidence would seem at first to assure symbolic significance and possibly to connect the symbolism of the two hemispheres. But Mr. Thomas V. Keam explains the Arizona etchings of hands, on the authority of the living Moki, as follows:

“These are vestiges of the test formerly practiced among young men who aspired for admission to the fraternity of Salyko. The Salyko is a trinity of two women and a woman from whom the Hopitus [Moki] first obtained corn. Only those were chosen as novices, the imprints of whose hands had dried on the instant.”

While the subject-matter is, therefore, ceremonial, there is absolutely no symbolism connected with it. The etchings either simply perpetuate the marks made in the several tests or imitate them.

In the present stage of the study no more can be suggested than that symbolic interpretations should be accepted with caution.

With regard to the symbolic use of material objects, which would probably be extended into graphic portrayal, the following remarks maybe given:

The Prince of Wied mentions (op. cit., Vol. I, p. 244) that in the Sac and Fox tribes the rattle of a rattlesnake attached to the end of the feather worn on the head signifies a good horse stealer. The stealthy approach of the serpent, accompanied with latent power, is here clearly indicated.

Mr. Schoolcraft says of the Dakotas that “some of the chiefs had the skins of skunks tied to their heels to symbolize that they never ran, as that animal is noted for its slow and self-possessed movements.” See Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontier, etc., Philadelphia, 1851, p. 214.

This is one of the many customs to be remembered in the attempted interpretations of pictographs. The present writer does not know that a skunk skin, or a strip of skin which might be supposed to be a skunk skin, attached to a human heel, has ever been used pictorially as the ideograph of courage or steadfastness, but with the knowledge of this objective use of the skins, if they were found so represented pictorially, as might well be expected, the interpretation would be suggested, without any direct explanation from Indians.