Fig. 141.—Plenty Buffalo meat. Dakota.
The forked stick being one of the supports of a drying-pole or scaffold, indicates meat. The circle may represent a pit or “cache” in which buffalo meat was placed during the winter of 1703-’04, or it may mean “heap”—i. e., large quantity, buffalo having been very plentiful that year. The buffalo head denotes the kind of meat stored. This is an abbreviated form of the device immediately following, and being fully understood affords a suggestive comparison with some Egyptian hieroglyphs and Chinese letters, both in their full pictographic origin and in their abbreviation.
Figure 142 is taken from the same count for the year 1745-’46, in which the drying-pole is supported by two forked sticks or poles, only one of which, without the drying-pole, was indicated in the preceding figure, which is an abbreviated or conventionalized form of the objective representation in the pre-present figure, viz., a scaffold or pole upon which buffalo meat was placed for drying. Buffalo were very plentiful during the winter of 1745-’46, and the kind of meat is denoted by the buffalo head placed above the pole, from which meat appears suspended.
Fig. 142.—Plenty Buffalo meat. Dakota.
Figure 143 is taken from Prince Maximilian’s Travels, op. cit. p. 352. The cross signifies, I will barter or trade. Three animals are drawn on the right hand of the cross; one is a buffalo (probably albino); the two others, a weasel (Mustela Canadensis) and an otter. The pictographer offers in exchange for the skins of these animals the articles which he has drawn on the left side of the cross. He has there, in the first place, depicted a beaver very plainly, behind which there is a gun; to the left of the beaver are thirty strokes, each ten separated by a longer line; this means: I will give thirty beaver skins and a gun for the skins of the three animals on the right hand of the cross.
Fig. 143.—Pictograph for trade. Dakota.
The ideographic character of the design consists in the use of the cross—being a drawing of the gesture-sign for “trade”—the arms being in position interchanged. Of the two things each one is put in the place before occupied by the other thing—the idea of exchange.