The feet of the accompanying Figure 184 cannot be seen, being hidden in the head of the figure beneath. It is squatting, with its hands on its knees, and has a wolf’s head. Arms, legs, mouth, jaws, nostrils, and ear-holes are scarlet; eyebrows, irises, and edges of the ears black. The figure is reproduced from The Northwest Coast of America, being results of recent ethnological researches from the collections of the Royal Museums at Berlin. (Trans. from German.) New York, Pl. 7, Fig. 3.
The accompanying illustration, Figure 185, represents a knife from Africa, which bears upon both sides of the blade incised characters of the human form, strikingly similar to those found among the Ojibwa. The lines running upward from the head are identical with an Ojibwa form of representing a meda, or Shaman, while the hour-glass form of body is also frequently found, though generally used to designate a woman, the lower part of the body representing the skirt. In the present instance, it may have allusion to the peculiar skirt-like dress often worn by the men among the tribes of Northern Africa.
Fig. 185.—Drawings on an African knife.
The lines extending from the middle of the body downward to below the skirt and terminating in an irregular knob somewhat resemble the Pueblo method of designating sex, the male being shown by a small cross, and the female by a simple, short, vertical line attached to the perinæum.
The upper character, in B, in addition to the line and circle extending downward from the lower extremity, shows a bird’s leg and toes at either side. This is also, according to Schoolcraft, an Ojibwa method of depicting a person or being who is endowed with the power of flight into the upper regions, hence one of superior knowledge.
The history of the knife here figured is received from Mr. Thomas M. Chatard, of the National Museum, who in turn obtained it from his father, Mr. F. E. Chatard, Baltimore, Maryland, who writes that it was obtained at Cape Mesurado, Africa, in November, 1822, where the natives had attacked a recently established colony. The Africans were repulsed, and the knife was subsequently picked up on the battle-field and brought to America by the late William Seton, an officer of the United States Navy.
CONVENTIONALIZING.
The course of conventionalizing is noticeable in pictographs as well as in gesture-signs, on the one hand, and, on the other, as it appears in all forms of graphic art. The analysis of such conventions in form could be pursued at great length with regard to the pictographs now known in the same manner as has been done with success by Dr. Harrison Allen in his work “An analysis of the Life-form in Art,” Philadelphia, 1875. Some suggestions may be obtained from the present paper, especially from examples given under the headings of Ideographs, page [219], and Homomorphs and Symmorphs, page [239]. See also conventionalized sign for Ponka in Winter Count No. I for 1778-79, on page [131], and for Mandan in the same count for 1783-84, on the same page; also the conventional sign for Cheyenne, Figure 78, page [173]; also the device for starvation, Figure 144, page [220], as conventionalized in Figure 145, page [221]. The limits of this paper will only allow of submitting in addition the following conventionalized forms of the human figure, in some cases being merely marks arbitrarily used to represent humanity: