The whole signifies that there is nothing to eat in the house. This is used by natives of Southern Alaska.
Fig. 465.—Starving hunters. Alaska.
Fig. 465, with the same signification and from the same hand, is similar to the preceding in general design. This is placed in the ground near the landing place of the canoemen, so that the top points toward the lodge. The following is the explanation of the characters:
a, Baidarka, showing double projections at bow, as well as the two men, owners, in the boat; b, a man making the gesture for nothing (see in this connection Fig. [983]); c, gesture drawn, denoting to eat, with the right hand, while the left points to the lodge; d, a winter habitation.
This is used by the Alaskan coast natives.
SECTION 4.
WARNING AND GUIDANCE.
The following description of an Ojibwa notice of a murderer’s being at large is extracted from Tanner’s Narrative: (d).
As I was one morning passing one of our usual encamping places I saw on shore a little stick standing in the bank and attached to the top of it a piece of birchbark. On examination I found the mark of a rattlesnake with a knife, the handle touching the snake and the point sticking into a bear, the head of the latter being down. Near the rattlesnake was the mark of a beaver, one of its dugs, it being a female, touching the snake. This was left for my information, and I learned from it that Wa-me-gon-a-biew, whose totem was She-she-gwah, the rattlesnake, had killed a man whose totem was Muk-kwah, the bear. The murderer could be no other than Wa-me-gon-a-biew, as it was specified that he was the son of a woman whose totem was the beaver, and this I knew could be no other than Net-no-kwa.
An amusing instance of the notice or warning, “No thoroughfare,” is presented in Fig. 466. It was taken in 1880 from a rock drawing in Canyon de Chelly, New Mexico, by Mr. J. K. Hillers, photographer of the U. S. Geological Survey.