The following is the explanation of the characters:
a, b, deer; c, porcupine; d, winter, or permanent, habitation. The cross-piece resting upon two vertical poles constitutes the rack, used for drying fish; e, one of the natives occupying the same lodge with the recorder; f, the hunter whose exploits are narrated; g, h, i, beavers; j, k, l, m, n, martens; o, a weasel, according to the interpretation, although there are no specific characters to identify it as different from the preceding; p, land otter; q, a bear; r, a fox; s, a walrus; t, a seal; u, a wolf.
By comparing the illustration with the text it will be observed that all the animals secured are turned toward the house of the speaker, while the heads of those animals desired, but not obtained, are turned away from it.
The following is the text in the Kiatéxamut dialect of the Innuit language as dictated by the Alaskan, with his own literal translation into English:
Huí-nu-ná-ga | huí-pu-qtú-a | pi-cú-qu-lú-a | mus'-qu-lí-qnut. | Pa-mú-qtu-līt'
I, (from) my place. (settlement.) | I went | hunting | (for) skins. (animals) | martens
ta-qí-mĕn, | a-mí-da-duk' | a-xla-luk', | á-qui-á-muk | pi-qú-a | a-xla-luk';
five, | weasel | one, | land otter | caught | one;
ku-qú-lu-hú-nu-mŭk' | a-xla-luk', | tun'-du-muk | tú-gu-qlí-u-gú | me-lú-ga-nuk',
wolf | one, | deer | (I) killed | two,
pé-luk | pi-naí-u-nuk, | nú-nuk | pit'-qu-ní, | ma-klak-muk' | pit'-qu-ní,
beaver | three, | porcupine | (I) caught none, | seal | (I) caught none,
a-cí-a-na-muk | pit'-qu-ni, | ua-qí-la-muk | pit'-qu-ní, | ta-gú-xa-muk | pit'-qu-ní.
walrus | (I) caught none, | fox | (I) caught none, | bear | (I) caught none.
CHAPTER XVIII.
IDEOGRAPHY.
The imagination is stimulated and developed by the sense of sight more than by any other sense, perhaps more than by all of the other senses combined. The American Indians, and probably all savages, are remarkable for acute and critical vision, and also for their retentive memory of what they have once seen. When significance is once attached to an object seen, it will always be recalled, though often with false deductions. Therefore, like deaf-mutes, who depend mainly on sight, the American Indians have developed great facility in communicating by signs, and also in expressing their ideas in pictures which are ideographic though seldom artistic. This tendency has likewise affected their spoken languages. Their terms express with wonderful particularity the characters and relations of visible objects, and their speeches, which are in a high degree metaphoric, become so by the figurative presentation in words of such objects accompanied generally by imitative signs for them, and often by their bodily exhibition.
The statement once made that the aboriginal languages of North America are not capable of expressing abstract ideas is incorrect, but the tendency to use tangible and visible forms for such ideas is apparent. This practice was most marked in reference to religious subjects, which were often presented under the veil of symbols, as has been the common expedient of most peoples who have emerged from the very lowest known stages of human culture, but have not attained the highest.
Many instances appear in this work in which pictures expressive of an idea present more than mere portraitures of objects, which latter method has been styled imitative or iconographic writing.