Considering the character of the locality where this cloth was found, the number of forts there, the marshy land which prevented dry-shod communication between them, it can not be doubted that the subject matter was the representation of that region, but this representation is not a drawing on a plan, but is a description which does not only treat of the nature of the place and of the work that man raised there, but it also indicates the rôle that the inhabitants played there.
The function of the men with exaggerated ears and no arms was that of scouts. The armed men with normal ears were guards or warriors bearing different weapons, ax and club, and differently uniformed. The highest figure with one large ear was the chief of the garrison.
It will be noticed that the scouts have enormous feet which do not rest on the ground. This in connection with their exaggerated ears implies that their duty is to listen and when they hear the enemy not to engage him, as they have no arms or weapons, but to fly to the headquarters and make the report. The duty of the warriors is not to listen, so their ears are not abnormal, but to fight, and therefore they have arms, one of which is exposed and the other holds a weapon. Their feet are attached to their several stations. The chief must both listen and direct, wherefore he is drawn with one exaggerated ear and one arm. His feet do not touch the platform, which signifies that he has no special station, but must move wherever he is most needed.
SECTION 2.
SIGNS, SYMBOLS, AND EMBLEMS.
The terms sign, symbol, and emblem are often used interchangeably and therefore incorrectly. Many persons ascribe an occult and mystic signification to symbols, probably from their general religious and esoteric employment. All characters in Indian picture-writing have been loosely styled symbols, and, as there is no logical distinction between the characters impressed with enduring form and when merely outlined in the ambient air, all Indian gestures, motions, and attitudes, intended to be significant, might with equal appropriateness be called symbolic. But an Indian sign-talker or a deaf-mute represents a person by mimicry, and an object by the outline of some striking part of its form, or by the pantomime of some peculiarity in its actions or relations. Their attempt is to bring to mind the person or thing through its characteristics, not to distinguish the characteristics themselves, which is a second step. In the same manner a simple pictorial sign attempts to express an object, idea, or fact without any approach to symbolism. Symbols are less obvious and more artificial than mere signs, are not only abstract, but metaphysical, and often need explanation from history, religion, and customs. They do not depict, but suggest subjects; do not speak directly through the eye to the intelligence, but presuppose in the mind knowledge of an event or fact which the sign recalls. The symbols of the ark, dove, olive branch, and rainbow would be wholly meaningless to people unfamiliar with the Mosaic or some similar cosmology, as would the cross and the crescent be to those ignorant of history.
The loose classification by which symbols would include every gesture or pictorial sign that naturally or conventionally recalls a corresponding idea, only recognizes the fact that every action and object can, under some circumstances, become a symbol. And indeed lovers of the symbolic live in, on, and by the symbols which they manufacture.
A curious instance of the successful manufacture of a symbol by the ingenuity of one man is in the one now commonly pictured of a fish to represent Christ. The fish for obvious reasons has been connected with Eurasian mythology, and therefore was a heathen symbol many centuries before the Christian era; indeed, probably before the creed of the Israelites had become formulated. It was used metaphorically or emblematically by the early Christians without the apparent propriety of the lamb-bearing shepherd, the dove, and other emblems or symbols found in the catacombs, and Didron (b) says that only in the middle of the fourth century Optatus, bishop of Milesia, in Africa, declared the significance of the letters of the Greek word for fish, ΙΧΘΥΣ, to be the initials of Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς Θεοῦ Ὑιος Σωτηρ, which acrostic was received with acclamation, and new characteristics were from time to time invented, adding force to the thenceforth commonly displayed symbol. It may be noted that when symbols, which were generally religious, received acceptance, they were soon used objectively as amulets or talismans.
This chapter is not intended to be a treatise on symbolism, but it is proper to mention the distinction in the writer’s mind between a pictorial sign, an emblem, and a symbol; though it is not easy to preserve accurate discrimination in classification of ideographic characters. To partly express the distinction, nearly all of the characters in the Winter Counts in this work are regarded as pictorial signs, and the class represented by tribal and clan designations, 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 work. The pipe is generally a symbol of peace, although in certain positions and connections it signifies preparation for war, and, again, subsequent victory. The hatchet is a common symbol for war, and joined hands or approaching palms denote peace. The tortoise has been clearly used as a symbol for land, and many other examples can be admitted. Apart from the exaggerations of Schoolcraft, true symbolism is found among the Ojibwa, of which illustrations are presented. The accounts of the Zuñi, Moki, and Navajo, before mentioned, show the constant employment of symbolic devices by those tribes which are notably devoted to mystic ceremonies. Nevertheless the writer’s personal experience is that when he has at first supposed a character to be a genuine symbol, better means of understanding has often proved it to be not even an ideograph, but a mere objective representation. In this connection the remarks on the circle, in Lone-Dog’s Winter Count for 1811-’12, and those on the cross infra, may be in point.
The connection, to the unlettered Indian, between printed words, pictures, and signs, was well illustrated through the spontaneous copial, by a Cheyenne, of the ornate labels on packages of sugar and coffee, which he had seen at a reservation, and the lines of which he rather skillfully and very ingeniously repeated on a piece of paper when sending to a post-trader to purchase more of the articles. The printed label was to him the pictorial sign for those articles.
The following remarks are quoted from D’Alviella (a):