Fig. 1072.—Dead. Iroquois.
In Doc. Hist. N. Y. (d), is the illustration now copied as Fig. 1072 with the statement that it shows the fashion of painting the dead among the Iroquois; the first two are men and the third is a woman, who is distinguished only by the waistcloth that she wears.
The device is further explained by the following paragraphs from the same volume, on p. 6, which add other details:
When they have lost any men on the field of battle they paint the men with the legs in the air and without heads, and in the same number as they have lost; and to denote the tribe to which they belonged, they paint the animal of the tribe of the deceased on its back, the paws in the air, and if it be the chief of the party that is dead, the animal is without the head.
If there be only wounded, they paint a broken gun which, however, is connected with the stock, or even an arrow, and to denote where they have been wounded, they paint the animal of the tribe to which the wounded belong with an arrow piercing the part in which the wound is located; and if it be a gunshot they make the mark of the ball on the body of a different color.
Fig. 1073.—Dead man. Arikara.
Fig. 1073.—This is drawn by the Arikara for “dead man” and perhaps suggests the concept of nothing inside, i. e., no life, with a stronger emphasis than given to “lean” in Fig. [903], supra. It must be noted, however, that the Hidatsa draw the same character for “man” simply.
La Salle, in 1680, wrote that when the Iroquois had killed people they made red strokes with the figure of a man drawn in black with bandaged eyes. As this bandaging was not connected with the form of killing, it may be conjectured that it ideographically meant death—the light of life put out.