Fig. 1115.—Tree.
The sign used by the Dakota, Hidatsa, and several other tribes for “tree” is made by holding the right hand before the body, back forward, fingers and thumb separated; then pushing it slightly upward, Fig. 1115; that for “grass” is the same, made near the ground; that for “grow” is made like “grass,” though, instead of holding the back of the hand near the ground, the hand is pushed upward in an interrupted manner, Fig. 1116. For “smoke” the hand (with the back down, fingers pointing upward as in grow) is then thrown upward several times from the same place instead of continuing the whole motion upward. Frequently the fingers are thrown forward from under the thumb with each successive upward motion. For “fire” the hand is employed as in the gesture for smoke, but the motion is frequently more waving, and in other cases made higher from the ground.
Fig. 1116.—Grow.
Symmorphs, a term suggested by the familiar “synonym,” are designs not of the same form, but which are used with the same significance or so nearly the same as to have only a slight shade of distinction and which sometimes are practically interchangeable. The comprehensive and metaphorical character of pictographs renders more of them interchangeable than is the case with words; still, like words, some pictographs with essential resemblance of meaning have partial and subordinate differences made by etymology or usage. Doubtless the designs are purposely selected to delineate the most striking outlines of an object or the most characteristic features of an action; but different individuals and likewise different bodies of people would often disagree in the selection of those outlines and features. In an attempt to invent an ideographic, not an iconographic, design for “bird,” any one of a dozen devices might have been agreed upon with equal appropriateness, and, in fact, a number have been so selected by several individuals and tribes, each one, therefore, being a symmorph of the other. Gesture language gives another example in the signs for “deer,” designated by various modes of expressing fleetness, also by his gait when not in rapid motion, by the shape of his horns, by the color of his tail, and sometimes by combinations of those characteristics. Each of these signs and of the pictured characters corresponding with them may be indefinitely abbreviated and therefore create indefinite diversity. Some examples appropriate to this line of comparison are now presented.
SKY.
Fig. 1117.—Sky.
The Indian gesture sign for sky, heaven, is generally made by passing the index from east to west across the zenith. This curve is apparent in the Ojibwa pictograph, the left-hand character of Fig. 1117, reported in Schoolcraft (q), and is abbreviated in the Egyptian character with the same meaning, the middle character of the same figure, from Champollion (e). A simpler form of the Ojibwa picture sign for sky is the right-hand character of the same figure, from Copway (h).