Picture-Writing of the American Indians / Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1888-89, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1893, pages 3-822

by Garrick Mallery

Fig. 1142.—Night. Egyptian.

The conception of covering executed by delineating the object covered beneath the middle point of an arch or curve, appears also clearly in the Egyptian characters for night, Fig. 1142, Champollion (f).

Fig. 1143.—Night. Mexican.

In Kingsborough (m) is the painting reproduced as Fig. 1143.

This painting expresses the multitude of eyes, i. e., stars in the sky, and signifies the night. Eyes in Mexican paintings are painted exactly in this manner.

CLOUD.

Fig. 1144.—Cloud shield.

Fig. 1144.—Cloud shield. Red-Cloud’s Census. This figure shows in conjunction with the disk, probably a shield but possibly the sun, a dim cloud, and below is a line apparently holding up clouds from which the raindrops have not yet begun to fall. This may be collated with the pictographs for rain and also for snow, as figured below.