Fig. 1255 is the etching of a hand from the Kejimkoojik rocks, reduced one-half. Its peculiarity consists in the details by which the lines of the palm and markings on the balls of the thumb and fingers are shown. If this is the real object of the design it shows close observation, though it is not suggested that any connection with the pseudo-science of palmistry is to be inferred.
In connection with this drawing the following translated remarks in Verhandl. Berlin. Gesellsch. für Anthrop. (d), may be noted:
The frequency with which partial representations of the eye are met with appeared to me so striking that I requested Mr. Jacobson to ask the Bella Coola Indians whether they had any special idea in employing the eye so frequently. To my great surprise the person addressed pointed to the palmar surface of his finger tips and to the fine lineaments which the skin there presents; in his opinion a rounded or longitudinal field, such as appears between the converging or parallel lines, also means an eye, and the reason of this is that originally each part of the body terminated in an organ of sense, particularly an eye, and was only afterward made to retrovert into such rudimentary conditions.
BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY TENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. LIII
GERMAN KNIGHTS AND APACHE WARRIORS.
The lower character in Pl. LIII is copied from Rudolph Cronau (c) Geschichte der Solinger Klingenindustrie, where it is presented as an illustration of the knights of the thirteenth century, after a sketch in a MS. of the year 1220, in the library of the University of Leipsig.
The upper character in the same plate is a copy of a drawing made in 1884 by an Apache Indian at Anadarko, although the insignia of the riders are more like those used by the Cheyenne than those of the Apache. A striking similarity will be noticed in the motive of the two sketches of the mounted warriors and their steeds as well as in their decorations, from which in Europe the devices called heraldic were differentiated. Doubtless still better examples could be obtained to compare the degree of artistic skill attained by the several draftsmen, but these are used as genuine, convenient, and typical. See also the Mexican representation of horses and riders under the heading of meteors, Fig. [1224].
These horses are far less skillfully portrayed than they are by the Plains tribes, which may be explained by the fact that the Mexicans had not yet become familiar with the animal.
A story told by Catlin to the general effect that the Siouan stock of Indians did not understand the drawing of human faces in profile has been repeated in various forms. The last is by Popoff (a):