From considerations mentioned elsewhere, and others that are obvious, any inscriptions purporting to be pre-Columbian, showing apparent use of alphabetic characters, signs of the zodiac, or other evidences of a culture higher than that known among the North American Indians, must be received with caution, but the pictographs may be altogether genuine, and their erroneous interpretation may be the sole ground for discrediting them.
The course above explained, viz, to attempt the interpretation of all unknown American pictographs by the aid of actual pictographers among the living Indians, should be adopted regarding all remarkable “finds.” This course was pursued by Mr. Horatio N. Rust, of Pasadena, California, regarding the much-discussed Davenport Tablets, in the genuineness of which he believes. Mr. Rust exhibited the drawings to Dakotas with the result made public at the Montreal meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and also in a letter, an extract from which is as follows:
As I made the acquaintance of several of the older and more intelligent members of the tribe, I took the opportunity to show them the drawings. Explaining that they were pictures copied from stones found in a mound, I asked what they meant. They readily gave me the same interpretation (and in no instance did either interpreter know that another had seen the pictures, so there could be no collusion). In Plate I, of the Davenport Inscribed Tablets [so numbered in the Proceedings of the Davenport Academy, vol. II], the lower central figure represents a dome-shaped lodge, with smoke issuing from the top, behind and to either side of which appears a number of individuals with hands joined, while three persons are depicted as lying upon the ground. Upon the right and left central margins are the sun and moon, the whole surmounted by three arched lines, between each of which, as well as above them, are numerous unintelligible characters. * * * The central figure, which has been supposed by some to represent a funeral pile, was simply the picture of a dirt lodge. The irregular markings apparently upon the side and to the left of the lodge represent a fence made of sticks and brush set in the ground. The same style of fence may be seen now in any Sioux village.
The lines of human figures standing hand-in-hand indicate that a dance was being conducted in the lodge. The three prostrate forms at right and left sides of the lodge represent two men and a woman who, being overcome by the excitement and fatigue of the dance, had been carried out in the air to recover. The difference in the shape of the prostrate forms indicates the different sexes.
The curling figures or rings above the lodge represent smoke, and indicate that the dance was held in winter, when fire was used.
An amusing example of forced interpretation of a genuine petroglyph is given by Lieut. J. W. Gunnison (a), and is presented in the present work in connection with Fig. [81], supra.
Fig. 1288.—Imitated pictograph.
Fig. 1288 is a copy of a drawing taken from an Ojibwa pipestem, obtained by Dr. Hoffman from an officer of the United States Army, who had procured it from an Indian in St. Paul, Minnesota. On more minute examination, it appeared that the pipestem had been purchased at a shop in St. Paul, which had furnished a large number of similar objects—so large as to awaken suspicion that they were in the course of daily manufacture. The figures and characters on the pipestem were drawn in colors. In the present figure, which is without colors, the horizontal lines represent blue and the vertical red, according to the heraldic scheme. The outlines were drawn in a dark neutral tint, in some lines approaching black; the triangular characters, representing lodges, being also in a neutral tint, or an ashen hue, and approaching black in several instances. The explanation of the figures, made before there was any suspicion of their authenticity, is as follows:
The first figure is that of a bear, representing the person to whom the record pertains. The heart above the line, according to an expression in gesture language, would signify a brave heart, increased numbers indicating much or many, so that the three hearts mean a large brave heart.