XIV
PICTURE-WRITING
IN those days, the Indians had no way of writing down what they thought, and could only tell each other their messages and their dreams and wisdom, by spoken words. The deeds of hunters and the thoughts of wise men were remembered for a little while, but soon were talked about less often, and when the old men died there were none left who could tell about what had happened in the past. The grave-posts had no marks on them, nor were the Indians able to tell who were buried in the graves. All they knew was that some one of their own tribe, some former wise man or hunter, or some beautiful maiden of other days lay buried there. And Hiawatha was much troubled that the Indians did not know the graves of their own fathers, and could not tell the men who should come after them about the wonderful things that had taken place long before they were born.
Hiawatha spent many days alone in the deep forest, trying to invent some way by which the Indians could always know what had happened in the past, and thereby tell secrets to each other and send messages without the risk of having them forgotten by the messenger. And after a great deal of thought, Hiawatha discovered one of the finest things in all the wide world—a secret that has changed the lives of all Indians since his time.
He took his different colored paints, and began to draw strange figures on the bark of the birch-tree, and every figure had some meaning that the red men would always remember. For the great Manito, God of all the Indians, Hiawatha painted the picture of an egg with different colored points toward the north and the south, the east and the west, to show that the Great Spirit was watching over all the world, and could be found everywhere at once.
For the Evil Spirit, Hiawatha painted the picture of a great serpent to show that the Evil Spirit was as deadly and wicked and treacherous as any snake that crawled in the green marsh grass. For Life and Death, Hiawatha drew two round spots, and painted one of them white and the other black. The white one was meant for Life, because white is clear and fair to look upon; the black was meant for Death, because black is hideous and dark. And Hiawatha painted the sun and the moon and all the stars of heaven, and he painted forests and mountains, lakes and rivers, animals and birds. For the earth he drew a straight line, like the line of the horizon, and for the sky he drew a curved line like a bow. He filled in the space between with white paint that was to mean the white light of day; he painted a point at each side, one for sunrise and the other for sunset, and he drew a number of little stars to represent the night. And Hiawatha drew all sorts of pictures of men and wigwams and bows and arrows and canoes, each with its own meaning, until he had drawn different figures for the different thoughts of men.
He called the Indians to come and see what he had painted, and he said to them: "Look and learn the meaning of these different figures; go and paint upon the graves of those whom you remember, some mark that will always show who it is that lies there buried;" and the Indians painted on the grave-posts of the graves they had not yet forgotten, figures of bear and reindeer, and turtles, and cranes, and beavers. Each one of them invented some sign by which he might always know his dead, and from these signs many of the Indians have been remembered to this day. On their birch canoes the Indians drew many different shapes, and the brightest of them all was the figure of Love. It was painted in deep scarlet, because scarlet is the strongest of all colors, and the color meant: "I am greater than all others;" for the Indians believed that love was mightier than life or death, and more dangerous than either war or hunting.
Other figures were also painted there, and by looking at the pictures drawn by an Indian you could tell who he was, and what family he came from, and whether he was stern and cruel or loving and kind-hearted. For the Indians were apt to paint the things they thought about the most.
Many were the gifts that Hiawatha gave his people; but when he taught them how to paint their thoughts, he gave them a better gift than any other.