Writing.—The idea of communicating his thought graphically, in time and in space, to his fellow, must have come to man from the origin of civilisation; but through what stages must it have passed before becoming embodied in a system at once so simple and ingenious as that of alphabetic writing! Before inventing phonetic writing in general, man must have passed through the period of ideographic writing, and this is already an advance on another and prior method of representing and communicating thought, a method much more simple, which may be called in a general way the use of symbolic objects and mnemonic marks. As typical of this use of symbolic objects we may mention the messages of the Malays of Sumatra, which are formed of packets containing different objects: small quantities of salt, pepper, betel, etc., having respectively the signification of love, hate, jealousy, etc. According to the quantity and arrangement of the objects in the packet the message serves to express such or such a feeling. This system attains its perfection in the Wampums of the Red Indians. These are either chaplets of beads of different colours fashioned from shells (Fig. [83], 7), also used as money, or embroideries made with the same beads on long ribbons forming kinds of belts, which have the value of diplomatic documents to the Indians.[160] The staff-messages in use among the Melanesians, the Niam-Niams, the Ashantis, and the peasants of Lusatia and Silesia, etc., have the same signification. This is often a sort of passport or a summons; the form of the staff, as well as the particular marks which it bears, are so many signs to make known the commands of the chief, or of the mayor, the order of the day for the assembly, etc.
The notches which these staffs sometimes bear form a connecting link with the mnemonic marks which the less civilised peoples have the habit of making on trees, on bits of bark, or pieces of wood. It is the first step towards writing properly so called. Little horn tablets bearing notches have been found in the sepulchral caverns of the quaternary period at Aurignac (Dordogne). Even still the Eskimo, the Yakuts, the Ostiaks, the Macusis of Guiana, the Negroes of the west coast of Africa, the Laotians, the Melanesians, the Micronesians, commonly make use of them to keep their accounts, or note simple facts; they even continue in use among Europeans, as a survival of the old practice under the form of “baker’s tallies,” or words to denote letters (Buchstabe, little staff of “beechwood,” in German), etc. Here, for instance, is the translation of what was conveyed by a notched tablet found by Harmand in a Laotian village attacked by a cholera epidemic (Fig. [27]): Twelve days from now (12 notches to the right) every man who shall venture to penetrate into our enclosure will remain a prisoner, or pay us four buffaloes (4 notches lower down) or twelve ticals (pieces of money) as ransom (12 notches). On the other side, but doubtful, is the number of men (8), women (9), and children (11) of the village.[161]
An analogous mnemotechnical object is the knotted cord, which is met with among a great number of peoples, Ostiaks, Angola and Loango Negroes, Malagasi, Alfurus of the Celebes, etc. According to the number and colour of the cords, and the number of the knots which they bear, events past or to come are brought to mind, accounts of a bartering transaction kept, etc. Among the Micronesians of the Pelew Islands, when two individuals make an appointment with one another for a certain date, each makes on a cord as many knots as there remain days to run. Undoing a knot each day and coming to the last knot at the date of the appointment, they of necessity recall it. According to Chinese tradition, the first inhabitants of the banks of the Hoang-ho, before the invention of writing properly so called, also made use of little cords knotted to notched staffs as mnemonic instruments. Besides, is not our practice of tying a knot in our handkerchief to remember something a simple survival of these customs? The method of expressing certain events and certain ideas by means of knots made in different ways and variously arranged has been carried to the last degree of perfection in the case of the quipus of the ancient Peruvians. The quipus are cord rings to which are attached various little cords of different colours. On each of these little cords are found two or more knots variously formed. The Peruvian and Bolivian shepherds again make use of similar quipus, but much less complicated, to keep accounts. Let us also note in the same order of ideas the different marks of ownership, of family relationship, of tribeship (the Totems of the Red Indians, the Tamgas of the Kirghiz, etc.), which it is the custom to put on weapons, dwellings, animals, and even the bodies of the men (New Zealand). Hence are derived trade-marks and armorial bearings.
Lastly, are not the pebbles bearing strokes printed in red, the number of which varies from one to nine, and several other signs (Fig. [28]), found by M. Piette[162] in the palæolithic stations of the south of France, at Mas-d’Azil (Ariège), also mnemonic objects? It has been asserted that they were playing dice, but the size of the pebbles is against this view.
FIG. 28.—Coloured prehistoric pebbles of the grotto of Mas-d’Azil (Ariège).
1 and 1A, two sides of the same pebble; 2, pebble with three marks;
3, pebble with four marks differently arranged.
(After Piette.)
FIG. 29.—Journal of the voyage of an Eskimo of Alaska. Example of pictography.
(After Mallery-Hoffmann.)