Fig. 208.
An Indian gesture sign for smoke, and also one for fire, has been described above, page 344. With the former is connected the Aztec design (Fig. 208) taken from Pipart, loc. cit., II, 352, and the latter appears in Fig. 209, taken from Kingsborough, III, pt. I, p. 21.
Fig. 209.
A sign for medicine-man, shaman, is thus described: “With its index-finger extended and pointing upward, or all the fingers extended, back of hand outward, move the right hand from just in front of the forehead, spirally upward, nearly to arm’s length, from left to right.” (Dakota IV.)
Fig. 210, from the Dakota Calendar, represents the making of medicine or conjuration. In that case the head and horns of a white buffalo cow were used.
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| Fig. 210. | Fig. 211. | Fig. 212. | Fig. 213. |
Fig. 211 is an Ojibwa pictograph taken from Schoolcraft, loc. cit., representing medicine-man, meda. With these horns and spiral may be collated Fig. 212 which portrays the ram-headed Egyptian god Knuphis, or Chnum, the spirit, in a shrine on the boat of the sun, canopied by the serpent-goddess Ranno, who is also seen facing him inside the shrine. This is reproduced from Cooper’s Serpent Myths, p. 24. The same deity is represented in Champollion, Gram., p. 113, as reproduced in Fig. 213.