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An essay entitled “Pictographs of the North American Indians: A Preliminary Paper,” appeared in the Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. The present work is not a second edition of that essay, but is a continuation and elaboration of the same subject. Of the eighty-three plates in that paper not one is here reproduced, although three are presented with amendments; thus fifty-one of the fifty-four plates in this volume are new. Many of the text figures, however, are used again, as being necessary to the symmetry of the present work, but they are now arranged and correlated so as to be much more useful than when unmethodically disposed as before, and the number of text figures now given is twelve hundred and ninety-five as against two hundred and nine, the total number in the former paper. The text itself has been rewritten and much enlarged. The publication of the “Preliminary Paper” has been of great value in the preparation of the present work, as it stimulated investigation and report on the subject to such an extent that it is now impossible to publish within reasonable limits of space all the material on hand. Indeed, after the present work had been entirely written and sent to the Public Printer, new information came to hand which ought to be published, but can not now be inserted.

It is also possible to give more attention than before to the picture-writing of the aboriginal inhabitants of America beyond the limits of the United States. While the requirements of the acts of Congress establishing the Bureau of Ethnology have been observed by directing main attention to the Indians of North America, there is sufficient notice of Central and South America to justify the present title, in which also the simpler term “picture-writing” is used instead of “pictographs.”

Picture-writing is a mode of expressing thoughts or noting facts by marks which at first were confined to the portrayal of natural or artificial objects. It is one distinctive form of thought-writing without reference to sound, gesture language being the other and probably earlier form. Whether remaining purely ideographic, or having become conventional, picture-writing is the direct and durable expression of ideas of which gesture language gives the transient expression. Originally it was not connected with the words of any language. When adopted for syllabaries or alphabets, which is the historical course of its evolution, it ceased to be the immediate and became the secondary expression of the ideas framed in oral speech. The writing common in civilization may properly be styled sound-writing, as it does not directly record thoughts, but presents them indirectly, after they have passed through the phase of sound. The trace of pictographs in alphabets and syllabaries is discussed in the present work under its proper heading so far as is necessary after the voluminous treatises on the topic, and new illustrations are presented. It is sufficient for the present to note that all the varied characters of script and print now current are derived directly or mediately from pictorial representations of objects. Bacon well said that “pictures are dumb histories,” and he might have added that in the crude pictures of antiquity were contained the germs of written words.

The importance of the study of picture-writing depends partly upon the result of its examination as a phase in the evolution of human culture. As the invention of alphabetic writing is admitted to be the great step marking the change from barbarism to civilization, the history of its earlier development must be valuable. It is inferred from internal evidence, though not specifically reported in history, that picture-writing preceded and generated the graphic systems of Egypt, Assyria, and China, but in America, especially in North America, its use is still current. It can be studied here without any requirement of inference or hypothesis, in actual existence as applied to records and communications. Furthermore, the commencement of its evolution into signs of sound is apparent in the Aztec and the Maya characters, in which transition stage it was arrested by foreign conquest. The earliest lessons of the genesis and growth of culture in this important branch of investigation may, therefore, be best learned from the western hemisphere. In this connection it should be noticed that picture-writing is found in sustained vigor on the same continent where sign language has prevailed and has continued in active operation to an extent historically unknown in other parts of the world. These modes of expression, i. e., transient and permanent thought-writing, are so correlated in their origin and development that neither can be studied to the best advantage without including the other. Unacquainted with these facts, but influenced by an assumption that America must have been populated from the eastern hemisphere, some enterprising persons have found or manufactured American inscriptions composed of characters which may be tortured into identity with some of the Eurasian alphabets or syllabaries, but which sometimes suggest letters of indigenous invention. This topic is discussed in its place.

For the purposes of the present work there is no need to decide whether sign-language, which is closely connected with picture-writing, preceded articulate speech. It is sufficient to admit the high antiquity of thought-writing in both its forms, and yet it is proper to notice a strong current of recent opinions as indicated by Prof. Sayce (a) in his address to the anthropologic section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, as follows:

I see no escape from the conclusions that the chief distinctions of race were established long before man acquired language. If the statement made by M. de Mortillet is true, that the absence of the mental tubercle, or bony excrescence in which the tongue is inserted, in a skull of the Neanderthal type found at La Naulette, indicates an absence of the faculty of speech, one race at least of palæolithic man would have existed in Europe before it had as yet invented an articulate language. Indeed it is difficult to believe that man has known how to speak for any very great length of time. * * * We can still trace through the thin disguise of subsequent modifications and growth the elements, both lexical and grammatical, out of which language must have arisen. * * * The beginnings of articulate language are still too transparent to allow us to refer them to a very remote era. * * * In fact the evidence that he is a drawing animal * * * mounts back to a much earlier epoch than the evidence that he is a speaking animal.

When a system of ideographic gesture signs prevailed and at the same time any form of artistic representation, however rude, existed, it would be expected that the delineations of the former would appear in the latter. It was but one more and an easy step to fasten upon bark, skins, or rocks the evanescent air pictures that still in pigments or carvings preserve their ideography or conventionalism in their original outlines. A transition stage between gestures and pictographs, in which the left hand is used as a supposed drafting surface, upon which the index draws lines, is exhibited in the Dialogue between Alaskan Indians in the First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (a). This device is common among deaf-mutes, without equal archeologic importance, as it may have been suggested by the art of writing, with which, even when not instructed in it, they are generally acquainted.

The execution of the drawings, of which the several forms of picture-writing are composed, often exhibits the first crude efforts of graphic art, and their study in that relation is of value.

When pictures are employed for the same purpose as writing, the conception intended to be presented is generally analyzed and only its most essential points are indicated, with the result that the characters when frequently repeated become conventional, and in their later form cease to be recognizable as objective portraitures. This exhibition of conventionalizing has its own historic import.

It is not probable that much valuable information will ever be obtained from ancient rock carvings or paintings, but they are important as indications of the grades of culture reached by their authors, and of the subjects which interested those authors, as is shown in the appropriate chapters following. Some portions of these pictures can be interpreted. With regard to others, which are not yet interpreted and perhaps never can be, it is nevertheless useful to gather together for synoptic study and comparison a large number of their forms from many parts of the world. The present collection shows the interesting psychologic fact that primitive or at least very ancient man made the same figures in widely separated regions, though it is not established that the same figures had a common significance. Indications of priscan habitat and migrations may sometimes be gained from the general style or type of the drawings and sculptures, which may be divided into groups, although the influence of the environing materials must always be considered.

The more modern specimens of picture-writing displayed on skins, bark, and pottery are far more readily interpreted than those on rocks, and have already afforded information and verification as to points of tribal history, religion, customs, and other ethnologic details.

A criticism has been made on the whole subject of picture-writing by the eminent anthropologist, Dr. Andree, who, in Ethnographische Parallelen und Vergleiche (a), has described and figured a large number of examples of petroglyphs, a name given by him to rock-drawings and now generally adopted. His views are translated as follows:

But if we take a connected view of the petroglyphs to which the rock pictures, generally made with red paint, are equivalent, and make a comparison of both, it becomes evident that they are usually made for mere pastime and are the first artistic efforts of rude nations. Nevertheless, we find in them the beginnings of writing, and in some instances their transition to pictography as developed among North American Indians becomes evident.

It appears, therefore, that Dr. Andree carefully excludes the picture-writings of the North American Indians from his general censure, his conclusion being that those found in other parts of the world usually occupy a lower stage. It is possible that significance may yet be ascertained in many of the characters found in other regions, and perhaps this may be aided by the study of those in America; but no doubt should exist that the latter have purpose and meaning. The relegation to a trivial origin of such pictographs as are described and illustrated in the present work will be abandoned after a thorough knowledge of the labor and thought which frequently were necessary for their production. American pictographs are not to be regarded as mere curiosities. In some localities they represent the only intellectual remains of the ancient inhabitants. Wherever found, they bear significantly upon the evolution of the human mind.

Distrust concerning the actual significance of the ancient American petroglyphs may be dispelled by considering the practical use of similar devices by historic and living Indians for purposes as important to them as those of alphabetic writing, these serving to a surprising extent the same ends. This paper presents a large number of conclusive examples. The old devices are substantially the same as the modern, though improved and established in the course of evolution. The ideography and symbolism displayed in these devices present suggestive studies in psychology more interesting than the mere information or text contained in the pictures. It must also be observed that when Indians now make pictographs it is with intention and care—seldom for mere amusement. Even when the labor is undertaken merely to supply the trade demand for painted robes or engraved pipes or bark records, it is a serious manufacture, though sometimes only imitative and not intrinsically significant. In all other known instances in which pictures are made without such specific intent as is indicated under the several headings of this work, they are purely ornamental; but in such cases they are often elaborate and artistic, not idle scrawls.

This paper is limited in its terms to the presentation of the most important known pictographs of the American Indians, but examples from other parts of the world are added for comparison. The proper classification and correlation of the matter collected has required more labor and thought than is apparent. The scheme of the work has been to give in an arrangement of chapters and sections some examples with illustrations in connection with each heading in the classification. This plan has involved a large amount of cross reference, because in many cases a character or a group of characters could be considered with reference to a number of different characteristics, and it was necessary to choose under which one of the headings it should be presented, involving reference to that from the other divisions of the work. Sometimes the decision was determined by taste or judgment, and sometimes required by mechanical considerations.

It may be mentioned that the limitation of the size of the present volume required that the space occupied by the text should be subordinated to the large amount of illustration. It is obvious that a work on picture-writing should be composed largely of pictures, and to allow room for them many pages of the present writer’s views have been omitted. Whatever may be the disadvantage of this omission it leaves to students of the work the opportunity to form their own judgments without bias. Indeed, this writer confesses that although he has examined and studied in their crude shape, as they went to the printer, all the illustrations and descriptions now presented, he expects that after the volume shall be delivered to him in printed form with its synoptic arrangement he will be better able than now to make appropriate remarks on its subject-matter. Therefore he anticipates that careful readers will judiciously correct errors in the details of the work which may have escaped him and that they will extend and expand what is yet limited and partial. It may be proper to note that when the writer’s observation has resulted in agreement with published authorities or contributors, the statements that could have been made on his own personal knowledge have been cited, when possible, from the printed or manuscript works of others. Quotation is still more requisite when there is disagreement with the authorities.

Thanks for valuable assistance are due and rendered to correspondents and to officers of the Bureau of Ethnology and of the United States Geological Survey, whose names are generally mentioned in connection with their several contributions. Acknowledgment is also made now and throughout the work to Dr. W. J. Hoffman, who has officially assisted in its preparation during several years, by researches in the field, in which his familiarity with Indians and his artistic skill have been of great value. Similar recognition is due to Mr. De Lancey W. Gill, in charge of the art department of the Bureau of Ethnology and the U. S. Geological Survey, and to Mr. Wells M. Sawyer, his assistant, specially detailed on the duty, for their work on the illustrations presented. While mentioning the illustrations, it may be noted that the omission to furnish the scale on which some of them are produced is not from neglect, but because it was impossible to ascertain the dimensions of the originals in the few cases where no scale or measurement is stated. This omission is most frequently noticeable in the illustrations of petroglyphs which have not been procured directly by the officers of the Bureau of Ethnology. The rule in that Bureau is to copy petroglyphs on the scale of one-sixteenth actual size. Most of the other classes of pictographs are presented without substantial reduction, and in those cases the scale is of little importance.

It remains to give special notice to the reader regarding the mode adopted to designate the authors and works cited. A decision was formed that no footnotes should appear in the work. A difficulty in observing that rule arose from the fact that in the repeated citation of published works the text would be cumbered with many words and numbers to specify titles, pages and editions. The experiment was tried of printing in the text only the most abbreviated mention, generally by the author’s name alone, of the several works cited, and to present a list of them arranged in alphabetic order with cross references and catch titles. This list appears at the end of the work with further details and examples of its use. It is not a bibliography of the subject of picture-writing, nor even a list of authorities read and studied in the preparation of the work, but it is simply a special list, prepared for the convenience of readers, of the works and authors cited in the text, and gives the page and volume, when there is more than one volume in the edition, from which the quotation is taken.