by an inspection of their
tattooed marks. If a Thlinkeet man of the Swan stock meets an Iroquois
maid of the Swan stock they cannot speak to each other, and the 'gesture
language' is cumbrous. But if both are tattooed with the swan, then the
man knows that this daughter of the swan is not for him. He could no
more marry her than Helen of Troy could have married Castor, the tamer of
horses. Both are children of the Swan, as were Helen and Castor, and
must regard each other as brother and sister. The case of the Thlinkeet
man and the Iroquois maid is extremely unlikely to occur; but I give it
as an example of the practical use among savages, of representative art.

[Fig. 8. Red Indian Picture-Writing - The Legend of Manabozho: 293.jpg]

Among the uses of art for conveying intelligence we notice that even the
Australians have what the Greeks would have called the [Greek], a staff
on which inscriptions, legible to the Aborigines, are engraven. I
believe, however, that the Australian [Greek] is not usually marked with
picture-writing, but with notches--even more difficult to decipher. As
an example of Red Indian picture-writing we publish a scroll from Kohl's
book on the natives of North America. This rude work of art, though the
reader may think little of it, is really a document as important in its
way as the Chaldaean clay tablets inscribed with the record of the
Deluge. The coarsely-drawn figures recall, to the artist's mind, much of
the myth of Manabozho, the Prometheus and the Deucalion, the Cain and the
Noah of the dwellers by the great lake. Manabozho was a great chief, who
had two wives that quarrelled. The two stumpy half-figures (4) represent
the wives; the mound between them is the displeasure of Manabozho.
Further on (5) you see him caught up between two trees--an unpleasant
fix, from which the wolves and squirrels refused to extricate him. The
kind of pyramid with a figure at top (8) is a mountain, on which when the
flood came, Manabozho placed his grandmother to be out of the water's
way. The somewhat similar object is Manabozho himself, on the top of his
mountain. The animals you next behold (10) were sent out by Manabozho to
ascertain how the deluge was faring, and to carry messages to his
grandmother. This scroll was drawn, probably on birch bark, by a Red Man
of literary attainments, who gave it to Kohl (in its lower right-hand
corner (11) he has pictured the event), that he might never forg