Archives of aboriginal knowledge. Containing all the original paper laid before Congress respecting the history, antiquities, language, ethnology, pictography, rites, superstitions, and mythology, of (14578786038)

Identifier: archivesofaborig03scho (find matches)
Title: Archives of aboriginal knowledge. Containing all the original paper laid before Congress respecting the history, antiquities, language, ethnology, pictography, rites, superstitions, and mythology, of the Indian tribes of the United States
Year: 1860 (1860s)
Authors: Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe, 1793-1864. dn United States. Bureau of Indian Affairs. cn
Subjects: Indians of North America United States
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott & co.
Contributing Library: University of Pittsburgh Library System
Digitizing Sponsor: Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation



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M 3 y n AND MAGIC. 489 symbolic characters (Plate 39, by Oshkabaiwis). These symbols are pictographs, diflfer-ing little from the system of the Indian notation of ideas, of which specimens havebeen given in Vol. I., § VI., in describing the medicine and wabeno chants, exceptin their highly figurative character and less precise signification. They are to bedeemed, more exclusively, the records of magic and sorcery. In the practice of thisthey are relied on to guide the leader in the order of his songs and incantations. Thewords of the songs themselves, being unrecorded, there can be no attempt to connectthe symbols or devices with the terms actually employed on those occasions. To giveaccuracy to the description of these orgies of the midnight wigwam, both the music andthe words committed to the operators memory are required. Such is the highlysymbolic nature of the figures, and the want of consecutive flow in the ideas, thatmuch must remain in the mind of the operator and trick-maker