DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5538#0259
HIEROGLYPHIC WRITING OF ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. 23!)
the Crane, the Marten, the Sloth Bear, the Catfish, and so on.
These creatures are represented as walking in procession, the
Crane taking the lead, and the Catfish bringing up the rear.
The eye and the heart of each is carefully indicated, the
heart being just such a heart as we absurdly depict on our
playing-cards and valentines. Beneath their feet is seen a
sheet of water—probably intended for Lake Superior—and
this sheet of water communicates by a tributary stream with
the little lakes for which our Indians are making their peti-
tion. Now, from the eye of the Crane is drawn one line
leading round to the coveted lake district, and another line
going off into space, and supposed to lead to the eye of the
President. Then, from the eyes of the Martens, the Sloth
Bear, and the rest are drawn similar lines leading to the
eye of the Crane, thus indicating that their views and his are
the same. A line is also drawn from the heart of each creat-
ure to the heart of the Crane, showing that the heart's de-
sire of all is identical. For combined simplicity and subtlety
this is the best example of pure picture-writing with which
I am acquainted.
And here let me sa}- a word about the parallel so fre-
quently drawn between the savage and prehistoric man, and
about what is erroneously called the "picture-writing" of
prehistoric times. A few fragments of bone scratched with
spirited outlines of the cave-bear, the mammoth, and other
extinct animals—a few specimens of delicate bone-carvings
—a few rude attempts at depicting boats, men, and animals,
cut here and there upon the face of a cliff in Scandinavia or
Siberia, or the Maritime Alps, have come down to us from
the ages before history. The immense antiquity of these is
self-proven, since they can only have been executed by men
who were contemporary with the animals they depicted.
Those men were the cave-dwellers of the paleolithic period
—that far-distant time when the hairy rhinoceros, the mam-
moth, the reindeer, and the hyena ranged the forests of
France and Belgium; when there was as yet no English
Channel; when the Thames was a tributary of the Ehine;
the Crane, the Marten, the Sloth Bear, the Catfish, and so on.
These creatures are represented as walking in procession, the
Crane taking the lead, and the Catfish bringing up the rear.
The eye and the heart of each is carefully indicated, the
heart being just such a heart as we absurdly depict on our
playing-cards and valentines. Beneath their feet is seen a
sheet of water—probably intended for Lake Superior—and
this sheet of water communicates by a tributary stream with
the little lakes for which our Indians are making their peti-
tion. Now, from the eye of the Crane is drawn one line
leading round to the coveted lake district, and another line
going off into space, and supposed to lead to the eye of the
President. Then, from the eyes of the Martens, the Sloth
Bear, and the rest are drawn similar lines leading to the
eye of the Crane, thus indicating that their views and his are
the same. A line is also drawn from the heart of each creat-
ure to the heart of the Crane, showing that the heart's de-
sire of all is identical. For combined simplicity and subtlety
this is the best example of pure picture-writing with which
I am acquainted.
And here let me sa}- a word about the parallel so fre-
quently drawn between the savage and prehistoric man, and
about what is erroneously called the "picture-writing" of
prehistoric times. A few fragments of bone scratched with
spirited outlines of the cave-bear, the mammoth, and other
extinct animals—a few specimens of delicate bone-carvings
—a few rude attempts at depicting boats, men, and animals,
cut here and there upon the face of a cliff in Scandinavia or
Siberia, or the Maritime Alps, have come down to us from
the ages before history. The immense antiquity of these is
self-proven, since they can only have been executed by men
who were contemporary with the animals they depicted.
Those men were the cave-dwellers of the paleolithic period
—that far-distant time when the hairy rhinoceros, the mam-
moth, the reindeer, and the hyena ranged the forests of
France and Belgium; when there was as yet no English
Channel; when the Thames was a tributary of the Ehine;