Anthropology; an introduction to the study of man and civilization . is wondering countrymen what he saw it do. So in SouthAfrica a black messenger carrying a letter has been knownto hide it under a stone while he loitered by the way, lest itshould tell tales of him, as it did of whatever was going the art of writing, mysteriotis as it seemed to theserude men, was itself developed by a few steps of invention,which if not easy to make, are at any rate easy to understandwhen made. Even uncivilized races have made the first i68 ANTHROPOLOGY. [chap. step, that of picture-writing. Had the mi
Anthropology; an introduction to the study of man and civilization . is wondering countrymen what he saw it do. So in SouthAfrica a black messenger carrying a letter has been knownto hide it under a stone while he loitered by the way, lest itshould tell tales of him, as it did of whatever was going the art of writing, mysteriotis as it seemed to theserude men, was itself developed by a few steps of invention,which if not easy to make, are at any rate easy to understandwhen made. Even uncivilized races have made the first i68 ANTHROPOLOGY. [chap. step, that of picture-writing. Had the missionary merelymade a sketch of his L^Q^^^ ^^ ^^^ chip, it would havecarried his message, and the native would have understoodthe whole business as a matter of course. Beginning atthis primitive stage, it will be possible to follow thencethrough its whole course the history of writing andprinting. Fig. 47 shows a specimen of picture-writing as used bythe hunting tribes of North America. It records an expedi-tion across Lake Superior, led by a chief who is shown on. Fig. 47.—Picture-writing, rock n^ar Lake Superior (after Schoolcraft). horseback with his magical drumstick in his hand. There werein all fifty-one men in five canoes, the first of them beingled by the chiefs ally, whose name, Kishkemunazee, thatis, Kingfisher, is shown by the drawing of this bird. Theirreaching the other side seems to be shown by the land-tortoise, the well-known emblem of land, while by the pictureof three suns under the sky it is recorded that the crossingtook three days. Now most of this, childlike in its sim-plicity, consists in making pictures of the very objects meantto be talked of. But there are devices which go beyond thismere imitation. Thus when the tortoise is put to represent VII.] WRITING. 169 land, it is no longer a mere imitation, but has become anemblem or symbol. And where the bird is drawn to meannot a real kingfisher, but a man of that name, we see thefirst step toward phonetic
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