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Show 6 0 PICTOGRAPHS OP THE NORTH AMERICAA INDIANS. apparently with reference to specific signification. The strips of bark, varying from an inch to several feet in length, roll up upon drying, and are straightened out for examination by heating near the fire. 8El\ 8. This includes scalps. A large number of records upon the hides of animals are mentioned in the present paper. * Plate IV with its description in the Dakota Winter Counts is one instance. FEATHERS. The Sacramento tribes of California are very expert in weaving blankets of feathers, many of them having really beautiful figures worked upon them. This is reported by Edward M. Kern in Schoolcraft, V, 649, 650. The feather work in Mexico, Central America and the Hawaiian Islands is well known, otteu having designs properly to be considered among pictographs, though in general not, at least in modern times, passing beyond ornamentation. GOURDS After gourds have dried the contents are removed and handles are attached; they serve as rattles in dances, and in religious and shaman-istic rites. The representations of natural or mythical objects for which the owner may have special reverence are often depicted upon their surfaces. This custom prevails among the Pueblos generally, and, also, among many other tribes, notably those constituting the Siouau linguistic stock. HORSE HAIR. The Hidatsa, Arikara, Dakota, and several other tribes of the Northwest plains, use horse hair dyed red as appendages to feathers worn as personal marks of distinction. Its arrangement is significant. SHELLS, INCLUDING WAMPl'M. The illustrated and exhaustive paper of Mr. W. H. Holmes, iu the Second Annual report of the Bureau of Ethnology, removes all necessity for present extended mention under this head. EARTH AND SAND. Papers by Dr. Washington Matthews, U. S. A., Dr. W. H. Corbusier, U. S. A., and Mr. James Stevenson were read in the Anthropological Society of Washington during the season of 1884- 5, giving account of important and entirely novel paintings by the Navajo, Yuman, and Zflni Indians. These paintings were made upon the ground by means of sand, ashes, and powdered vegetable matter of various colors. These were highly elaborate, made immediately preceding certain ceremonies, at the close of which they were obliterated. Dr. W. J. Hoffman states that when the expedition under command of Capt. G. M. Wheeler, U. S. A., passed through Southern Nevada in |