The circles figured in _b_ and _d_ of Plate I, and _c_, _r_, and _w_ of Plate II, together with other similar circular marks bearing cross-lines upon the interior, were at first unintelligible, as their forms among various tribes have very different signification. The character in Plate I, above and projecting from _d_, resembles the human form, with curious lateral bands of black and white, alternately. Two similar characters appear, also, in Plate II, _a_, _b_. In _a_, the lines from the head would seem to indicate a superior rank or condition of the person depicted.
BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. I
PICTOGRAPHS IN SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.]
Having occasion subsequently to visit the private ethnologic collection of Hon. A. F. Coronel, of Los Angeles, California, Dr. Hoffman discovered a clue to the general import of the above record, as well as the signification of some of the characters above mentioned. In a collection of colored illustrations of Mexican costumes some of them probably a century old, he found blankets bearing borders and colors, nearly identical with those shown in the circles in Plate I, _d_, and Plate II, _c_, _r_, _w_. It is more than probable that the circles represent bales of blankets which early became articles of trade at the Santa Barbara Mission. If this supposition is correct, the cross-lines would seem to represent the cords, used in tying the blankets into bales, which same cross-lines appear as cords in _l_, Plate II. Mr. Coronel also possesses small figures of Mexicans, of various conditions of life, costumes, trades, and professions, one of which, a painted statuette, is a representation of a Mexican lying down flat upon an outspread serape, similar in color and form to the black and white bands shown in the upper figure of _d_, Plate I, and _a_, _b_, of Plate II, and instantly suggesting the explanation of those figures. Upon the latter the continuity of the black and white bands is broken, as the human figures are probably intended to be in front, or on top, of the drawings of the blankets.
BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. II
PICTOGRAPHS IN SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.]
The small statuette above mentioned is that of a Mexican trader, and if the circles in the pictographs are considered to represent bales of blankets, there is a figure in Plate I, _d_, still more interesting, from the union of one of these circles with that of a character representing the trader, _i. e._, the man possessing the bales. Bales, or what appear to be bales, are represented to the top and right of the circle _d_, Plate I, and also upon the right hand figure in _l_, Plate II. To the right of the latter are three short lines, evidently showing the knot or ends of the cords used in tying a bale of blankets without colors, therefore of less importance, or of other goods. This bale is upon the back of what appears to be a horse, led in an upward direction by an Indian whose head-dress, and ends of the breech-cloth, are visible. Other human forms appear in the attitude of making gestures, one also in _j_, Plate II, probably carrying a bale of goods. Figure _u_ represents a centipede, an insect found occasionally south of the mountains, but reported as extremely rare in the immediate northern regions. (For _x_, see page 232.)