Nothing in itself is more baseless than the idea that oral language is necessary for the expression of abstract ideas. The case of deaf-mutes, who without the aid of speech can give expression to the most complicated ideas, affords an example of this in the midst of a civilized society. The study of gesture-language enables us to see how easy and natural is the process by which the expression of abstract ideas grows out of the imitation of concrete objects. Take the very word to ‘grow’. An Indian expresses the notion of a tree by holding the right hand before his body, back forwards, with the fingers spread out—the fingers, as it were, representing branches, and his wrist the trunk; to show that it is high he pushes it slightly upwards. For grass he holds his hand with the fingers upwards in the sense of blades, near the ground. In order to express the general idea ‘to grow’ he begins as in the sign for grass, but instead of keeping his hand near the ground, pushes it upward in an uninterrupted manner.[15] So, too, to express falsehood he places his index and second fingers so that they separate in front of his mouth, in order to indicate a double tongue. For truth he places his index finger only in front, to show, if we may use the expression, that he is ‘single-tongued’.
Root elements of gesture language, which as a means of communication preceded the development of articulate language as opposed to mere emotional cries, seem themselves to be almost universal. And picture-writing—the sister mode of expression—has also, as we see from the example of the American Continent, even in some of its more conventional developments, an immeasurably wider currency than the comparatively recent growths of oral communication. In China, amongst a great variety of mutually unintelligible languages and dialects, the ideographic characters, which are really conventionalized pictures, and independent of oral equivalents, supply to a great extent the place both of gesture and spoken language. The Red Indian world, as we have seen, is a Babel of disconnected languages, but the old sign-language is the same, and the picture-language of one tribe is generally intelligible to another.
The great uniformity of simple gestures in all countries of the world is thus a cause predisposing to a considerable amount of uniformity among the pictorial signs into which this element enters. If we take, for instance, that pathetic monument of picture writing, the well-known rock-painting of the Tule River in California, we see a series of human figures with outstretched hands, signifying, in the American gesture-language, ‘Nothing here.’ Two outstretched arms, by themselves, appear in the sense of negation among the conventionalized Maya pictographs of Yucatan,[16] and the sign reappears in the same abbreviated form, and with the same meaning, among Egyptian hieroglyphs. So, too, the ideograph of a child or son—an infant sucking its thumb—is found alike in ancient Egypt, China, and North America.
Gesture language, in fact, is constantly reacting on the pictographic method of expression, and may be said to supply it with moods and tenses even without the aid of words.
It must, nevertheless, be borne in mind that simple pictography, whether or not aided by gesture language, is one thing. The evolution of a regular script is quite another matter.
Fig. 8.
A conventionalized system of writing can only be thought of in connexion with a highly developed articulate speech. And this was certainly the achievement of a later world than that of these old Palaeolithic hunters. The physical condition now changes. The characteristic fauna of the Reindeer Period disappears, and with it the remarkable race to whom were due the first known products of high art. The close of the Pleistocene Age and the beginning of the New Era is marked in France by a curious deposit in the Cave of Mas d’Azil, on the left bank of the Arize, in which its explorer, M. Piette, found a number of flat oblong pebbles marked with red stripes and simple figures by means of peroxide of iron.[17] M. Piette has endeavoured to trace in some of these a definite system of numeration by means of lines and circles, and even particular signs for a thousand, ten thousand, and a million. That some of these represent simple numerical markings is possible, but beyond this point it is impossible to follow M. Piette. Among the other markings are several, sometimes repeated on the same pebble, of curiously alphabetiform aspect. Among these are signs resembling our E, F, and L, a Gothic M, the Greek Theta, Gamma, Epsilon, Xi and Sigma, the Phoenician Cheth, and some terms that occur in the Minoan and Cypriote series.
The occurrence of this series of geometrical marks must be regarded as another proof of how early such alphabetic prototypes originated. The Mas d’Azil series has no particular connexion with the linear signs associated with the handiwork of the Reindeer Period. Their meaning is obscure. Some may be degraded pictographs, often perhaps of animals or their parts, with a traditional meaning attached to them. Some may be of purely individual and arbitrary invention. The numbers on the pebbles have suggested the view that they may have served for games. On the other hand, it is by no means improbable that the figures had a magic value, and Mr. A. B. Cook[18] has called attention to the parallel presented by the Australian deposits of pebbles called Churingas, connected with the departed spirits of a tribe, and having designs of a totemic character. It is certain that the people who produced these coloured pebbles were in a rude state of barbarism far below the gifted race who had preceded them in the same sheltering cavern. Few will probably be able to follow M. Piette in discerning in these rudely executed marks actual letters—at any rate with a syllabic value—and the true ancestors of the Greek and Phoenician alphabets, or in regarding the Cave of Mas d’Azil ‘as one vast school where the scholars learnt to read, to reckon, to write, and to know the religious symbols of the solar god’.
The deposit of Mas d’Azil containing the coloured pebbles belongs already to the modern world, the fauna associated with it all belonging to existing species inhabiting the temperate regions. The rude culture then exhibited heralds the beginning of the Neolithic Period. This later Stone Age is not characterized by any of the artistic genius displayed by the men of the Reindeer Period. Figured representations are now rare. The caves, moreover, which preserved the earlier records, were now used more for sepulture than habitation. Yet the analogy of all primitive races at the present day shows that it would be a mistake to suppose that, though the act may have been rude, the practice of picture-writing was not still universally in vogue throughout the European area. We have to bear in mind how many of such records are consigned to perishable materials—such as bark or hides, or in the case of tattooing the human body itself.
During the later prehistoric times, and notably during the Early Metal Age, many abiding records, in the shape of rock-sculptures, paintings, and engravings, and at times graffiti on pottery, are found diffused throughout the whole of our Continent and the adjoining Mediterranean area; and in outlying regions, such as Lapland, the practice of picture-writing can be traced down to modern times.
Fig. 9.
Though a large amount of isolated materials exists on this subject, the evidence, so far as I am aware, has never been put together in a systematic manner. Yet it seems possible that, by means of a due co-ordination of the materials and the application of the comparative method, the European area may eventually be divided into distinct zones or provinces, each characterized by its certain typical pictographic feature. Primitive lines of intercommunication may with great probability be made out, and evidences of early racial extension come to light by this method of investigation.
It is interesting to observe that it is in the extreme north of Europe, where the conditions most approach those of the Reindeer Period, that purely pictographic methods have remained the longest. The Lapp troll drums, used as a means of divination by the native shamans, show a variety of linear figures and symbols which had a traditional interpretation. Thus in the simple example given in Fig. 9, taken