AMERICAN INDIAN SIGNS

4:1 · This structure is common in military and heraldic contexts, and is often called a

chevron. It denotes rank when used on military uniforms; when doubled or tripled, the rank increases.

Signs of the type<Picture: 04:4> can be found on the clothes of high-ranking chiefs already about

3000 B.C.

Note how the car manufacturer Citroën has taken <Picture> as the emblem of its cars. Although

said to have originated from the new angled form of cogwheels used by Citroën, the fact remains that the

emblem of the car is an old Western military ideogram denoting high rank.

4:2 · The rune named kaun or kaen is associated with openings and opening up, according to

the Anglo-Saxon runic tradition.

The sign <Picture: 04:2> belongs to the earliest rune alphabet or futhark, so called after the sounds

of the first six runes.

In Scandinavia the name of this rune meant boil or pustule. Apart from plague, boils occurred only as a

result of infections in wounds. Here we have an association to <Picture: 04:1> as a military sign,

and to <Picture> for arrow.

4:3 · In a ground-to-air emergency code used by pilots who have managed an emergency

landing, or have crashed but survived, <Picture: 04:3> signifies that ammunition and firearms are

needed. Thus there is a semiotic relationship to the military use of <Picture: 04:1>.

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This sign is also found on tape recorders and video appliances, but turned 90 degrees, to <Picture>

and <Picture> . The meanings are fast forward winding and fast reverse winding. In this use Picture>

is synonymous with <Picture: 22:14>.

The similar <Picture> is used by indian peoples in southwest USA. It is called track of the

thunderbird and denotes bright prospects.

Compare with synonymous <Picture: 42:76> in Group 42.

4:4 · This is a boy-scout sign indicating that the group expects or desires a peaceful relation

4:5 · Here we have a boy-scout sign indicating that the group is in conflict.

4:6 · This is the same structure as the chevron, but with a much sharper angle. It is used in

logic to signify all that lacks existence, nothing, or the empty class. An ideographic opposite is <Picture:

26:1> , and a semantic opposite is the entry sign below.

<Picture: 04:6> is also used to denote the concept and when used between signs for entities in

logic.

Otherwise <Picture: 04:6> denotes an upwards directed movement in the same way as does

<Picture: 04:21> .

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4:7 · The above entry sign's structure, when turned upside down, is used in logic to signify the

whole universe, all that in one way or another exists. <Picture: 04:7> can also denote the logical

concept either ... or when used with signs for entities in formal logic.

Alone, <Picture: 04:7> can mean victory. It was used extensively during the Second World War, and

today is a generally accepted finger sign for victory all over the globe.

In some US meteorological contexts it has the meaning white frost or hoarfrost.

In the Swedish hobo sign system <Picture: 04:7> means here they give only to people who are ill. In

the French hobo or gypsy system it means here they give alms or these people pity the ill and the invalids.

4:8 · When the pointed angle is turned to one side and the sign is placed between for

instance mathematical or logic signs, it means that the relationship between their denotations is less than,

greater than, derived from, changes to, etc. It has the same function as <Picture> , i.e. it denotes one

way relation of direction or ordering.

4:9 · The doubling of a sign usually means that what it originally signifies becomes

intensified, as when <Picture: 04:8> for forward movement becomes <Picture: 04:9> for fast

forward movement.

or 4:10 · The variation <Picture: 04:10> and similar

forms are found in musical notation and signify a decrease in volume or diminuendo.

When placed the other way, <Picture: 04:10> , it denotes the opposite crescendo. In this use the

signs are iconic, pictures so to speak, of sound structures.

Compare with <Picture: 34:1> in Group 34 and <Picture: 36:1> in Group 36, which have

similar functions.

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4:11 · When two straight lines are combined to form a right angle, as in <Picture:

04:11> , and appears in an astrological context, it strangely enough signifies half a right angle i.e. a 45

degree angle. This is because <Picture: 28:5> in astrology is used to denote an angle of 90 degrees, and

because <Picture: 04:11> is half of <Picture: 28:5>.

The astrological sign <Picture: 04:11> has its origins in Greece and is at least 2,000 years old. In

ancient Greece this sign was used to denote half of something.

This sign is also used in the ground-to-air emergency code and means need fuel and oil.

4:12 · Two of the above entry signs placed side by side are used in the ground-to-air

emergency code to denote have not understood. Semiotically speaking the two halves of the square need to

be combined in another way to form a square, which in this case is a symbol for intelligibility.

4:13 · This is a modern ideogram used on radios and TV sets. It means inlet for antenna.

The sign <Picture: 04:34> below in this group is a synonym.

Signs such as <Picture: 42:61> in Group 42 and <Picture: 22:40> in Group 22 are used for other

in- or outlets.

4:14 · This sign is a rune with a name with associations to horse, movement, and the

movement of the sun.

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or 4:15 · The angle sign, like the arrow sign, basically means directed

movement and is thus associated with energy. The spectrum of meaning of this entry sign is centered

around the concepts of work, energy, and effect. We see this spectrum of meaning in <Picture: 04:15> ,

the sun rune in the earliest runic alphabet (and a letter for s-sound in the Old Latin alphabet) and as

<Picture> in technical contexts and electricity notation.

In the ground-to-air emergency code, <Picture: 04:15> means mechanic is needed, i.e. something is

wrong with the source of energy, the engine. In the British system of hobo signs, <Picture: 04:15>

drawn on a wall denotes here they demand that you work hard.

4:16 · This is an alchemistic sign for transform into a liquid.

In other contexts it can stand for water and for the zodiac sign of Aquarius.

4:17 · This sign means water in all times and all cultures. It is among the earliest of the

Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Today, however, it has also been adopted as a general sign for resistance of some kind, especially in

electrical contexts, where it can stand for resistor or rheostat. The structure warns that something is

dangerous or resisting. In the Swedish hobo sign system it means danger angry dog.

4:18 · For the alchemists <Picture: 04:17> was one of their signs for water. But

when electricity had become a common feature in our daily lives, <Picture: 04:17> was seldom used

for water, as opposed to the other common water signs <Picture: 02:8> and <Picture: 02:15> .

When doubled, i.e. <Picture: 04:18> , the structure retained its close relation to water by being one of

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the graphs for the zodiac sign Aqauarius, the water-bearer. See <Picture: 14:21> in Group 14 for data

on this zodiac sign.

Among the Indians of southwestern USA this sign is a stylized pictorial ideogram for mountain range.

4:19 · Here the structure <Picture: 04:6> is associated to a visual impression. The entry

sign appears on certain types of nautical charts and stands for the light flashes emitted by a lighthouse

Compare with <Picture> in Group 16, which sometimes also refers to flashes of light.

4:20 · This rather common modern ideogram, maybe first used in the United States,

means danger radiation from laser emitter.

4:21 · Here we have the arrow sign, one of the oldest and most common of ideograms. Both

<Picture: 04:21> and <Picture: 04:25> have been discovered in prehistoric caves and engraved on

rocks in the Sahara. An arrow sign indicates movement in a specific direction. It is used with this meaning

by the boy-scouts, as a traffic sign, etc.

In some modern sign systems it is placed between other signs and implies that the sign to the right of an

arrow pointing to the right is the result of, or follows logically from what is denoted by the sign to the left

of the arrow: (a <Picture> b) .

The arrow is also an ideogram representing the male sex. Compare with <Picture: 04:33> , a sort of

inversion of <Picture: 04:21 > , for the receiving end, the female sex. Occasionally <Picture: 04:21>

has a phallic symbolism, as in <Picture: 42:28> .

In modern ideography the arrow sign is also associated with snow and frost. See, for example, <Picture:

10:18> , frosty mist, a combination of the sign <Picture: 10:8> , mist, and <Picture: 04:21> . In

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the computer world <Picture: 04:21> can mean exponentialization (also drawn <Picture> ), i.e. a

multiplication of the sum by itself. In physics <Picture: 04:21> is sometimes used to denote a center of

gravity.

6:9 · An ideogram for rain among Indian peoples in southwest USA. Logically enough it

also means good harvests.

8:13 · This graph appears in the earliest Chinese writing system and in other very old

systems. Its general meaning is to cleave, or cleft, split.

Compare with the Hopi Indian symbol <Picture: 14:28> in Group 14, with the opposite meaning

unity, universal brotherhood

10:14 · This is a computer sign that stands for not the same as or separate from in

expressions like A<Picture>B . The ideogram indicates that A goes in one direction, <Picture:

04:8> , and B in another, <Picture: 04:10> . <Picture: 16:28> and <Picture: 09:8> mean

approximately the same thing in mathematics.

In the ground-to-air emergency code <Picture: 10:14> signifies that the airplane is badly damaged.

The identical structure, <Picture> , is a Spanish hobo sign indicating that here there are friends.

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Compare with <Picture> , a variation of the signs for universal brotherhood for the Hopi people in

Arizona.

13:6 · We do not know when this maze or labyrinth structure first was conceived, but it is

found among the ideograms carved into rock faces in Val Camonica in the southern Alps. They look like

most neolithic rock carvings, and might well have been carved about 3,000 years ago, although we cannot

be sure.

We see this ideogram on an Etruscian vase from about 550 B.C. Later, about 300 B.C., it was used on

coins in Crete, as the logotype, so to say, of the ruler there.

In Pompeii, the town destroyed in the year 79 A.D. by an eruption of the volcano Vesuvio, it has been

found drawn on a wall together with the inscription LABYRINTHVS HIC HABITAT MINOTAVRVS,

meaning "in this labyrinth lived Minotaurus". The structure is probably a representation of the

mythological labyrinth in Knossos, Crete, used to contain the Minotaurus monstre, half human, half bull.

Catholic missionaries found in the middle of the eighteenth centrury a stone with this structure carved in

a town in Nepal, which the Nepalese told them represented the plan of an old city whose ruins these

missionaries had seen on their journey.

A nineteenth century explorer, H. H. Bancroft, writes that the Pima Indians in America in old times told

the invading Spaniards about a building far up the Gila River in Arizona and New Mexico, which had a

plan of this structure. In Arizona it is known as Mother and child and Mother earth.

The ideogram is quite common in Europe. One finds it, for instance, as decorations in the floors of many

medieval churches in France and Italy.

Elsewhere it is found formed by rows of stones outdoors. The ideogram is called Virgin dances in

Finland, Troy fortresses in Sweden, Babylon in Russia. It is also called St. Peter's game, Jerusalem,

Jericho, and Nineveh.

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14:20 · Frank Waters, an anthropologist who has studied the Hopi Indians and their

culture, writes that the mirror image of the preceding entry sign was used by the Hopis in Arizona. Its

spectrum of meaning seems to have been centred around the concept of several returns or homecomings.

Waters has interpreted <Picture: 14:20> as tribal migration, cyclical in nature, by a people consisting

of a few large tribes or clans.

14:28 · A rune from the earliest runic alphabet. It stood for a j-sound and was associated with year

and a good year's crop. This rune could also be carved <Picture> , <Picture> , and otherwise.

The Hopi Indians have used <Picture: 14:28> . It is said to be their symbol for universal brotherhood.

The <Picture: 14:28> can be seen as the opposite of <Picture: 08:13> , to divide or cleave, with a

slight displacement to prevent the sign <Picture> from being mistaken for a circle.

and and and 16:30 · The uppermost

ideogram is an Egyptian hieroglyph representing a reed shelter in the fields. If used together with the

hieroglyph for house, and other hieroglyphs, it could stand for room, i.e. a walled enclosure within a house.

Signs like <Picture: 16:30> are common decorative elements in Greece in the antiquity. They are

found, for instance, on a plate with a pictorial representation of the deeds of Jason. The plate can be dated

back to around 500 B.C.

Jason was the famous seafaring mythological hero, who among other things set out on the quest to find

the Golden Fleece of the Ram, Aries. This myth, as the rows of ram sculptures in the Egypt temple in

Karnak, Egypt, show, is probably a reference to the cult of the Ram marking the beginning of the Aries era

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around 2350 B.C. See the section "The symbolism of the astrological ages" in Part III for data about these

eras.

Since Jason was an explorer of the overseas the structure possibly originated as a combination of the

graphic structures <Picture: 04:17> and <Picture: 14:9> , i.e. as <Picture: 16:30> . That sign

would in such a case mean sea voyages with safe returns or overseas explorations. The sign <Picture>

was an ideogram for a homecoming or return in the oldest Chinese ideographic writing system.

The form <Picture: 16:30 is also common in pre-Columbian America. It has been found in what is

now Colorado, all over Central America, and even in South America. <Picture: 16:30> is often joined

to "the stairs", <Picture> , to become <Picture> or <Picture> or <Picture> .

In most cases the ideograms of the type <Picture: 16:30> have a clockwise rotation design, i.e. if

one follows the line from the center outward the movement is clockwise. It does, however, sometimes have

a counterclockwise rotation. Both rotational designs were common as decorative elements in ancient

Greece.

Since the Mayas and some other Indian cultures in the Americas had temples with steep and long stairs

to the top where the ritual human sacrifices were made, one possible interpretation of <Picture> is

regularly recurring journeys to the temple sites for worshipping.

20:5 · For those peoples living near the equator this pictorial sign represents the new or

waning moon together with a planet. Note that a small circular sign has been a sign for star, whether planet

star or fixed star, with both prehistoric peoples and the old Chinese. Most probably the small circle in this

case represents Venus as the Morning or Evening star. See <Picture: 29:13> in Group 29 for further

explanations.

<Picture: 20:5> was common in the Phoenician cultural sphere about 2,000 years ago. Today it

appears, for instance, on the walls of some buildings in Tibet. Similar in structure is <Picture: 02:13> ,

the fermata, a signal to the player to hold on to a tone or a pause at his own discretion, in musical notation.

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Similar is also the US hobo sign <Picture: 02:13> , and <Picture> in <Picture: 14:26> , the

Indian graph for the greeting of peace, aum, where <Picture> represents the state of transcendental

consciousness. Note that <Picture> appears in the Mayans' hieroglyphic system, and there probably

meaning the new or waning moon together with Venus.

22:24 · An Indian sign for rain clouds and good prospects for the future, used by tribes

living in the desert region of southwestern USA.

Compare with <Picture> and with <Picture>

30:38 · A sign called the eye of the medicine man, synonymous with wisdom and

awareness for some Indian tribes in the south western USA.

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