Full Description
Why is it that, throughout their history, humans have repeatedly taken on the task of developing writing systems? Inventing Writing offers an array of conceptual tools for answering this question. In it, Pierre Déléage explores a series of cases involving the invention and use of writing systems by indigenous North American societies. Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, a number of prophetic and shamanic movements developed original inscription techniques to ensure the transmission of ceremonial discourses. Examining these sources, the author formulates an innovative hypothesis: All of these invented writing systems can be defined as intended to transcribe specific ritual discourses within the institutional frameworks that governed their transmission and recitation. By focusing on the pragmatic functions of these North American scripts in their ritual contexts, Déléage allows us to rethink the problem of the invention of writing beyond the confines of evolutionary approaches that have classically focused on the great phonographic scripts of human history (Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Chinese, and Maya) and have never been able deal with selective writing systems on their own terms. Déléage's approach offers a novel and promising argument for uncoupling the origin of writing from the genesis of the state, an association that many specialists in the field have long made.
Contents
Figures
Acknowledgments
A Note on Terminology
Introduction
Writing Systems and Ritual Discourses
Selective Writing Systems and Total Writing Systems
Bound Writing Systems
Five Indigenous American Rituals
Prophetic Writing Systems and Shamanic Writing Systems
Chapter 1
The Writing System of Charles Meiaskaouat, Montagnais Preacher
Meiaskaouat's Vision
The Ritual Calendar
The Book of Superstitions
The Propagation of Charles Meiaskaouat's Selective Writing System
Chapter 2
The Great Book of Neolin, Delaware Visionary
July 5, 1754—The Susquehanna River—An Indian Book
July 24, 1754—Onondaga—A Nanticoke Letter
June 2, 1760—The Susquehanna River—An Old Delaware Priest's Book of Images
October 15, 1762—The Ohio River—The Great Book of Neolin, Delaware Prophet
October 22, 1767—The Ohio River—The Preachers' Bible
Chapter 3
Kenekuk's Bible: The Kickapoo Prophet
An Eschatological Map
Kenekuk's Selective Writing System
After the Death of the Prophet
Chapter 4
The Charts of Abishabis and Wasiteck, Cree Prophets
Two Cree Prophets
Two Printed Hymns and an Eschatological Chart
Chapter 5
Prophetic Scripts
Two Aspects of Ritual Invention
Mapping Vision Narratives and Transcribing Songs
The Prophetic Invention of Writing
Chapter 6
The Midewiwin: The Writing System and Charts of an Ojibwe Shamanic Society
Two Accounts Separated by More Than a Century
An Ojibwe Shamanic Society
Ojibwe Graphic Repertories
The Origin of the Midewiwin Selective Script
Midewiwin Shamanic Songs
An Example
The Selective Script of the Songs
The Charts
The Institutional Context of the Midewiwin Charts and Writing System
The Midewiwin and Christianity
The Midewiwin and the Jaasakids
Chapter 7
The Writing Systems of Shamans and Prophets
Epistemology and Liturgy
Stability and Distribution
Institutional Conditions for the Invention of Writing
Conclusion
Bound Writing Systems
Selective Writing Systems
Secondary Writing Systems
Total Writing Systems
Afterword to the English Edition
The Problem of the Origin of Writing
Standardized Graphic Systems
Selective Writing Systems
Bound Writing Systems
Bibliography
Index
