Credit: © The Royal Society
Image number: RS.10905
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Picture-writing of a family group and iguanas
Date
6 January 1854
Creator
Richard Spruce (1817 - 1893, British) , Explorer
Object type
Archive reference number
Material
Dimensions
height (drawing): 167mm
width (drawing): 225mm
width (drawing): 225mm
Subject
Geography
> Exploration
Art & culture
> Archaeology
Politics & Government
> Political doctrines
> British Empire
Politics & Government
> Political doctrines
> British colonialism
> Exploration
Art & culture
> Archaeology
Politics & Government
> Political doctrines
> British Empire
Politics & Government
> Political doctrines
> British colonialism
Content object
Description
A group of picture-writing figures or pictograms observed by Spruce and reproduced as Figure 19 in Notes of a botanist on the Amazon & Andes: being records of travel on the Amazon and its tributaries, the Trombetas, Rio Negro, Uaupés, Casiquiari, Pacimoni, Huallaga, and Pastasa; as also to the cataracts of the Orinoco, along the eastern side of the Andes of Peru and Ecuador, and the shores of the Pacific, during the years 1849-1864 edited by Alfred Russel Wallace, volume II (London, 1908).
Spruce observed this group of figures when the River Casiquiari had lowered at the mouth of the Caño Calipo.
The figures apparently represent a family group and Spruce was assured by his interpreter that 'H' symolised a chief with the figures on the right representing his three wives and a child, the principal wife being distinguished by the plume on her head. Spruce suggests the curious figures on the left may be iguanas which 'being very good food, would be of especial interest'.
Richard Spruce (1817-1893) British botanist was not a Fellow of the Royal Society. He spent some fifteen years studying and collecting in the Amazon of Brazil and the Andes of Peru and Ecuador between 1849 and 1864.
Spruce was already in South America when he was employed by a Kew Gardens-India Office project to secure seeds of the cinchona tree, whose bark yielded the antimalarial drug quinine. In 1860 he shipped around 100,000 dried seeds and over 600 young plants out of Ecuador. A year later, Ecuador adopted laws to protect its cinchona trees from mass exportation.
Spruce observed this group of figures when the River Casiquiari had lowered at the mouth of the Caño Calipo.
The figures apparently represent a family group and Spruce was assured by his interpreter that 'H' symolised a chief with the figures on the right representing his three wives and a child, the principal wife being distinguished by the plume on her head. Spruce suggests the curious figures on the left may be iguanas which 'being very good food, would be of especial interest'.
Richard Spruce (1817-1893) British botanist was not a Fellow of the Royal Society. He spent some fifteen years studying and collecting in the Amazon of Brazil and the Andes of Peru and Ecuador between 1849 and 1864.
Spruce was already in South America when he was employed by a Kew Gardens-India Office project to secure seeds of the cinchona tree, whose bark yielded the antimalarial drug quinine. In 1860 he shipped around 100,000 dried seeds and over 600 young plants out of Ecuador. A year later, Ecuador adopted laws to protect its cinchona trees from mass exportation.
Associated place