On the Origin of Writing:

A Consideration of the Form of Image Writing used by the First Nations of North America, within the context of Gilles Deleuze’s “Proust and Signs”.

By John Morton.

By Way of Introduction

One day, in October of 1991, I was hiking in an area of coastal British Columbia known as Bute Inlet. As I was walking along, I was also casually collecting small stones which I intended to add as decorations to my Bonsai trees.

One small stone particularly caught my eye as I walked past. It seemed to have a pattern upon it that was not something one would expect to see occurring naturally. Picking it up, I looked more closely at it and noted that the circular pattern of marks which had attracted my attention was arrayed around a central dot. This seemed rather unusual to me; so I saved this small oddity, slipping it into the change pocket of my jeans. There it stayed, out of sight and out of mind, until my eventual return to Vancouver B.C.

Although I did not realize it at the time, the simple act of picking up that small, dime-sized stone defined a moment in time which effectively shifted the entirety of my post-structuralist background into a new and completely unexpected future. For, that small stone turned out to be an example of an ancient form of image writing long used by the First Nations of North America; and, a form of writing with images which had not been documented in modern academic discourse. 

Exactly how far back in time the use of this form of image writing stretches is still very much subject to debate (I would like to note here that, while the examples that I have found of this image writing's peak of development present images of animals that have been extinct in North America for ~10,000 years, the earliest examples that I have found present images of First Nations members AS WELL AS images of the species of North American hominids that were also living in areas humans found to be most habitable... and, that such very early examples of image production almost certainly pre-date the last ice age). However, after examining thousands of examples of this form of writing – some briefly, some in great detail – I have been forced to conclude that the history of this form of writing also defines the very origin of writing itself… an origin which, much to the credit of Jacques Derrida’s linguistic insights, is fundamentally graphemic in nature. Writing, in its origin, is not even remotely phonetic in structure.

In the course of my research into this previously undocumented form of image writing, I have been able to trace the developmental course of its evolution as a coherent and consistent system of writing. By comparing the earliest examples I have found of images produced upon a medium of stone, with those taken from the peak of this written form’s development, I have been able to broadly document how the intentional activity of altering the physical surfaces of stone into basic image patterns eventually developed into the conceptual manipulation of stone surfaces and the production of a distinct form of writing.

It is in this movement, from an intended physical variance to an intentional and essentially conceptual variance, that the developmental origin of writing is most clearly preserved and presented. 

The Context of My Research

When I began my research into this ancient form of image writing, I was somewhat shocked at the complete lack of interest in my work expressed by those whose academic credentials are defined by the fields of anthropology and archaeology. Of course, this was at a time in British Columbia when the Gitskan and Wet’suwet’en land claim trial(s) had come to an initial conclusion. Perhaps the pronouncements of Judge McEachern, uttered in his decision against the validity of the Gitskan and Wet’suwet’en people’s claim, had something to do with this overall lack of interest and, generalized reluctance to become involved in my research:

“A key notion in the imagining of Canada is the idea of “wilderness” as empty, uninhabited, unmapped, unnamed territory. The notion is used in the McEachern judgment to metaphorically dispossess the Gitskan and Wet’suwet’en of land that for them is named, fabled, and criss-crossed with an economy of use and knowledge. In dismissing the land claim, McEachern refers to the territory as “a vast emptiness”. It was as if no one could be said to own this emptiness: instead the territory sort of waited for exploration and ownership that would fill it or bring it into a reality it could not yet be said to participate in. For McEachern, in noticing how empty the land was, also noted; “There are, unquestionably, immense forestry reserves throughout the territory which are of great economic value.”

“Wilderness denotes a special kind of imaginary non-economy when thinking of land claims. As McEachern puts it, “It is common when one thinks of Indian land claims, to think of Indians living off the land in pristine wilderness.” In other words, McEachern is saying that Indians are a part of nature. In any event, McEachern really thinks pre-contact life must have been so awful that the Gitskan ought to be grateful the white man arrived and rescued them; “it would not be accurate to assume that even pre-contact existence in the territory was in the least bit idyllic. The plaintiff’s ancestors had no written language, no horses or wheeled vehicles, slavery and starvation was not uncommon, wars with neighboring peoples were common, and there is no doubt, to quote Hobbes, that aboriginal life in the territory was, at best, ‘nasty, brutish, and short.’”

“These characterizations serve as the basis for McEachern’s denial that the Gitskan and Wet’suwet’en had sufficient social organization or social continuity to conceptualize the territory they claim as property. Representations of the wilderness have been a terrible instrument in law. They are part of a larger pattern of genocide.”

This ruling, handed down in March of 1991, did not stand up to the scrutiny of the Supreme Court of Canada. In the case Delgamuukw v. British Columbia [1997] (3 S.C.R. 1010), the above mentioned land claim was revisited:

“The Gitskan and Wet'Suwet'en claims were not decided upon as the Chief Justice held that the trial judge had made substantive errors that affected the trial. Although this court ruling defined the content of aboriginal title more fully, the court did not speak to the issue of self-government. In this decision the Supreme Court of Canada held that rules of evidence should be relaxed in order to include oral evidence from aboriginal peoples.”

Looking back now, I can see that the complete lack of support for my research on the part of the various university-based and national museums which I approached here in Canada was in fact a good thing. In addition to not having to put up with that eye-rolling with which my stating that I am a philosopher was too often met, I also didn’t have to accept the completely erroneous preconceptions concerning the true history of the First Nations which riddle modern North American anthropology and archaeology. That in itself has allowed me to accomplish more than the support of any such museum would have. It has also let me define which analytic approach is most appropriate to the material upon which this research is based; and thus my research is thoroughly influenced by the works of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.

Indeed, the very nature of my research has allowed me to stretch some of the post-structuralist approaches developed by Deleuze and Guattari into new forms which are consistent with their work: thus I feel confident in presenting a sampling of my work to this audience, whom I feel certain will be able to appreciate what I have done. I am not going to enter here into a debate concerning the political agenda that the misconceptions of modern anthropology and archaeology seem to so conveniently serve; that would be a matter more in keeping for a journal inspired by Michel Foucault. I am, however, going to present to you some of the evidence I have gathered indicating that the First Nations of North America developed both an indigenous system of writing, and, an accurate system for mapping their traditional territories.

Needless to say, the information I received from First Nations’ Elders concerning this form of image writing was diametrically opposed to what is considered to be ‘true’ by modern anthropology and archaeology.

A Different(ial) Field of Study

One text by Deleuze that I have found to be very helpful in the presentation of my research is “Proust and Signs”. As a commentary upon and an analysis of Marcel Proust’s masterwork “In Search of Lost Time”, this text is quite singular in the focus that it brings to Deleuze’s interpretive skills. And although this text might seem a very strange starting point from which to consider a previously undocumented form of image writing, consider Deleuze’s conclusions regarding Proust’s work:

“What is essential in the Search is not memory and time, but the sign and truth. What is essential is not to remember, but to learn. For memory is valid only as a faculty capable of interpreting certain signs; time is valid only as the substance or type of this or that truth. And memory, whether voluntary or involuntary, intervenes only at specific moments of the apprenticeship, in order to concentrate its effect or to open a new path. The notions of the Search are: sign, meaning, and essence; the continuity of apprenticeship and the abruptness of revelation.”

“We are not physicists or metaphysicians; we must be Egyptologists. For there are no mechanical laws between things or voluntary communications between minds. Everything is implicated, everything is complicated, everything is sign, meaning, essence. Everything exists in those obscure zones that we penetrate as into crypts, in order to decipher hieroglyphs and secret languages. The Egyptologist, in all things, is the man who undergoes an initiation – the apprentice.”

Gilles Deleuze: “Proust and Signs”, copyright 2000 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota ; pages 91/92.

Clearly, this is exactly the sort of approach needed when encountering a previously undocumented form of writing such as the one which I am presenting here. And, as an added benefit, “Proust and Signs” was first published in 1964 – thus making it an excellent ouvre into Deleuze’s subsequent works.

Of particular interest here is Chapter 7, “Pluralism in the System of Signs”. In this section of “Proust and Signs”, Deleuze outlines what might be called ‘seven criteria for sign differentiation’. These are:

The matter in which the sign is embodied;

The way in which something is emitted and apprehended as a sign, but also the consequent dangers of an interpretation that may be objectivist or subjectivist;

The effect of the sign upon us, the kind of emotion it produces;

The nature of meaning, and the sign’s relation to its meaning;

The principle faculty that explicates or interprets the sign, which develops its meaning;

The temporal structures or lines of time implicated in the sign,

and the corresponding type of truth;

Essence.

I would like to examine each of these criteria in turn, and to decenter each by shifting its application away from “Proust and Signs”, and into my analysis of the form of image writing used, in pre-Columbian times, by the First Nations of North America. In the course of this decentering, each of the criteria will by necessity undergo a broadening of application which should prove of interest to those who find the post-structuralist works of Deleuze to be of use in their own research.