Cow Brands...?

I have a really strange question to ask.   I think it's related to
conlanging...?

I was at this restaurant today in San Diego's Old Town called Rancho el
Nopal.
Here's the website (this'll be pertinent in a minute):

http://bazaardelmundo.com/vtours/nopal.html

On their menu, and scattered sporadically throughout the building, were these
characters that looked *exactly* like a few of the characters that were used
for
the Cherokee syllabary, which can be viewed here:

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/cherokee.htm

In particular, the characters for "hi", "tse", "lo" and I want to say "tlo".
 Anyway, on
that website is a virtual tour, and I was hoping to see if there were some of
these
things visible, but it doesn't look like it...   I thought there were some on
the lights,
but those appear to be cows and the boys associated with them.

Anyway, while I was contemplating what the Cherokee syllabary could possibly
have to do with a Mexican restaurant, it was pointed out to me that they
might, in
fact, be cow brands.   This made me wonder if it was done all over the world,
but
nevertheless, it is (was?) done here.   And I was wondering: Does anyone know
anything about the insignia used to brand cows or other livestock?   Is there
some
sort of website that collects such insigniae?   I figure if there was anyone
that knew,
someone here would.   And hey, insigniae are kind of like an invented
script...right?   ;)

All right, I know this is very tangential, but there were some really
interesting designs.
Cham-like designs, even.

-David
*******************************************************************
"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."

-Jim Morrison

http://dedalvs.free.fr/

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