that can ever be interpreted without the aid of a
traditional key, such as is required for the signification of the
wampum belts of the Northeastern tribes and the _quippus_ of Peru.
Strips of bark, tablets of wood, dressed skins of animals, and the
smooth surfaces of rock have been and still are used for such records,
those most ancient, and therefore most interesting, being of course
the rock etchings; but they can only be deciphered, if at all, by the
ascertained principles on which the more modern and the more obvious
are made. Many of the numerous and widespread rock carvings are mere
idle sketches--of natural objects, mainly animals, and others are as
exclusively mnemonic as the wampum above mentioned. Even since the
Columbian discovery some tribes have employed devices yet ruder than
the rudest pictorial attempt as markers for the memory. An account
of one of these is given in E. Winslow's Relation (A.D. 1624), _Col.
Mass. Hist. Soc._, 2d series, ix, 1822, p. 99, as follows:

"Instead of records and chronicles they take this course: Where any
remarkable act is done, in memory of it, either in the place or by
some pathway near adjoining, they make a round hole in the ground
about a foot deep, and as much over, which, when others passing by
behold, they inquire the cause and occasion of the same, which being
once known, they are careful to acquaint all men as occasion serveth
therewith. And lest such holes should be filled or grown over by any
accident, as men pass by they will often renew the same; by which
means many things of great antiquity are fresh in memory. So that as a
man traveleth, if he can understand his guide, his journey will be the
less tedious, by reason of the many historical discourses which will
be related unto him."

Gregg, in _Commerce of the Prairies_, _New York_, 1844, II, 286, says
of the Plains tribes: "When traveling, they will also pile heaps
of stones upon mounds or conspicuous points, so arranged as to be
understood by their passing comrades; and sometimes they set up the
bleached buffalo heads, which are everywhere scattered over those
plains, to indicate the direction of their march, and many other facts
which may be communicated by those simple signs."

[Illustration: Fig. 151.]

[Illustration: Fig. 152.]

A more ingenious but still arbitrary mode of giving intelligence is
practiced at this day by the Abnaki, as reported by H.L. Masta, chief
of that tribe, now living at Pierre