I38 Conjeclures refpe&ing the 



fage flick (hall be cut and fent through it." In Sweden, 

 orders for fummoning the magiftrates to adminifter juftice, 

 as well as every other mefTage, in the time of peace as well as 

 war, were iiiiied in the like manner. According to all ap- 

 pearance the art of writing was then unknown, and therefore 

 iuch flicks were employed inftead of circular letters. The 

 fame cuftom has been obferved among the Moguls in Siberia, 

 among the Ofiiaks and the Tartars. Barlaeus fays, that the 

 American favages of Chili, when they intended to make war 

 on the Spaniards, fent an arrow, with a firing fattened to it, 

 to their neighbouring allies. If the chief received the arrow, 

 it was a fign that he was refolved to fupport the war; he 

 made a knot on the firing, and fent the arrow to the next. 

 The other chiefs did tht fame, and the melTenger returned 

 with his arrow, having the firing full of knots. Le Gentil, 

 who made a voyage round the round, fays that the knots are 

 of different colours, which not only denote the plan, but the 

 place and day on which it is to be carried into execution. 

 Don Antonio de Ulloa, however, fays nothing of the knots 

 being of different colours, but in other refpe£ts he coincides 

 with the abovementioned writers. 



7. Tattooing on the Face and whole Body. 



Figures cut out in the fkin of the human body were, 

 according to the teflimony of Herodotus, tokens of a noble 

 birth. Ammianus Marcellinus fays that the Huns cut out 

 figures on the cheeks of their new-born male children, with 

 a view, as he fuppofes, of preventing the growth of the 

 beard. This, however, does not appear to have been the real 

 caufe; for the Huns, like their neighbours the Chinefe, had 

 from nature very little beard, and only a few ftraggling hairs 

 on the cheeks and chin. We are informed by Ckudian that 

 the Picls, formerly a people of Great Britain, and the Ge- 

 loni, a people of Greek extraction who inhabited on the 

 Dnieper, made figures on their limbs with an iron inftru- 

 ment. This pra6tice is very common in Siberia among the 

 Tungufians, as we are exprefsly told by Gmelin the 

 elder, in the account of his travels. In the fmall ifland of 

 Meangis, not far from Mindanao, the men as well as the 

 women cut out figures on their fkin according to a certain 

 pattern ; they then put into the wounds finely pulverized 

 gum, and afterwards rub over them a certain falve. Captain 

 Dam pier, who examined a Miangi prince, fpeaks highly 

 of this kind of painting, and fays that it is exceedingly 

 beautiful, and that the flowers, leaves, &c. are fo inge- 

 nioufly executed, that they befpeak no fmall degree of art. 

 6 We 



