196 



MEMORIES OF MY LIFE 



Lucy, has lived with me as companion, and I have 

 followed a somewhat similar routine of life, except in 

 being no longer advised by the doctor to try cures, 

 the best means of securing health now being- to 

 escape a winter in London. 



Yearly Medallions. My fancy had been taken long 

 ago by a custom of certain North American Indians, 

 of naming years, each after some characteristic event 

 that had occurred in it. 1 It appears that an annual con- 

 sultation of Indian chiefs was held, at which the more 



striking occurrences of the past year were reviewed and 

 one selected as its representative. Thereupon an Indian 

 who was reputed for skill in drawing made a picture 

 or symbol of the event on his buffalo-skin robe. They 

 are as rude in conception and execution as an English 

 child of five years old might draw. Thus the " small- 

 pox year " is symbolically expressed by an elementary 



1 Photographs of the North American Indians. By Garrick Mallery, from 

 the Fourth Annual Report of the Museum of Ethnology, Washington, Govern- 

 ment Printing Office, 18S6. 



