480 PRINCE — THE PASSAMAQUODDY WAMPUM RECORDS. [Dec. 3, 



is a northern dialect of the Algonkin stock, very closely allied to 

 the idiom of the Etchemins or Maliseets of New Brunswick and to 

 that of the Abenakis ^ or St. Francis Indians of Quebec, and less 

 closely, although nearly, related to the language of the Micmacs of 

 Nova Scotia. 



The Passamaquoddies, Penobscots, Maliseets, Abenakis and Mic- 

 macs call themselves by the common name Wabanaki or ''children 

 of the dawn-country," ^ which was in earlier days the generic name 

 of the entire Algonkin family. These five tribes seem to have 

 been members of a federation both with one another and with the 

 Iroquoian Six Nations, and the Passamaquoddies have preserved 

 the traditions regarding both of these unions in their Wampum 

 Records, the text and translation of which are given in the present 

 article. 



The records of an Indian tribe were in nearly all cases orally 

 transmitted by elderly men whose memories had been especially 

 trained for the purpose from their early youth. It was customary 

 for these keepers of the tribal history from time to time to instruct 

 younger members of the clan in the annals of their people. The 

 records thus transmitted in the case of the Passamaquoddies were 

 kept in the memory of the historians by means of a mnemonic system 

 of wampum, shells arranged on strings in such a manner that certain 

 combinations suggested certain sentences or ideas to the narrator 

 or ''reader," who, of course, already knew his record by heart 

 and was merely aided by the association in his mind of the arrange- 

 ment of the wampum beads with incidents or sentences in the tale, 

 song or ceremony which he was rendering. This explains such 

 expressions as " marriage wampum " or "burial wampum," which 

 are common among the Passamaquoddies and simply mean com- 

 binations of wampum which suggested to the initiated interpreter 

 the ritual of the tribal marriage and burial ceremonies. 



This custom of preserving records by means of a mnemonic system 

 was peculiar to all the tribes of the Algonkin race as well as to the 

 Iroquoian clans. Brinton refers to the record or tally sticks of the 

 Crees and Chipeways as the " rude beginning of a system of 

 mnemonic aids." ^ It seems to have been customary in early times 



1 The Abenakis who call themselves Wabaiiaki are at present a small clan resi- 

 dent at St, Francis near Quebec. They were at one time a powerful New Hamp- 

 shire tribe. 



2 See Brinton, The Leiiape and Tkeir Legends, p. 19. 3 /_ ^__ p ^g^ 



