556 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1897. 



fined to America. The belt was used to remind the orator for tbetime 

 of bis speecb or lesson prepared before leaving the tribe on a mission, 

 wbicb, if forgotten, would be instantly corrected by bis companions 

 present, and when tbis belt bad served its .specific purpose, upon occa- 

 sion it would be used as a witness to anotber and possibly entirely 

 different contract. Labontan bas referred to tbese belts or " coliers," 

 as the French usually designate them, as being " certain swathes of - 

 or 3 feet in length by a breadth of 6 inches, decked with little beads 

 made of certain shells that are found upon the seashore between I^ew 

 York and Virginia. These beads are round and as thick as a green 

 pea, but are twice as long as a grain of corn. Their color is blue 

 or white, and they are bored through like the pearl being run after 

 the same manner upon strings which lie sideways to one another. 

 Without the intervention of these coliers there is no business to be 

 negotiated with the savages; for being altogether unacquainted with 

 writing, they make use of them for contracts and obligations. Some- 

 times they keep a belt for a generation wbicb bas been received from 

 their neighbors, and, in this respect, every belt bas its own peculiar 

 mark. They learn from the old persons the circumstances of the time 

 and i^lace where they were delivered, but after that is over they are 

 made use of for new treaties."' 



Maj. Eichard Ingoldsby, commander in chief of the province of New 

 York, on the Oth of June, 1692, presented to the "sachims of the Five 

 Nations or cantons westward — namely, Maquaes, Oneydes,Onnondages, 

 Cayouges, and Sinnekes — in the city hall of Albany, G gross of pipes 

 and 100 pounds of tobacco." ^ 



Sanvole, in Louisiana, in 1090, speaks of giving the Indians small 

 presents of glass beads, knives, and hatchets, for conducting M. De 

 Bienville to the Equinipicbas (Choctaws living northeast of the mouth 

 of the Mississippi) to whom be also sent a present of a cai)ot, a calumet, 

 beads, and other things proper to give such persons.' 



Tbis i)resent, the capot, is not an uncommon occurrence apparently, 

 and the same author refers to a present of a " habit rouge " and the 

 calumet of i^eace. ^ 



Father Gravier, who, in 1701, went over the same ground that Father 

 Marquette had traversed in 1G73, refers to the calumet and there being 

 one for peace and another for war, the red signifying war. He goes so 

 far as to say that upon presentation of the calumet even enemies will lay 

 down their arms in the beat of combat. He describes the hollow wooden 

 stem of the pipe as being the origin of the name calumet from a cor- 

 ruption of the word chalumeau, because it resembles a pipe or rather a 

 long flute.-' 



That there were exceptions, however, to the sanctity of the calumet 



'Baron Lahoutan, Some New Voyages iato North America, I, p. 36, London, 1703. 



2 Documents Relating to the Colonial History of New York, III, p. 842. 



■'Journal de M. Sanvole, Historical Collections of Louisiana, Pt. 3, p. 225. 



^ Idem, pp. 228, 232. 



"^John Gilmarj' Shea, Early Voyages Up and Down the Mississippi, Journal of a 

 Voyage of Father Gravier, of the Society of Jesus, from the country of the Illinois 

 to the mouth of the MississiiJpi, p. 130, Albany, 18()1. 



