26 JOHN EEADE: 



fully treated in the paper on " Art in Shell of the Ancient Americans," accompanied by 

 many beautiful illustrations, by Mr. William H. Holmes in the Second Annual Report of the 

 Bureau of Ethnology, Washington. Though it is " not possible from any known records to 

 demonstrate the great antiquity of this (the mnemonic) use of wampum," Mr. Holmes does 

 not think it probable " that a custom, so unique and wide-spread, could have grown up 

 within the historic period," or "that a practice foreign to the genius of tradition-loving 

 races could have become so well established aud .so dear to their hearts in a few genera- 

 tions." In his opinion, its archival use might have originated in the practice of exchanging 

 gifts, which were preserved " as reminders of promises of assistance or protection." He 

 thinks that in time " the use of such mementos would develop into a system capable of 

 recording affairs of a varied and complicated nature,"' — the colours and patterns of the 

 strung beads suggesting, by association, facts, incidents, or solemn engagements, which had 

 been " talked into " them. They were useless, however, without an interpreter, and it was 

 visual among the Onondagas for one member of the tribe to hold the position of royanner 

 or hereditary wampum-keeper. If I understand Mr. Hale aright, such official annalists 

 were employed by all the nations of the Iroquois confederacy. Mr. Holmes's splendid series 

 of illustrations includes a picture of the famous Penn Treaty belt, now in the cabinet of 

 the Historical Society, Philadeli^hia. It was delivered to Penn, by the chiefs of the Lenni- 

 Lenape under the elm-tree at Shackamox in 1682. 



Like expedients for aiding the memory were, no doubt, in vogue in remote times in 

 many parts of the old world as well as of the new. As already mentioned, the Chinese 

 have a tradition that at a certain period in their early history, writing by pictvires was 

 substituted for the knotted strings previously in use. Pauthier, following the chronology 

 established by the Imperial Academy, under Kuen-Lung, in 176*7, assigns the sixty-first year 

 of the reign of Hoang-ti as the beginning of the historic period. The institution of a tri- 

 bunal of history, attributed to that emperor, implies that writing was quite fomiliar in his 

 day. A few centviries later Yu (who died in the year B. C. 2108) is said to have had an ins- 

 cription carved on a celebrated mountain, Heng-Chan, and this inscription is said to be still 

 visible, though almost effaced by the lapse and wear of many seasons. But an exact copy 

 of it, in the primitive characters of Fou-Hi, is preserved in the museum of the ancient city 

 of Si-Ngan-Fou, in the province of Chensi. Father Amyot, the famous missionary and sino- 

 logue, had a transcript and translation of it sent to the Bibliothèc[ue Eoyale of Paris. If as 

 Pauthier seems to believe, that document can be depended on as a genuine copy of an 

 inscription of the twenty-second century before Christ, the honours of epigraphic antic^uity, 

 hitherto almost monopolized by Western Asia and Northern Africa, niixst be shared Avith 

 the long-enduring ciAilization of the far East. Between the time of Fou-Hi (B. C. 2950, or, 

 as some maintain, B. C. 3369) and the date in question, the credit of the discovery or inven- 

 tion, or of some marked improvement on processes already in use, is attributed to various 

 emperors and ministers. The most interesting of these traditions ascribes the gift of 

 writing to certain barbarians from the South, who visited the court of Yao, in the twenty- 

 fourth centiiry before Christ. Pauthier asks whether such a story could point to intercourse 

 with Phœnicia or Egypt. The discovery made not long since of a connection between the 

 most ancient literature of China and that of the Turanian founders of Babylon may more 

 hopefully indicate its origin.' 



' London Quarterly Review, July, 1882. 



