FACULTY IN ABOEIGINAL EACES. 103 



ihau"'e for the neuter. But the word oozahmmahrie, from oonah, "the cheek," is also used 

 for painting the face either red or yellow. Quahnaii/, or gvanai, the word for " beautiful," 

 is applied to moral as well as physical beauty, e.g., gu-unaienene would be used of a fair, 

 honourable dealing man, as well as of one who was handsome or good-looking. But such 

 rhetorical tropes are common to many languages. 



The Rev. Silas T. Rand, for upwards of thirty years a missionary among the Micmac 

 Indians of Nova Scotia, thus writes to me : " The Micmac is rich in words relating to 

 art, the making and ornamenting of garments, moccasins, snowshoes, etc., of weapons 

 and implements for domestic use, making pottery and modelling in clay. For building 

 and managing a canoe there are at least seventy-six words. They have words for carving 

 on stone, and also on wood, for marking dressed skins with flower patterns, for carving 

 flowers in stone, for scraping them on birch-bark dishes, for drawing a likeness, making 

 models and patterns, and for working after them. When I was engaged in translating 

 • Exodus,' and largely dependent on my Indian teacher for the words to express all 

 the parts of the Tabernacle, its coverings and furniture, mortices, tenons, hooks, fillets, 

 loops, bars, pins, sockets, etc., I fully expected to be baffled. What was my surprise 

 to find that there were words in the language by which to express all I needed. 

 Boards, bars, bolts, pillars, poles, rings, everything was made, put together, and my 

 ' pundit,' an excellent mechanic, when he returned next day to go on with our work, 

 assured me that he had been dreaming about that " wigwam ' we had been erecting the 

 previous day, and he was sure he could make such a one. He had the pattern in his head 

 as clearly as Moses had it, after he had seen it up the mountain." In the Micmac, aiL-eeImm 

 is " a drawing," lit. " I write it," " I draw it ;" essinn, " I colour it ;" elapskudaaga, " I am 

 carving," or "cutting stone;" elapskuduam, "I am carving it in stone;" apsk, which here 

 denotes " stone," is only used in composition ; coondoir is the word for " stone ;" eloksoica, 

 " I am carving in wood ;" noojeiveekuga, "a painter," " drawer," "writer," lit. " a maker of 

 marks ;" aveegasik, " a incture," lit. " it is marked down." etc. 



The Algonkin root iralam, " red," is the term employed in the Walum Oltiw. or " Red 

 Score of the Lenape," which was brought imder the notice of the New York Historical 

 Society, in 1848, by Mr. E. G. Squier, as " The Bark Record of the Lenni-Lenape." His 

 uarratiA'e has been more than once reprinted ; but the carefully edited version of this ciu- 

 ious Indian ideograph, given by Dr. Brinton, in his " Lenape and their Legends," will 

 supersede earlier and less accurate versions. The full translation with which the pictogra- 

 phic record of the Walum Oliim is accompanied, abundantly suffices to prove that it may be 

 most correctly described as a series of mnemonic signs employed for the purpose of keep- 

 ing in memory a national chant, of a class very familiar to the students of primitive 

 history. The ballad epics of the ancient G-ermans, and the still earlier lays of ancient 

 Rome, the Abanic Duan, and others of the genealogical and historical poems of the Celtic 

 nations, were all of this class ; and analogous traditionary chants have been perpetuated 

 among the Maoris of New Zealand. The system of pictography corresponds to that in use 

 among the Ojibways and other Algonkin tribes, including the totems, or sign-names ; 

 but it falls far short of true picture-writing. Section IV records the conquest by the Le- 

 nape tribe, of the northern country, which they call " The Snake Land." Bald Eagle, 

 Beautiful Head, White Owl, Keeping Gruard, Snow Bird, and a succession of other chiefs 

 are named, all of whom are more or less graphically indicated by their totems ; but a para- 



