6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Ill 



& Wolf, to well others add the Snake [eel?], Deer, &ca, each of These Tribes 

 [clans] form a little Community within the Nation, and as the Nation has its 

 peculiar Symbol so each Tribe [clan] has the peculiar Badge from whence it is 

 denominated, and a Sachem of each Tribe [clan] being a necessary party to a 

 fair Conveyance such Sachim affixes the mark of the Tribe [clan] thereto, wch 

 is not that of a particular family (unless the whole Tribe [clan] is so deemed) 

 but rather as the publick Seal of a Corporation. [Pp. 436-437.] ^ 



* * * 

 As to the information wch ... I formerly Transmitted to the Gov'' of 

 N. York concerning the belt & 15 Bloody Sticks sent by the Mississagaes, The 

 like is very Comon and the Ind' use Sticks as well to Express the alliance of 

 Castles as the number of Individuals in a party, These Sticks are generally ab* 

 6 Inches in length & very slender & painted Red if the Subject is War but with- 

 out any peculiarity as to Shape. Their belts are mostly black Wampum, painted 

 red when they denote War they describe Castles sometimes upon them as square 

 figures of White Wampum, & in Alliances Human figures holding a Chain of 

 friendship, each figure represent^ a nation, an axe is also sometimes described 

 wch is always an Emblem of War, the Taking it up is a Declaration . . . and 

 the burying it a token of Peace, . . . [O'Callaghan, 1851, vol. 4, pp. 430-437-] 



Thus Jolmson equated the Chippewa use of red-painted message 

 sticks with Iroquois practice, more commonly expressed in wampum 

 belts, on which the red ceremonial war paint likewise had a sinister 

 significance. It might be reasoned that the more widespread message 

 sticks are an older and more basic idea underlying the Iroquois wam- 

 pums which attained prominence in colonial treaties. It is clear that 

 the Iroquois understood and on occasion used sticks for more com- 

 mon purposes than they employed wampums, but in either case the 

 mnemonic pictographs were essentially the same. 



Our previous reference to the notched message stick among the 

 modern Iroquois is confirmed by Beauchamp (1905, p. 169) who 

 found that Father Bruyas (1862, p. 56) had noted a Mohawk radical 

 (Gahwengare) for the custom of issuing invitation sticks to feasts 

 in the seventeenth century. An Onondaga woman of Beauchamp's 

 acquaintance kept a day count by notching a long stick and using a 

 cross for Sunday after the death of a son. When visitors were wel- 

 comed at Onondaga in his day a solemn occasion was observed by 

 sending out a runner to meet and record their numbers on a stick 

 which he turned in to the council. The Tuscaroras of Lewiston, N. Y., 

 have a similar manner of recording votes when the matrons report 

 their selection of a chief to the council. 



We can sustain what Johnson wrote by modern usage or by ap- 

 pealing to early writers. It was the Huron custom, for example, to 



s Possibly Johnson saw the distinction between clan and lineage. 



