NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS — FENTON 7 



hand an ambassador whom they desired to hear "... a Httle bundle 

 of straws, a foot long, which serve as counters, to supply the place of 

 numbers and to aid the memory of the assistants, distributing in differ- 

 ent lots these straws, according to the diversity of things which they 

 recount." (Jesuit Relation, 1646, in Beauchamp, 1905, p. 170.) 

 DeVries (1857, p. 118) noted a similar use of sticks among the In- 

 dians of Manhattan and Long Island, 1643. And Father Louis Hen- 

 nepin was present at a council held January 1-2, 1679, ""^ the great 

 village of the Senecas, meeting in the cabin of the principal chief 

 Tagarondies for whom the village was named. He writes : 



The Next Day the Iroquese answered our Discourse and Presents Article 

 by Article, having laid upon the Ground several little peices of Wood, to put 

 them in mind of what had been said the Day before in the Council; their 

 Speaker, or President, held in his hand one of the Pieces of Wood, and when 

 he had answered one Article of our Proposal, he laid it down with some Presents 

 of black and white Porcelain, which they use to string upon the smallest Sinews 

 of Beasts; and then took up another Piece of Wood; and so of all the rest, 

 till he had fully answer'd our Speech, of which those Pieces of Wood, and 

 our Presents put them in mind. When his Discourse was ended, the oldest 

 man of the Assembly cry'd aloud for three times, Niaoua [Niya-wenh'] ; that is 

 to say, It is well, I thank thee; which was repeated with full voice and in a 

 tuneful manner by all the other Senators. [Thwaites, 1903, vol. i, pp. 85-86.] 



On arrival at the last great treaty which the Six Nations held with 

 the United States at Canandaigua, N. Y., during the autumn of 1794, 

 the Senecas registered the size of their delegation by having each 

 chief deliver "... a bundle of sticks, answerable to the number of 

 persons, men, women, and children under his command. . . ." 

 (Savery, 1844, p. 64.) 



Other than the frequent mention of sticks, belts, and strings of 

 wampum, none of the early writers on the Iroquois reports mnemonic 

 pictographs for the Condolence Council. The painted war records, 

 however, suggest pictographs painted on bark which were in general 

 use among the Central Algonquians. The Ojibwa pictorialized on 

 birch-bark scrolls the traditional history of the Medicine Society, 

 the order of ritual, and mnemonics for individual songs (Hoffman, 

 1891). On the Plains the medium became the buffalo robe. But John- 

 son's reference to "... 15 Bloody Sticks sent by the Mississagaes 

 . . ." brings us back to pictographs painted or engraved on sticks 

 of hardwood. Hoffman illustrated one of these so-called "medicine 

 sticks" (p. 289, pi. 21) but thought that their form was copied from 

 objects of European origin. Erminie Voegelin, in discussing certain 

 parallels to Delaware Walam Olum (1939, p. 29), found these sticks 



