8 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Ill 



only among Chippewa, Kickapoo, and Delaware. To this list we can 

 now add Montagnais, Shawnee, and Cayuga. 



In commenting on how Algonquians generally preserved myths, 

 chronicles, memory of events, and speeches by means of marked 

 Sticks, Brinton (1885, p.' 59) noted that the Jesuits in Canada as early 

 as 1646 used them for teaching prayers to converts and for remember- 

 ing sermons. The Relation of 1645-46 of the Holy Cross Mission at 

 Tadoussac (Jesuit Relations, vol. 29, pp. 123 ff.), which served three 

 bands of the Montagnais and possibly the Eastern Cree, makes it 

 clear that such were devised by the missionaries after the Indian 

 manner. It reads: 



Some carried little sticks, in order to remember their sins; others marked 

 them on the beads of their Rosaries ; others wrote them, after their fashion, on 

 small pieces of the bark of trees; . . . [Pp. 131-133.] 

 * * * 



The Father, . . . , left them five books or five chapters of a book, composed 

 after their manner; these books were . . . five sticks variously fashioned, in 

 which they are to read what the Father . . . inculcated upon them. [P. 139.] 



The Relation continues : "The first is a black stick, which is to re- 

 mind them of horror . . . former superstitions . . ." ; a second bore 

 *'. , . white . . . marks . . . [for daily] devotions and prayers . . ."; 

 a third was red for Sunday and feasts ; the fourth was the book of 

 punishment ; and the fifth carried ". . . various marks . . . [remind- 

 ing them] how to behave in dearth and plenty . . ." (P. 141.) 



Such was the basis of the famous "talking books" of the Cree and 

 Chippewa, since these tally sticks were called ntassinahigan,^ "a 

 piece of wood marked with fire." Their early use by the Jesuits, 

 nevertheless, may account for the catechistic approach of Indian 

 prophets later on. We are not concerned with how the Chippewa used 

 fire-marked wooden tablets, the details being accessible (Kohl, i860, 

 p. 143; Schoolcraft, 1845, pp. 27-33; Hoffman, 1891, p. 289), but 

 will repeat certain other accounts for the Delaware, Kickapoo, and 

 Shawnee, which bear a certain relationship to the Cayuga specimen 

 that is before us. 



It is alleged in the "Pontiac manuscript" (Parkman, 185 1, p. 183) 

 that a prophet appeared among the Delaware then living on the 

 Muskingum in 1762. The prophet, on the authority of Pontiac, the 

 great Ottawa war leader, had received from the Great Spirit "A 

 prayer, embodying the substance of all that he heard. ... It was 



^ malackhickan (Delaware) (Brinton). For a discussion of Ojibwa-Ottawa 

 pictography and etymology of the word, see Voegelin, 1942. 



