36 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Ill 



point (?) and the drum. At the last song, along about daybreak, the 

 master of ceremony burns the counters one at a time — each counter 

 represents a spirit, a ghost — and he also burns the drum stick, and 

 he breaks and burns the pointer. He removes the head of the drum. 

 How, then, these specimens survived for museum collections is 

 remarkable. 



Possibly the photographs of the stick published here to illustrate 

 Mr. Hewitt's brief notes that follow will promote a favorable oppor- 

 tunity for someone to observe the Moccasin game at Grand River 

 and augment our meager data on the relation of the symbols to the 

 content of speeches. 



Brantford, June 30, 1916. 

 Notes on cane with crook used in Moccasin game: 



[Cf. third unit on the back of the Spragg Condolence cane.] 



Right Side of Cane 



All [the cross-hatched and chevron designs are said to] represent wampum 

 belts received by the allied tribes. Note end of design showing wampum belt 

 ending (suggesting diamond designs in the great belts of the covenant in New 

 York State Museum (Parker, 1916; Clarke, 1931, p. 99 and fig. 35))- (PI- 7. 

 fig. c.) 



Left Side of Cane 



PI. 7. 

 fig.d 



1st design represents "evil, death, etc." 



[Cf. I on back, right. Note symbols of two persons close by.] 

 2d design represents "sun lost (to view) because 



of death" 



[Eighth burden of Requickening Address (Hewitt, 1944, p. 74; Hewitt 

 and Fenton, 1945, p. 314). Loss of Sky, the seventh burden, and Loss 

 of Sun, the eighth burden, apparently intersect in this design.] 



3d design represents "the face of the dead" 



