246 BELIEFS AND USAGES OF CHICKASAW [PTH ANN. 44 
the ground.” ‘They made single straight marks for units and crosses 
for tens, which Adair believed to have been adopted from the whites, 
but this is by no means certain.*® 
As among the Creeks, the number of days which were to elapse 
before a ceremonial or other community enterprise was registered by 
means of bundles of small sticks, called “the broken days.” The 
person in charge of this bundle threw away one every morning and 
when one was left all knew that the day agreed upon had arrived. 
Adair tells us that, instead of bundles of sticks, they sometimes used 
sticks with a definite number of notches in each, one of which was 
cut out every day. But sometimes, especially when the anticipated 
date was indefinite, notches were made daily.°* More interesting, on 
account of its resemblance to the famous quipu of Peru, was the 
employment of knotted cords. The time of an event was sometimes 
fixed by tying as many knots as there were days intervening, one to 
be untied for each period of daylight. Or days might be marked 
by tying in knots. The important point for us, however, is con- 
tained in the following statement of Adair: “ They count certain 
very remarkable things, by knots of various colours and make, after 
the manner of the South American Aborigines.” °* According to 
Milfort, the Creeks had similar records composed of strings of 
beads.°° 
The following from Adair contains nearly all that we know of a 
shell:currency : 
Before we supplied them with our European beads they had great quantities 
of wampum (the Buccinum of the ancients) made out of conch-shell, by 
rubbing them on hard stones, and so they form them according to their liking. 
With these they bought and sold at a stated current rate, without the least 
variation for circumstances either of time or place; and now they will hear 
nothing patiently of loss or gain, or allow us to heighten the price of our goods, 
be our reasons ever so strong, or though the exigencies and changes of time 
may require it. Formerly four deerskins was the price of a large conch-shell 
bead, about the length and thickness of a man’s forefinger, which they fixed to 
the crown of their head as an ornament—so greatly they valued them.” 
There is reason to believe that, although it had an aboriginal base, 
the use of shell money was much stimulated by white contact. 
Communication between tribes or bands was maintained by means 
of runners, smoke signals, and by variously intoned whoops, such as 
the death whoop, the whoop of the successful warrior when he 
arrived within hearing of the village, the whoop of friendship, the 
whoop of defiance, and the news whoop." Judging by the following 
®6 Adair, Hist. Am. Inds., p. 77. 
8’ TIbid., p. 75. 
58 Tbid., p. 75. 
‘9 Milfort, Mémoire, pp. 47-48. 
© Adair, op. cit., p. 170. Cf. also Lawson, Hist. Car., pp. 315-317. 
% Adair, op. cit., pp. 165, 166, 254, 273, 276, 277, 301, 318, 323, 326. 
