RUSSELL] 



ANNALS 35 



has published a series of Kiowa calendars that resemble those of the 

 Sioux, but are more distinctl_y calendric." 



In addition to these published records we have references to yet 

 others that have wholh' disappeared; references that can not now be 

 verified. For example, the Iroquois are said '' to have maintained 

 a record of their exploits in war bj^ means of war posts on which 

 notches indicated the occurrence of campaigns and conventional 

 characters denoted the number of scalps and captives taken. Events 

 of a certam class were thus recorded in chronologic order. Among 

 the Santee Sioux Clark " found a notched stick which he was assured 

 represented the history of the tribe for more than a thousand years. 

 Mooney suggests that this nmst have been used in connection with a 

 chant similar to that accompan\dng the Walum 01am. However, it 

 seems extremely improbable that any record should have survived 

 the vicissitudes of an Indian camp for so long a period. The use of 

 notched sticks for mere numeration is common enough in all cultures 

 and among all peoples, but such a use as that made by the Santees is 

 not, so far as known, mentioned elsewhere in the literature. 



The writer was therefore greatly interested to discover no fewer 

 than five notched calendar sticks among the Pimas. Two sticks 

 were "told" to him by their possessors. The record covers a period 

 of seventy years, dating from the season preceding the meteoric 

 shower of November 13, 1833, as do the oldest of those discovered 

 among the Kiowa. There are traditions of older sticks that have 

 been lost or buried with their keepers. Juan Thomas, of the village 

 of Blackwater, had lost his stick in some inexplicable manner, but he 

 was continuing the history with pencil and paper, thus rendering it 

 more nearly comparable to the calendars of the Plauis tribes. It is 

 noteworthy that the change from stick to paper introduced a ten- 

 dency to use pictorial symbols rather than merely mnemonic char- 

 acters, such as are most easily incised on the surface of a stick having 

 clearly marked grain. Among the sticks there is an evident increase 

 in the number and elaboration of characters wliich may l^e attributed 

 to contact with the wliites, though not to their direct influence, as 

 the existence of the calendars has been almost entirely imknown to 

 them. 



The year begins with the .saguaro harvest, about the month of June. 

 At that time, also, the mcsquite beans are ripening, as well as the 

 cultivated crops. It is the season of feasting and rejoicing. No 

 other annual occurrence can compare in importance with these fes- 

 ti\'ities, so that it is not surjirisiug that the years should i)e counted 

 by harvests. The Lower California tribes, as described by Baegert 



c Calendar History ol the Kiowa, Seventeenth .\nnual Report of the Bureau of .\mericttn Ethnology. 

 * J. E. Seaver, A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jeniison, 70: cited by Mallery. 

 c The Indian Sign Language, 2U, 18S5; cited by Mooney. 



