210 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
such accuracy they generally selected some prominent feature such as 
the claws of the bear, which were drawn with exaggeration, or the tail 
of the mountain lion which was portrayed of abnormal length over the 
animal’s back. Those animals were, therefore, recognized by those 
selected features in much the same manner as if there had been a 
written legend—* this is a bear” or “a mountain lion,” the want of 
iconographic accuracy being admitted. In the animals represented 
on the mantle no such indicating feature is obvious, and the general — 
resemblance to the marten is the only guide to identification. 
The habitat of the marten does not include Virginia as a whole, but 
the animal is found in the elevated regions of that state. This local 
infrequency is not, however, of much significance. If regarded as a 
clan totem, as is probable, it may well be that the clan of Powhatan was 
connected with the clans of the more northern Algonquian tribes among 
whom the marten frequently appears asa clan totem. Whatis generally 
termed the Powhatan confederacy was a union, not apparently ancient, 
of a large number of tribal divisions or villages, and it is not known to 
which clan (probably extending through many of these tribal divisions) 
the head chief Powhatan belonged. There is almost nothing on record 
of the clan system of those Virginian Indians, but it is supposed to be 
similar to that of the northern and eastern members of the same lin- 
guistic family, among whom the marten clan was and still is found. 
The topic of wampum which, considered as to its material, belongs to 
the division of shellwork, is with regard to the purposes of the present 
paper, discussed under the head of ““Mnemonic,” Chap. Ix, See. 3. 
EARTH AND SAND. 
The highly important work, The Mountain Chant, a Navajo Cere- 
mony, in the Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, by Dr. 
Washington Matthews, U. S. Army, and that of Mr. James Stevenson, 
Ceremonial of Hasjelti Dailjis and Mythical Sand Painting of the 
Navajo Indians, im the Eighth Annual Report of that Bureau, give 
accounts of most interesting sand paintings by the Navajo Indians, 
which were vefore unknown. These paintings were made upon the 
surface of the earth by means of sand, ashes, and powdered vegetable 
and mineral matter of various colors. They were highly elaborate, 
and were fashioned with care and ceremony immediately preceding the 
observance of specific rites, at the close of which they were obliterated 
with great nicety. The subject is further discussed by Dr. W. H. Cor- 
busier, U. S. Army, in the present paper (see Chap, XIv, See. 5). 
Mr. Frank Hamilton Cushing, of the Bureau of Ethnology, kindly . 
contributes the following remarks with special reference to the Zuni: 
A study of characteristic features in these so-called sand pictures of the Navajos 
would seem to indicate a Pueblo origin of the art, this notwithstanding the fact that 
it is to-day more highly developed or at least more extensively practiced amongst 
the Navajos than now, or perhaps ever, amongst the Pueblos. When, during my first 
