MALLERY.] PICTOGRAPHS ON COPPER. 213 
By the rude figure of a man with a hat on its head, placed opposite one of these 
indentations, was denoted the period when the white race first made its appearance 
among them. This mark occurred in the third generation, leaving five generations 
which had passed away since that important era in their history. 
Mr. I. W. Powell (a), Indian superintendent, in the report of the 
deputy superintendent-general of Indian affairs of Canada for 1879, 
gives an account of some tribes of the northwest coast, especially the 
Indians called in the report Newittees, a tribe now known as the 
Naqomqilis of the Wakashan family, who treasure pieces of copper 
peculiarly shaped and marked. Theshape is that of one face of a trun- 
cated pyramid with the base upward. In the broad end appear marks 
resembling the holes for eyes and mouth, which are common in masks of 
the human face. The narrower end has a rough resemblance to an or- 
namental collar. These copper articles were made by the Indians origin- 
ally from the native copper, and in 1879 a few were held by the chiefs 
who used them for presentation at the potlaches or donation feasts. The 
value which is attached to these small pieces of copper, which are 
intrinsically worthless, is astounding. For one of them 1,200 blankets 
were paid, which would at the time and place represent $1,800. Some- 
times a chief in presenting one of them, in order to show his utter dis- 
regard of wealth, would break it into three or four pieces and give 
them away, each fragment being perhaps repurchased at an exorbitant 
sum. This competition in extravagance for display, under the guise of 
charity and humility, has had parallels in the silver-brick and flour- 
barrel auctions in parts of the United States, when the actors were 
white citizens. Apart from such public exhibitions, the copper tokens 
seem to partake of the natures both of fiat money and of talismans. 
WoopD. 
This division comprises: 
(1) The living tree, of the use of which for pictographic purposes 
there are many descriptions and illustrations in this paper. In addi- 
tion to them may be noted the remark made by Bishop De Schweinitz (a) 
in the Life and Times of Zeisberger, that in 1750 there were numerous 
tree carvings at a place on the eastern shore of Cayuga lake, the mean- 
ing of which was known to and interpreted by the Cayuga Indians. 
This mode of record or notice is so readily suggested that it is found 
throughout the world, e. g¢., the “hieroglyph” in New Guinea, described 
by D’Albertis (a), being a drawing in black on a white tree. 
(2) Bark.—The Abnaki and Ojibwa have been and yet continue to 
be in the habit of incising pictographic characters and mnemonic 
marks upon birch bark. Many descriptions and illustrations of this 
style are given in this paper, and admirable colored illustrations of it 
also appear in Pl. x1x of the Seventh Ann. Rept. Bureau of Ethnology. 
The lines appear sometimes to have been traced on the inner surface of 
young bark with a sharply pointed instrument, probably bone, but in 
other examples the drawings are made by simple puncturing. The 
