214 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
strips of bark, varying from an inch to several feet in length, roll up 
after drying, and are by heating straightened out for examination. 
Another mode of drawing on birch bark which appears to be peculiar 
to the Abnaki is by scratching the exterior surface, thus displaying a 
difference in color between the outermost and the second layer of the 
rind, which difference forms the figure. The lower character in PI. 
XVI shows this mode of picturing. Itisan exact copy of part of an old 
bark record made by the Abnaki of Maine. 
They also use the mode of incision, many examples of which appear 
in the present work, but their mode of scratching produced a much 
more picturesque effect, as is shown also in Fig. 659, than the mere linear 
drawing. 
(3) Manufactured wood.—The Indians of the northwest coast gener- 
ally employ wood as the material on which their pictographs are to be 
made. Totem posts, boats, boat paddles, the boards constituting the 
front wall of a house, and wooden masks, are among the objects used. 
Many drawings among the Indians of the interior parts of the United 
States are also found upon pipestems made of wood, usually ash. 
Among the Arikara boat paddles are used upon which marks of per- 
sonal distinction are reproduced, as shown in Fig. 578. 
Mortuary records are also drawn upon slabs of wood. (See Figs. 728 
and 729). Mnemonic devices, notices of departure, distress, ete., are 
also drawn upon slips of wood. 
The examples of the use of wood for pictographs which are illustrated 
and described in this paper are too numerous for recapitulation; to 
them, however, may be added the following from Wilkes’s (a) Explor- 
ing Expedition, referring to Fig. 160. 
Near an encampment on Chickeeles river, near Puget Sound, Washington, were 
found some rudely carved painted planks, of which Mr. Eld made a drawing. These 
planks were placed upright and nothing could be learned of their origin. The col- 
ors were exceedingly bright, of a kind of red pigment. 
y 
5 ‘ 
Fig. 160.—Pictographs on wood, Washington. 
Mr. James O. Pattie (a) gives an account of a wooden passport given. 
to him in 1824 by a Pawnee chief. He describes it, without illustra- 
tion, as a small piece of wood curiously painted with characters some- 
thing like “hieroglyphics.” The chief told Mr, Pattie’s party if they saw 
any of his warriors to give them the stick, in which case they would be 
kindly treated, which promise was fulfilled a few days later when the 
party met a large band of the same tribe on the warpath. 
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