330 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
often appear in a row. In several instances I saw the end drawings of a row quite 
fresh while the others were not so. Much of the work seems to have been performed 
by pounding with a hard point, but a few pictures are scratched on. Many drawings 
are weather-worn beyond recognition, and others are so fresh that the dust left by 
the tool has not been washed away by rain. Oakley spring is at the base of the 
Vermilion cliff, and the etchings are on fallen blocks of sandstone, a homogeneous, 
massive, soft sandstone. Tubi, the Oraibi chief above referred to, says his totem is 
the rain cloud, but it will be made no more, as he is the last survivor of the gens. 
A group from Oakley spring, of which Fig. 437 is a copy, furnished 
by Mr. Gilbert, measures 6 feet in length and 4 feet in height. Inter- 
pretations of several of the separated characters are given in Chapter 
XXI, infra. 
Champlain ()) reports: 
Quelque marque ou signal par oi ayont passé leurs ennemis, ou leurs amis, ce 
qwils cognoissent par de certaines marques que les chefs se donnent d’une nation a 
Vautre, qui ne sont pas toujours semblables, s’advertisans de temps en temps quand 
ils en changent; et par ce moyen ils recognoissent si ce sont amis ou ennemis qui 
ont passé. 
A notice of departure, direction, and purpose made in 1810 by Algon- 
quins, of the St. Lawrence River, is described by John Merrick in the 
Collections of the Maine Historical Society (a), of which the following 
is an abstract: 
It was drawn with charcoal on a chip cut from a spruce tree and wedged firmly 
into the top of astake. It represented two male Indians paddling a canoe in an 
attitude of great exertion, and in the canoe were bundles of baggage and a squaw 
with a papoose; over all was a bird on the wing ascertained to be a loon. The 
whole was interpreted by an Indian pilot on the St. Lawrence, to be a Wickheegan 
or Awickheegan, and that it was left by a party of Indians for the information of 
their friends. The attitude of exertion showed that the party, consisting of two men, 
a woman, and a child, were going upstream. They intended to remain during the 
whole period allotted by Indians to the kind of hunting which was then in season, 
because they had all their furniture and family in the canoe. The loon expressed 
the intention to go without stopping anywhere before they arrived at the hunting 
ground, as the loon, from the shortness of its legs, walking with great difficulty, 
never alighted on its way. 
The following account is from Doc. Hist. N. Y. (a). 
When they go to war and wish to inform those of the party who may pass their 
path, they make a representation of the animal of their tribe, with a hatchet in his 
dexter paw ; sometimes a saber or aclub; andif there be a number of tribes together 
of the same party, each draws the animal of his tribe, and theic number, all on a 
tree from which they remove the bark. The animal of the tribe which heads the 
expedition is always the foremost. i 
The three following figures show the actual use of the wikhegan by 
the Abnaki in the last generation. Wikhegan is a Passamaquoddy 
word which corresponds in meaning nearly to our missive, or letter, 
being intelligence conveyed to persons at a distance by marks on & 
piece of birch bark, which may be either sent to the person or party 
with whom it is desired to hold communication, or may be left in a con- 
spicuous place for such persons to notice on their expected arrival. In 
the cases now figured the wikhegan was left as notice of departure 
and direction. They were made at different times by the brother, now 
