370 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
straight lines, it was explained, meant spears and the curved ones boomerangs; but 
the stealing of the wife seems to have been left to the messenger to tell. 
A. W. Howitt (a) gives a further account on this topic: 
The messenger carries with him as the emblems of his missions a complete set of 
male attire, together with the sacred humming instrument, which is wrapped in a 
skin and carefully concealed from women and children. It is, therefore, in such 
cases, the totem which assembles the whole community. 
In the Adjadura tribe of South Australia the ceremonies are ordered to be held by 
the headman of the whole tribe by his messenger, who carries a message stick 
marked in such a manner that it serves to illustrate his message; together with this 
there is also sent a sacred humming instrument. 
Drs. Houzé and Jacques (a) give a different view of the significance 
of the marks on message sticks: 
Fic. 477.—Australian message sticks. 
It proves very difficult to discover the signification of the notched message sticks. 
The Europeans have not succeeded in deciphering them. Some marks may repre- 
sent a whole history. The following anecdote on this subject is reported by M. 
Canyin (according to J. M. Davis, Aborigines of Victoria, v. 1, p. 356, note): A Eu- 
ropean, having formed the project of establishing a new station, started from Edward 
river with a herd of cattle and some Indians. When, all being arranged, the colo- 
" nist was on the point of returning home, one of the young blacks requested him to 
take a letter to his father, and, on the consent of his patron, he gave him a stick 
about a foot long covered with notches and signs. On arriving home the colonist 
went to the camp of the blacks and delivered the letter to the father of his young 
follower, who, calling around him the whole encampment, to the great surprise of 
the European, read from this stick a daily account of the doings of the company 
from the departure from Edward river until the arrival at the new station, deserib- 
