394 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
once, but required several renewals. The object was to show bravery 
by supporting great pain as well as to terrify enemies. 
In the Jesuit Relation for 1641, p. 75, it is said of the Neuter Nation 
that on their bodies from head to foot they marked a thousand diverse 
figures with charcoal pricked into the flesh on which beforehand they 
have traced lines for them. 
Lemoyne D’Iberville, in 1649, Margry (b), remarked among the Bay- 
ogoulas that some of the young women had their faces and breasts 
pricked and marked with black. 
In the Jesuit Relation for 1663, p. 28, there is an account that the head 
chief of the Iroquois, called by the French Nero, had killed sixty enemies 
with his own hand, the marks of which he bears printed on his thigh, 
which, therefore, appears covered over with black characters. 
Joutel, in Margry (c), speaks of tattooing among the Texas Indians 
in 1687. Some women make a streak from the top of the forehead to 
chin, some make a triangle at the corners of theireyes, others on the 
breast and shoulders, others prick the lips. The marks are indelible. 
Bacqueville de la Potherie (b) says of the Iroquois: 
They paint several colors on the face, as black, white, yellow, blue, and vermillion. 
Men paint snakes from the forehead to the nose, but they prick the greater part of 
the body with a needle to draw blood. Bruised gunpowder makes the first coat to 
receive the other colors, of which they make such figures as they desire and they are 
never effaced. 
M. Bossu (a) says of tatooing among the Osages in 1756: 
It is a kind of knighthood to which they are only entitled by great actions; they 
suffer with pleasure in order to pass for men of courage. 
Tf one of them should get himself marked without having previously distinguished 
himself in battle he would be degraded, and looked upon as a coward, unwerthy of 
an honor. * * * 
IT saw an Indian, who, though he had never signalized himself in defense of the 
nation, got a mark made on his body in order to deceive those who only judged from 
appearance. The council agreed that, to obviate such an abuse, which would con- 
found brave men with cowards, he who had wrongfully adorned himself with the 
figure of a club on his skin, without ever having struck a blow at war, should have 
the mark torn off; that is, the place should be flayed, and that the same should be 
done to all who would offend in the same case. 
The Indian women are allowed to make marks all over their body, without any 
bad consequences; they endure it firmly, like the men, in order to please them, and 
to appear handsomer to them. 
James Adair (a) says of the Chikasas in 1720: 
They readily know achievements in war by the blue marks over their breasts and 
arms, they being as legible as our alphabetical characters are to us. Their ink is 
made of the root of pitch pine, which sticks to the inside of a greased earthen pot; 
then delineating the parts, they break through the skin with gairtish teeth, and rub 
over them that dark composition, to register them among the brave, and the impres- 
sion is lasting. I have been told by the Chikasah that they formerly erased any 
false marks their warriors proudly and privately gave themselves, in order to engage 
them to give real proofs of their martial virtue, being surrounded by the French and 
their red allies; and that they degraded them in a public manner, by stretching the 
marked parts, and rubbing them with the juice of green corn, which in a great 
degree took out the impression. 
a 
