666 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
The exception claimed is that commonly, but erroneously, called the 
Miemac hieroglyphics. The characters do not partake of the nature of 
hieroglyphs, and their origin is not Micmac. 
THE MICMACG ‘‘HIBROGLYPHICS.” 
The Micmae was an important tribe, occupying all of Nova Scotia, 
Cape Breton island, Prince Edward island, the northern part of New 
Brunswick, and the adjacent part of the province of Quebec, and rang- 
ing over a great part of Newfoundland. According to Rey. Silas T. 
Rand, op. cit., Megum is the singular form of the name which the 
Micmacs use for themselves. Rey. Eugene Vetromile (a) translates 
“‘Micmacs” as “secrets practicing men,” from the Delaware and old 
Abnaki word matlike, “ witcheraft,” and says the name was given them 
on account of their numerous jugglers; but he derives Mareschite, 
which is an Abnaki division, from the same word and makes it identical 
with Miemae. The French called them Souriquois, which Vetromile 
translates ‘good canoe men.” They were also called Acadians, from 
their habitat in Acadie, now Nova Scotia. 
The first reference in literature with regard to the spontaneous use 
by Indians of the characters now called the ‘“* Micmac hieroglyphs” 
appears in the Jesuit Relations of the year 1652, p. 28. In the general 
report of that year the work of Father Gabriel Druillettes, who had 
been a missionary to the Abnaki (including under this term the Indians 
of Acadia, afterwards distinguished as Micmaes), is dwelt upon in 
detail. His own words, in a subordinate report, appear to have been 
adopted in the general report of the Father Superior, and, translated, 
are as follows: 
Some of them wrote out their lessons in their own manner. ‘They made use of a 
small piece of charcoal instead of a pen, and a piece of bark instead of paper. Their 
characters were novel, and so particuliers [individual or special] that one could not 
know or understand the writing of the other; that is to say, that they made use of 
certain marks according to their own ideas as of a local memory to preserve the 
points and the articles and the maxims which they had remembered. They carried 
away this paper with them to study their lesson in the repose of the night. 
No further remark or description appears. 
It is interesting to notice that the abbé J. A. Maurault, (a) after his 
citation of the above report of Father Druillettes, states in a footnote 
translated as follows: 
We have ourselves been witnesses of a similar fact among the Tétes-de-Boule 
Indians of the River St. Maurice where we had been missionaries during three years. 
We often saw during our instructions or explanations of the catechism that the In- 
dians traced on pieces of bark, or other objects very singular hieroglyphs. These In- - 
dians afterward passed the larger part of the following night in studying what they 
had so written, and in teaching it to their children or their brothers. The rapidity 
with which they by this manner learnt their prayers was very astonishing. 
The Indians called by the Abbé Maurault the Tétes-de-Boule or 
Round Heads, are also known as Wood Indians, and are ascertained 
