312 BURiEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



they intend for) bears from them. Therefore, they get a great many sticks 

 and chunks of wood in their canoe and then set off directly for their i)ort, and 

 now and then throw over a piece of wood, which directs them, by seeing how 

 the stick bears from the canoe stern, which they always observe to keep right 

 aft; and this is the Indian compass, by which they will go over a broad water 

 ten or twenty leagues wide. They will find the head of any river, though 

 it is five, six, or seven hundred miles off, and they never were there in their 

 lives before, as is often proved by their appointing to meet on the head of 

 such a river, M^here, perhaps, none of them ever was before, but where they 

 shall rendezvous exactly at the prefixed time; and if they meet with any 

 obstruction, they leave certain marks in the way where they that come after, 

 will understand how many have passed by already, and which way they are 

 gone. Besides, in their war-expeditions, they have very certain hieroglyph icks, 

 whereby each party informs the other of the success or losses they have met 

 withal ; all which is so exactly performed by their sylvian marks and char- 

 acters, that they are never at a loss to understand one another. . . . They 

 will draw maps very exactly of all the rivers, towns, mountains and roads, or 

 what you shall enquire of them, which you may draw by their directions, and 

 come to a small matter of latitude, reckoned by their day's journeys. These 

 maps they will draw in the ashes of the fire, and sometimes upon a mat or 

 piece of bark. I have put a pen and ink into a savage's hand, and he has 

 drawn me the rivers, bays, and other parts of a country, which afterwards I 

 have found to agree with a great deal of nicety. (Lawson, 1860, pp. 331-333. 

 See also Strachey as quoted on page 258. ) 



In describing the hunting customs of the Caddo, Solis says : 



In securing their supplies they are very wise and cunning; when they have 

 to cross a plain, they remain within the woods for some time, observing care- 

 fully to see if there is anything unusual, and if not, they cut a big branch 

 from a tree in order to travel under cover so that those from a distance may 

 not know that it is a man. In order to spy on the people who come in or 

 go out of the woods, they climb a large tree which has a big high top and is 

 near the road; from there they search out and see everything without being 

 seen. (Solis, 1931, pp. 6&-70; Swanton, 1942, pp. 132-138.) 



DEER HUNTING 



With great acuteness Indians sometimes speak of the deer as their 

 sheep, though, outside of the bison country, the deer meant more to 

 the ancient North Americans than did sheep to most peoples of the 

 Old World. In that part of the continent with which we are con- 

 cerned, it was the main source of animal food and the principal 

 source of raw material for clothing, besides performing other inci- 

 dental functions. 



De Soto's men found deer meat and deer hides in use from one 

 end of the Gulf region to the other. Hariot, the first writer who 

 gives us what might fairly be called an ethnological account of any 

 part of the section unless we except Peter Martyr, says : 



In some places there are great store [of deer] : neere vnto the sea coast they 

 are of the ordinarie bignes as ours in England, & some lesse: but further up 

 into the countrey where there is better seed they are greater: they differ from 



