G12 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETIDsOLOGY [Bull. 137 



tbey are of little seeds like those which are called Caj^enne pearls ; they are of 

 different colors and strung in rows; and it is on their arrangement and their 

 pattern that their meaning depends. As only the principal events are preserved 

 on these belts and without any details, it sometimes happens that a single chaplet 

 contains the history of twenty to twenty-five years. These pearls are placed in 

 such a manner as to preserve the various periods exactly ; and each year is 

 easily distinguished by those who know the arrangement. (Milfort, 1802, pp. 

 47-48.) 



Devices of this kind may help to explain how the Natchez could have 

 preserved knowledge of 45 or 50 successive Great Suns, and how the 

 migration of a part of the Creeks could be recorded in such a topo- 

 graphically exact manner (De la Vente quoted by Swanton, 1911, p. 

 185; Swanton, 1928, pp. 34-35). 



During the ball games, scores were kept by setting up sticks in the 

 ground and then removing them, the number of points in the game 

 being twice as many as the number of sticks. Adair (1775, p. 77) tells 

 us that the Chickasaw figured out mercantile transactions on the 

 ground in accordance with a system which they called "scoring on 

 the ground" (yakni tapa, "ground — spread out on"), in which they 

 made a single short line for each unit and a cross to mark off the tens. 

 Eakins says that this system was also in vogue among the Creeks 

 (Eakins in Schoolcraft, 1851-57, vol. 1, p. 273). Though Adair be- 

 lieved that the cross was a device borrowed from whites, it is a rather 

 natural secondary symbol and may have been purely aboriginal. The 

 fingers were used in counting as is true the world around, and through- 

 out the Southeast the decimal system was in vogue. Measures of 

 length were provided by the parts of the human body ; long distances 

 were measured in "sleeps." Standards of exchange, or money, have 

 been treated in considering "Work in Shell," pp. 481-488. 



The following device was one used by the Choctaw when they began 

 to assemble at certain rendezvous in 1831 preparatory to removal west 

 of the Mississippi. They made 



a stick about the size of a quill to represent the man heading the family, a 

 smaller stick tied to it with a string to signify each son over ten years of age ; 

 and notches in the middle of the large stick to represent females over ten years 

 of age, and other notches cut near the end of the large stick indicated all younger 

 children, boys and girls. The leader of each band collected these sticks, tied 

 them together and gave the bundle to the agent from which he made up his roll 

 of the party. (Foreman, 1932, p. 48, ftn.) 



Commenting upon the influence which St. Denis exercised over 

 the Indians, Du Pratz sa3^s : 



It was not necessary for him to go for them himself to have them come 

 to him, it was sufficient for M. de S. Denis to mark on paper a well formed 

 leg and hieroglyphic figures indicating the war: the well formed leg indicated 

 himself, because they called him the Chief with the big leg. To indicate war 

 the picture of a club was made; to indicate the time when help was needed 



