734 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



similar probably to that employed in the Walam Olum (Gatschet, 

 1883, vol. 1, p. 236 ; Swanton, 1928, p. 34) . 



In their war-expeditions [says Catesby] they have certain hieroglyphicks, 

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

 with ; all which is so exactly performed by their Sylvan marks and characters, 

 that they are never at a loss to understand one another. (Catesby, 1731-43, 

 vol. 2, p. XIII.) 



Bernard Romans is almost the only writer who seems to have pre- 

 served any samples of this (pi. 90). One of these was made by 

 the Choctaw and was found by Romans near Pascagoula River in the 

 Choctaw country. He says it 



means that an expedition by seventy men, led by seven principal warriors, and 

 eight of inferior rank, had in an action killed nine of their enemies, of which 

 they brought the scalps, and that the place where it was marked was the first 

 publick place in their territories where they arrived with the scalps. 



The second was "found at a Choctaw place called 'Hoopah Ullah 

 (i. e.) the noisy owl'," but was made by a Creek war party. 



It means that ten of that nation of the Stag family came in three canoes 

 into their enemies country, that six of the party near this place, which was at 

 Oopah Ullah, a brook so called on the road to the Choctaws, had met two 

 men, and two women with a dog, that they lay in ambush for them, killed 

 them, and that they all went home with the four scalps; the scalp in the 

 stag's foot implies the honour of the action to the whole family. (Romans, 

 1775, p. 102.) 



It was customary for many of these tribes, at least those along 

 the Mississippi and those near Virginia, to use tribal marks. The 

 former generally employed them in war. After committing some 

 depredation upon an enemy, instead of concealing the authors of the 

 mischief, they left about the spot wooden tablets bearing the tribal 

 sign. That of the Natchez was, naturally enough, the sun. That of 

 the Houma was the red crawfish, from which, in fact, the tribe de- 

 rived its name. That of the Bayogoula was the alligator, also pos- 

 sibly reflected in the tribal designation "bayou people" (Dumont, 

 1753, vol. 1, p. 184). 



Catesby says: 



In their hunting marches, at the entrance of the territories, or hunting 

 grounds of an enemy, the captain, or leader of them chips off the bark from 

 one side of a tree, on which he delineates his own person, with the dreadful 

 hieroglyphick figure before-mentioned, which is sometimes a rattle-snake open 

 mouth'd, at a corner of his mouth, twisting in spiral meanders round his neck 

 and body, the hero also holding in his hand a bloody Tommahawk. By this 

 menace or challenge is signified, that he whose pourtrait is there displayed, 

 hunts in these grounds, where if any of his enemies dare intrude, they shall 

 feel the force of his Tommahawk. (Catesby, 1731-43, vol. 2, p. ix.) 



The symbols on a typical war tablet are given on page 701. 



