ABORIGINAL USE OF WOOD IN NEW YORK 



139 



the ground, that they may protest by this action that these sticks 

 shall sooner leave their place than they shall turn their faces. Yet 

 it often happens that the sticks firmly remain, but the warriors do 

 not give up flight. Relation, 1646 



There was another shrewd use of sticks mentioned by Champlain 

 in the expedition against the Mohawks in 1609. Before they 

 entered Lake Champlain there was the usual divination to foretell 

 their success: 



After they learned from their diviners what was going to happen 

 to them, the chiefs take some sticks a foot long, as many in number 

 as they are, & point out their chiefs by others a little larger : Then 

 they go into the wood, & level off a space of 5. or 6. feet square, 

 where the chief, as sergeant major, places all these sticks in order 

 as seems good to him : then calls all his companions, who come fully 

 armed, & shows them the rank & order which they ought to keep 

 when they should fight with their enemies : which all the savages 

 observe attentively, remarking the figure which their chief has made 

 with these sticks : & afterward they go away from thence, & begin 

 to put themselves in order, as they have seen the aforesaid sticks: 

 then they mingle one with another, & return again in their order, 

 continuing this two or three times, & at all their quarters without 

 there being need of a sergeant to make them keep their ranks, which 

 they very well know how to keep without getting into confusion. 

 This is the rule which they observe in war. Champlain, 1 ^36 



The number of hostile Iroquois in the vicinity of Three Rivers, in 

 1637, was shown by 150 small sticks which they attached to a tree, 

 and this way of counting was frequent at treaties or when promises 

 of aid were given. 



Canoes and fishing 



Canoes were of two kinds : those of bark and those made by 

 hollowing trunks of trees. The latter were used mostly along the 

 Hudson river and sea coast ; the former in the interior. Sometimes 

 both were found in these two districts. A second division of bark 

 canoes w r as that of the Iroquois and those of the Canadian Algon- 

 quins and Hurons. In the home territory of the former there was 

 little canoe birch, and the bark of the red or slippery elm was used 

 and sometimes the bitternut hickory. At a later day they also had 

 birch canoes, but at first the line was sharply drawn. On the St 

 Lawrence an Iroquois canoe was readily known afar off. While 



