ABORIGINAL USE OF WOOD IN NEW YORK 171 



sent by the Mississagaes, The like is very Comon and the Ind s use 

 Sticks as well to Express the alliance of Castles as the number of 

 Individuals in a party. These Sticks are generally ab l 6 Inches in 

 length & very slender & painted Red if the Subject is War but with- 

 out any peculiarity as to Shape. O'Callaghan, 4:437 



Sticks were used to point out direction or to indicate the time of 



day. In the French account of Iroquois customs in 1666 is an 



illustration, from which figure 64 is taken. The writer said: 



A stick set in the ground to the extremity of which two or three 

 pieces of wood are attached, to denote the direction in which they 

 went when they are hunting; and on the nearest tree they paint 

 the animal of the tribe to which they belong, with the number of 

 guns they have. O'Callaghan, 1 : 10 



Heckewelder mentions a sundial of this kind : 



A clear place in the path is sought for, or if not readily found 

 one is made by the side of it, and a circle or ring being drawn on 

 the sand or earth, a stick of about two or three feet in length is 

 fixed in the center, with its upper end bent towards that spot in 

 the horizon where the sun stood at the time of their arrival or 

 departure. Heckewelder, p. 131 



A still more curious account is in Morse's Geography, published 

 in 1795. A Seneca Indian wanted to leave a message for his 

 friends : 



He took a piece of wood and hewed it flat and smooth, and then 

 raked his fire for a suitable coal, with which he rudely delineated 

 on the slab the figure of an Indian, carrying a gun reversed upon 

 his shoulder. In front of him he drew a crooked line, which reached 

 to a man with a long coat and cocked hat, and holding a cane in 

 his hand ; and behind him a framed house. He then took a straight 

 pole, and tied some weeds and grass upon one end of it, and fixed 

 the other in the earth, in such a manner, that, in the position the 

 sun then was, which was six o'clock in the morning, it cast no 

 shadow — or, in other words, he pointed it exactly towards the sun. 

 The meaning of all was this: " Susquewewah (the name of the 

 Indian) left this spot at six o'clock in the morning, or when the 

 sun was in the place where the pole pointed, and had proceeded up 

 Wood creek, (which is remarkably crooked) to the settlement where 

 the commissioners of the State of New York are assembled to hold 

 a treaty with the Indians." Morse, 1 : 92 



The False Faces who throw ashes are called Hon-to'-ye by the 

 Onondagas. A paddle is used in doing this on some reservations, 



