The third person engaged in the operation stood by all the while watching the process, and holding apiece of punk, or spunk, as it is sometimes called, in his hand, ready to catch the first spark as soon as it should appear. As soon as his punk was on fire he would blow it with his breath, and finally, by means of it, set fire to a little heap of dried leaves and sticks which he had previously collected for the purpose.
Wampum
One of the most curious things connected with Indian ingenuity and art was wampum. Wampum served many important purposes in the domestic and social economy of all the tribes. It was used as a material for ornaments, as money, and also as a means of making records and documents of all kinds.
It consisted of strings of what might be called beads. These beads were made of shells found upon the sea shore, and worn to a proper form by being rubbed on stones of a sandy texture. They were flat and round, about half an inch in diameter, and perhaps an eighth of an inch thick. There was a hole in the center of each by which it could be put upon a string. There was a certain number which formed what was called a string and a number of strings fastened together, side by side, formed a belt.
There were two principal kinds of beads, the white and the purple. The white were made from any shell that would furnish material of that color, and were of much less value than the others, which were made of shells that were more rare.
The strings and belts of different colored beads, variously intermingled, were used a great deal for ornaments, in the form of bracelets, necklaces, and the like. They were also used as money. For a small purchase a string was sufficient, and for a larger one a belt. Sometimes, to adjust the payment exactly to the price agreed upon, one or more strings would be attached to a belt, or additional beads to a string.
After the white men came into the country, and by their dealings with the Indians established, in some sort, the relative value of these beads and English money, six beads of the common sort were reckoned at one penny.
In the treaties made by the early settlers with the Indian tribes, and in various other transactions in which they were mutually concerned, we read of great quantities of wampum being passed from one party to another in making payments. In such cases the amount was reckoned by fathoms, and many hundreds of fathoms were sometimes stipulated for, to be received or paid in important transactions. When the Indians had these large amounts to pay, it sometimes required many months for them to make up the sum, and in such cases they would often pay a portion on account, and ask an extension on the balance due.
Of course, the wampum so paid to the colonists was of no use to them except to pay back to individual Indians again in exchange for baskets, furs, skins, and other articles that were really useful to the settlers.
Wampum Used for Records and Documents
Another very important use to which wampum was applied was for records and accounts, and indeed for documents of all kinds. The people had a way of arranging beads of various kinds. For example, one arrangement denoted a beaver skin, another a certain amount of corn. Another combination would denote a promise to give or to pay, and others still would represent the persons who were parties to the transaction. On the same principle there were symbols to denote days, or weeks, or months, and others representing different numbers. it is obvious that by combining these symbols in a proper manner a rude memorandum might be made of any simple transaction, which, if it could not be perfectly understood without explanation by a third person, was at least a very good memorial for the use of parties to it.
In one respect this mode of executing bonds and promissory notes was superior to ours, inasmuch as in the case of the failure on the part of the promissor to perform his promise, the obligation which he had given was not, as with us, waste paper, but, so far as it went, it was cash in itself, and could be spent as such like any other money.
Treaties and Public Records
Treaties were made in this way, and records kept of all important events and transactions in the history of the tribes; and it is said that at stated periods the great sachems were accustomed to assemble around their council fires and look over the public wampum, to refresh their memories in respect to the meaning of the different strings , and to explain it to the young chieftains, in order that a proper understanding of the facts and transactions recorded by them might be handed down from generation to generation.
It is obvious that without some precaution of this kind the precise significancy of these rude records would soon be lost. And yet it was found that the memory of the to any transaction, when assisted by a memorandum of this kind, was exceedingly tenacious. A story is told of a European who, having received some favor from an Indian, gave him a string of wampum, saying that it was a pledge that he was the Indian's friend, and that if any occasion should ever arise he would serve him to the utmost of his power. Forty year afterward the Indian, being then old, friendless and destitute, came to the gentleman, bringing the wampum with him, and claimed the performance of the promise, offering the wampum at the same time as proof that the promise had been given. The gentleman at once acknowledged the obligation and honorably fulfilled it.
Pictorial Writing
A great number of the Indian tribes had another mode of recording transactions and events besides this contrivance of wampum, and that was by rude drawings representing pictorially the transaction or event which they wished to describe. The material on which these drawings were made was usually birch bark, which makes a very good paper for such a purpose. But sometimes the figures were painted upon the smooth surface of a rock by the wayside, or upon the stem of a tree, the rough outer bark having been first scraped away.
For the purpose of making these records, every considerable hunter had a certain symbol, usually the form of some animal, which stood for his name, and was known to all his acquaintances. There was some sign to show when the figure of the animal was to be understood in this symbolic sense and when it was to be taken literally. All visible objects were represented, of course, in rude drawings, in outline, of the objects themselves. Then there were certain principles of arrangement, and various arbitrary signs, that were well understood among the people, which, in connection with the use of these figures, enabled them to communicate quite a complicated piece of information in a comparatively simple yet intelligible manner. This mode of communicating ideas will be best illustrated by an example.
Specimen of the Writing
The engraving is the exact copy of a notice posted up on a pole in the woods by the Indians of a certain company that had encamped there during the night and which was left in order to give information respecting themselves to others who might afterwards visit the spot. It was a company consisting chiefly of Europeans, though there were two Indian chiefs who acted as guides, and it was these two Indians who posted the notice. The European portion of the party consisted of a commander and five persons appointed to various functions under him, such as secretary, surveyor, mineralogist, and the like. These are represented by a row of figures in the center of the picture, reading them from right to left in the order in which such a column would march. The first man is the commander, as is denoted by his sword. The others are represented by appropriate symbols - the secretary with a book, the mineralogist with a hammer, the surveyor with instruments, and so on. These objects which appear small and indistinct in the engraving, which is much reduced, were large enough to be distinct in the original. That these men were Europeans is denoted by their wearing hats.