A few notices of the foreign use of material objects in connection with this branch of the subject may be given.
It appears in the Bible: Ezek., XXXVII, 16-20, and Numbers, XVII, 2.
Lieutenant-Colonel Woodthorp says (Jour. Anth. Inst. Gr. Brit., Vol. XLI, 1882, p. 211): “On the road to Niao we saw on the ground a curious mud figure of a man in slight relief presenting a gong in the direction of Senna; this was supposed to show that the Fiao men were willing to come to terms with Senna, then at war with Niao. Another mode of evincing a desire to turn away the wrath of an approaching enemy, and induce him to open negotiations, is to tie up in his path a couple of goats, sometimes also a gong, with the universal symbol of peace, a palm leaf planted in the ground hard by.”
The Maori had neither the quipus nor wampum, but only a board shaped like a saw, which was called he rakau wakapa-paranga, or genealogical board; it was in fact a tally, having a notch for each name, and a blank space to denote where the male line failed and was succeeded by that of the female; youths were taught their genealogies by repeating the names of each to which the notches referred. See Te Ika a Maui.—Rev. Richard Taylor, London, 1870, p. 379.
TIME.
Dr. William H. Corbusier, assistant surgeon, U. S. Army, gives the following information:
Fig. 39.—Device denoting succession of time. Dakota.
The Dakotas make use of the circle as the symbol of a cycle of time; a small one for a year and a large one for a longer period of time, as a life-time, one old man. Also a round of lodges, or a cycle of 70 years, as in Battiste Good’s Winter Count. The continuance of time is sometimes indicated by a line extending in a direction from right to left across the page, when on paper, and the annual circles are suspended from the line at regular intervals by short lines, as in Figure 39, and the ideograph for the year is placed beneath each one. At other times the line is not continuous, but is interrupted at regular intervals by the yearly circle, as in Figure 40.