A notice of departure, direction, and purpose made in 1810 by Algonquins, of the St. Lawrence River, is described by John Merrick in the Collections of the Maine Historical Society (a), of which the following is an abstract;
It was drawn with charcoal on a chip cut from a spruce tree and wedged firmly into the top of a stake. It represented two male Indians paddling a canoe in an attitude of great exertion, and in the canoe were bundles of baggage and a squaw with a papoose; over all was a bird on the wing ascertained to be a loon. The whole was interpreted by an Indian pilot on the St. Lawrence, to be a Wickheegan or Awickheegan, and that it was left by a party of Indians for the information of their friends. The attitude of exertion showed that the party, consisting of two men, a woman, and a child, were going upstream. They intended to remain during the whole period allotted by Indians to the kind of hunting which was then in season, because they had all their furniture and family in the canoe. The loon expressed the intention to go without stopping anywhere before they arrived at the hunting ground, as the loon, from the shortness of its legs, walking with great difficulty, never alighted on its way.
The following account is from Doc. Hist. N.Y. (a).
When they go to war and wish to inform those of the party who may pass their path, they make a representation of the animal of their tribe, with a hatchet in his dexter paw; sometimes a saber or a club; and if there be a number of tribes together of the same party, each draws the animal of his tribe, and their number, all on a tree from which they remove the bark. The animal of the tribe which heads the expedition is always the foremost.
The three following figures show the actual use of the wikhegan by the Abnaki in the last generation. Wikhegan is a Passamaquoddy word which corresponds in meaning nearly to our missive, or letter, being intelligence conveyed to persons at a distance by marks on a piece of birch bark, which may be either sent to the person or party with whom it is desired to hold communication, or may be left in a conspicuous place for such persons to notice on their expected arrival. In the cases now figured the wikhegan was left as notice of departure and direction. They were made at different times by the brother, now dead, of Big Raven, baptized as Noel Joseph, who lived all alone on Long Lake, a few miles from Princeton, Maine. He would not have anything to do with civilization, and subsisted by hunting and fishing in the old fashion, nor would he learn a word of French or English. When he would go on any long expedition his custom was to tie to a stick conspicuously attached to his wigwam a small roll of birch bark, with the wikhegan on it for the information of his friends.
Fig. 438.—Hunting notices.
The upper device of Fig. 438 means, I am going across the lake to hunt deer.
The middle device means, I am going towards the lake and will turn off at the point where there is a pointer, before reaching the lake.
The lower device means, I am going hunting—will be gone all winter, the last information indicated by snowshoes and packed sledge.