Fig. 446.—Amalecite notice of trip.
“When I was about 18 years old I lived at a village 11 miles above Fredericton and went with canoe and gun. I canoed down to Washademoak lake, about 40 miles below Fredericton; then took river until it became too narrow for canoe; then ‘carried’ to Buctoos river; followed down to bay of Chaleur; went up the northwest Mirimachi, and ‘carried’ into the Nepisigiut. There spent the summer. On that river met a friend of my time; we camped there.
“One time while I was away my friend had gone down the river by himself and had not left any wikhe'gan for me. I had planned to go off and left for him this wikhe'gan, to tell where I would be and how long gone. The wigwam at the lower left-hand corner showed the one used by us, with the river near it. The six notches over the door of the wigwam meant that I would be gone six days. The canoe and man nearest to the wigwam referred to my friend, who had gone in the opposite direction to that I intended to travel. Next to it I was represented in my own canoe, with rain falling, to show the day I started, which was very rainy. Then the canoe carried by me by a trail through woods shows the ‘carry’ to Nictaux lake, beside which is a very big mountain. I stayed at that lake for six days, counting the outgoing and returning. As I had put the wikhe'gan in the wigwam before I started, my friend on his return understood all about me, and, counting six from and including the rainy day, knew just when I was coming back, and was waiting for me.”
The chief point of interest in this notice is the ingenious mode of fixing the date of departure. The marks for rain are nearly obliterated, but it flows from the man’s hair. The topography is also delineated.
The following is extracted from James Long’s Expedition (b):
On the bank of the Platte river was a semicircular row of sixteen bison skulls, with their noses pointing down the river. Near the center of the circle which this row would describe, if continued, was another skull marked with a number of red lines.
Our interpreter informed us that this arrangement of skulls and other marks here discovered were designed to communicate the following information, namely, that the camp had been occupied by a war party of the Skeeree or Pawnee Loup Indians, who had lately come from an excursion against the Cumancias, Ietans, or some of the western tribes. The number of red lines traced on the painted skull indicated the number of the party to have been thirty-six; the position in which the skulls were placed, that they were on their return to their own country. Two small rods stuck in the ground, with a few hairs tied in two parcels to the end of each, signified that four scalps had been taken.
When a hunting party of the Hidatsa arrived at any temporary camping ground from which some of them had left on a short reconnoitering expedition, the remainder, having occasion to move, erect a pole and cause it to lean in the direction taken. At the foot of this pole a buffalo shoulder blade or other flat bone is placed, upon which is depicted the reason of departure; e. g. should buffalo or antelope be seen, the animal is drawn with a piece of charred wood or red lead.
When a Hidatsa party has gone on the warpath, and a certain number is detailed to take another direction, the point of separation is taken as the rendezvous. After the return of the first party to the rendezvous, should the second not come up in a reasonable length of time, they will set sticks in the ground leaning in the direction to be taken, and notches are cut into the upper ends of the sticks to represent the number of nights spent there by the waiting party.