Rev. Richard Taylor (b) says:
The Maori used a kind of hieroglyphical or symbolical way of communication; a chief, inviting another to join in a war party, sent a tattooed potato and a fig of tobacco bound up together, which was interpreted to mean that the enemy was a Maori and not European by the tattoo, and by the tobacco that it represented smoke; he therefore roasted the one and eat it, and smoked the other, to show he accepted the invitation, and would join him with his guns and powder. Another sent a waterproof coat with the sleeves made of patchwork, red, blue, yellow, and green, intimating that they must wait until all the tribes were united before their force would be waterproof, i. e., able to encounter the European. Another chief sent a large pipe, which would hold a pound of tobacco, which was lighted in a large assembly, the emissary taking the first whiff, and then passing it around; whoever smoked it showed that he joined in the war.
SECTION 5.
CLAIM OR DEMAND.
Stephen Powers (b) states that the Nishinam of California have the following mode of collecting debts:
When an Indian owes another, it is held to be in bad taste, if not positively insulting, for the creditor to dun the debtor, as the brutal Saxon does, so he devises a more subtle method. He prepares a certain number of little sticks, according to the amount of the debt, and paints a ring around the end of each. These he carries and tosses into the delinquent’s wigwam without a word and goes his way; whereupon the other generally takes the hint, pays the debt, and destroys the sticks.
The San Francisco (California) Western Lancet, XI, 1882, p. 443, thus reports:
When a patient has neglected to remunerate the shaman [of the Wikehumni tribe of the Mariposan linguistic stock] for his services, the latter prepares short sticks of wood, with bands of colored porcupine quills wrapped around them at one end only, and every time he passes the delinquent’s lodge a certain number of them are thrown in as a reminder of the indebtedness.
Fig. 480.—Jebu complaint.
G. W. Bloxam (c) describes Fig. 480 thus: