The Indian then, to represent his portrait, draws a simple outline in the form of a head, adding scarcely any marks to indicate the eyes, nose, ears, or other features of the face. In place of these he draws the designs which are tattoed upon his own face, as well as those upon his breast, and which are peculiar to him and render him recognizable not only to those who have seen him, but even to all who, knowing him only by reputation, are acquainted with his hieroglyphic symbol, as formerly in Europe an individual was distinguished by his device and as we to-day know a family by its armorial bearings. About his head he paints the object which expresses his name; the Indian, for example, called the Sun paints a sun; at the right he traces the animals which are the symbols of the nation and family to which he belongs. That of the nation is above the one representing the family, and the beak or muzzle of the former is so placed that it corresponds to the place of his right ear, as if this symbolic figure of his nation represented its spirit, which inspires him. If this Indian is returning from war, he represents beneath his portrait the number of warriors composing the party which he leads, and beneath the warriors the number of prisoners made and those whom he has killed by his own hand. At the left side are indicated his expeditions and the prisoners or scalps taken by those of his party. The warriors are represented with their weapons or simply by lines; the prisoners by the stick decorated with feathers and by the chichikoue or tortoise-shell rattle, which are the marks of their slavery; the scalps or the dead by the figures of men, women, or children without heads. The number of expeditions is designated by mats. He distinguishes those which he has accompanied from those which he has commanded by adding strings [of wampum] to the latter. If the Indian goes as an ambassador of peace all the symbols are of a pacific nature. He is represented below his portrait with the calumet in his hand; at the left is seen an enlarged figure of the calumet, the symbolic figure of the nation with which he goes to treat, and the number of those who accompany him on the embassy.
The same author, on page 194 of the same volume, explains how the mat or mattress came to mean war:
The Iroquois and the Hurons call war n’ondoutagette and gaskenrhagette. The final verb gagetton, which is found in the composition of these two words, and which signifies to bear or to carry, shows, verily, that heretofore something was borne to it [i. e., to war], which was a symbol of it [i. e., of war] to such a degree that it [war] had assumed its [the symbol’s] designation. The term ondouta signifies the down [the wool-like substance] which is taken from the ear [cat-tails] of marsh reeds, and it also denotes the entire plant, which they use in making the mattresses [nattes] upon which they lie; so that it appears that they applied this term to war because every warrior in this kind of expeditions carried with him his own mattress; in fact, the mattress is still to-day the symbol employed in their hieroglyphic picture-writing to denote the number of their campaigns.
Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt, in Science, April 1, 1892, has gone deeper into the etymology of the words quoted, but coincides generally with Father Lafitau in the explanation that they were denotive of the custom of the Iroquoian warrior to carry his mattress when on the warpath.
Figs. 782 and 783 are reproductions of Lafitau’s (c) illustrations, which were explained as follows by him:
Fig. 782.—Record of battle.
Fig. 782 shows that the Indian called Two-Feathers, a b, of the Crane nation c, and the Buffalo family d, accompanied by fifteen warriors h, has made one prisoner f, and taken three scalps g, on his sixth expedition k, and on the fourth, when he commanded it, i.
