Hunter. In Riccaree, it is watash; in Mandan, ptemday; in Tuscarora, hohats; in Blackfoot, eneuh.
Basil. What different names they give them!
Hunter. Yes. In some instances they are alike, but generally they differ. If you were to say “How do you do?” as is the custom with us; you must say among the Indians, How ke che wa? Chee na e num? Dati youthay its? or, Tush hah thah mah kah hush? according to the language in which you spoke. I hardly think these languages would suit you so well as your own.
Brian. They would never suit me; but Austin must learn every word of them.
Austin. Please to tell us how to count ten, and then we will ask you no more about languages. Let it be in the language of the Riccarees.
Hunter. Very well. Asco, pitco, tow wit, tchee tish, tchee hoo, tcha pis, to tcha pis, to tcha pis won, nah e ne won, nah en. I will just add, that weetah, is twenty; nahen tchee hoo, is fifty; nah en te tcha pis won, is eighty; shok tan, is a hundred; and sho tan tera hoo, is a thousand.
Austin. Can the Indians write?
Hunter. Oh no; they have no use for pen and ink, excepting some of the tribes near the whites. In many of the different treaties which have been made between the white and the red man, the latter has put, instead of his name, a rough drawing of the animal or thing after which he had been called. If the Indian chief was named “War hatchet,” he made a rough outline of a tomahawk. If his name was “The great buffalo” then the outline of a buffalo was his signature.
Basil. How curious!
Hunter. The Big turtle, the Fish, the Scalp, the Arrow, and the Big canoe, all draw the form represented by their names in the same manner. If you were to see these signatures, you would not think these Indian chiefs had ever taken lessons in drawing.