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Figure 1.2. When the Iroquois returned from war he would often carve his exploits or some other important event of the day on a tree (see text for description) (O’Callaghan 1849:foldout insert between pages 6 and 7). In two 1795 depositions about the boundaries of a piece of land in Clark County, Kentucky, Patrick Jordan (1795) and George Balla (1795) testi¤ed that a tree had been used as a starting point for a survey in the year 1776. The tree, when ¤rst seen in 1776, had been originally identi¤ed as a peeled black oak that had been freshly painted by the Indians who frequently camped nearby. This tree was standing but much decayed by 1783 and at the time of the depositions had fallen and was rotten. Many references to “picture writing” on trees are found in the several volumes of Information Respecting the History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, by Henry R. Schoolcraft, LLD (1851–1857). A detailed description of “pictographic writing” found on a tree on the banks of the Muskingum River in Ohio (Figure 1.3), demonstrating the amount of information that can be conveyed by pictures, is found in Schoolcraft’s 1851 publication (Schoolcraft 1851–1857: vol. from 1851, p. 353). To these examples of the use of pictographic writing to subserve the purpose of information, in traveling and in hunting, I add the following pictograph respecting known historical events. It was transcribed from a tree on the banks of the Muskingum River, Ohio, about 1780. The bark of the tree had been removed about twelve inches square, to admit the inscription. The characters were drawn with charcoal and bear’s oil. It is known, historically, that, after the conquest of Canada, 1758–59, the western Indians, who adhered to the French interest, formed an extensive confederacy for retaking, simultaneously, all the military posts west of the Alleghenies . This confederacy, which was headed by the celebrated chief Pontiac, was so well ordered and planned that nine out of the twelve small stockaded garrisons, held by the English troops, were actually surprised and taken; and they were only resisted by the superior works of Pittsburgh and Detroit. It was not till the year 1763–64 that these formidable disturbances were quelled, and the authority of the British crown ¤nally established among the dissatis¤ed tribes. The inscription relates to these events. It depicts the part borne in this confederate war by the Delaware’s of the Muskingum, under the conduct of the noted chief Wingenund. Number 1 represents the eldest and main branch of the Delaware tribe, by its ancient symbol, the tortoise. Number 2 is the totem, or armorial badge of Wingenund, denoting him to be the actor. Number 3 is the sun. The ten horizontal strokes beneath it denote the number of war-parties in which this chief had participated. Dendroglyphs of the Eastern Woodlands 11 Number 4 are men’s scalps. Number 5, women’s scalps. Number 6, male prisoners. Number 7, female prisoners. Number 8, a small fort situated on the banks of Lake Erie, which was taken by the Indians in 1762, by a surprise. Number 9, represents the fort at Detroit, which, in 1763, resisted a siege of three months, under the command of Major Gladwyn. Number 10 is Fort Pitt, denoted by its striking position on the extreme point of land at the con®uence of the Allegany and the Monongahela rivers. Number 11 denotes the incipient town near it. The eleven crosses or ¤gures, Figure 1.3. Indian warmarks made by Captain Wingenund, a Delaware warrior, transcribed from a tree on the banks of the Muskingum River, Ohio, in 1775 (see text for description). Illustration redrawn from Information Respecting the History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States (Schoolcraft 1851–1857: vol. from 1851, Plate 47). 12 Fred E. Coy, Jr. arranged below the tortoise, denote the number of persons who were either killed or taken prisoners by this chief. The prisoners are distinguished from the slain by the ¤gure of a ball or circle above the cross-¤gure denoting a head. Those devices without this circle are symbols of the slain. But four, out of the eleven, appear to have been women, and of these, two were retained as prisoners . It appears that but two of the six men were led into captivity. The twentythree nearly vertical strokes, at the foot of the...

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