Chapter XXXVI: Section 2: Notched or Marked Sticks

The use of notches for mere numeration was frequent, but there are also instances of their special significance.

The Dakotas, Hidatsa, and Shoshoni have been observed to note the number of days during which they journeyed from one place to another by cutting lines or notches upon a stick.

The coup sticks carried by Dakota warriors often bear a number of small notches, which refer to the number of the victims hit with the stick after they had been wounded or killed.

The young men and boys of the several tribes at Fort Berthold, Dakota, frequently carry a stick, upon which they cut a notch for every bird killed during a single expedition.

In Seaver’s (_a_) life of Mary Jemison it is set forth that the war chief in each tribe of Iroquois keeps a war-post, in order to commemorate great events and preserve the chronology of them. This post is a peeled stick of timber 10 or 12 feet high, and is erected in the village. For a campaign they make, or rather the chief makes, a perpendicular red mark about 3 inches long and half an inch wide. On the opposite side from this, for a scalp taken, they make a red cross, thus On another side, for a prisoner taken alive, they make a red cross in this manner with a head or dot, and by placing these significant signs in so conspicuous a situation they are enabled to ascertain with great certainty the time and circumstances of past events.

It is suggested that the device first mentioned represents the scalp severed and lifted from the head, and that the second refers to the manner in which the prisoners were secured at night, pegged and tied in the style called spread-eagle.

Rev. Richard Taylor (_a_) notes that the Maori had neither the quipus nor wampum, but only a board shaped like a saw, which was called “he rakau wakapa-paranga,” or genealogical board. It was, in fact, a tally, having a notch for each name, and a blank space to denote where the male line failed and was succeeded by that of the female; youths were taught their genealogies by repeating the names of each ancestor to whom the notches referred.

It is supposed that the use by bakers of notched sticks or tallies, as they are called, still exists in some civilized regions, and there is an interesting history connected with the same wooden tallies, which until lately were used in the accounts of the exchequer of Great Britain. They also appear more recently and in a different use as the Khe-mou circulated by Tartar chiefs to designate the number of men and horses required to be furnished by each camp.