Читать книгу The Calendar History of Kiowa Indians (Illustrated Edition) - James Mooney - Страница 8

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Clark, in his book on Indian sign-language, mentions incidentally that the Apache have similar picture histories, but gives no more definite information as concerns that tribe. He goes on to say that the Santee Sioux claim to have formerly kept a record of events by tying knots in a string, after the manner of the Peruvian quipu. By the peculiar method of tying and by means of certain marks they indicated battles and other important events, and even less remarkable occurrences, such as births, etc. He states that he saw among them a slender pole about 6 feet in length, the surface of which was completely covered with small notches, and the old Indian who had it assured him that it had been handed down from father to son for many generations, and that these notches represented the history of his tribe for more than a thousand years, going back, indeed, to the time when they lived near the ocean (Clark, 1).1 In this case the markings must have been suggestive rather than definite in their interpretation, and were probably used in connection with a migration chant similar to that of the Walam Olurn.