PAPERS RELATING TO THE SIX NATIONS.

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Eyes are upon us, whom they consider as a people too formidable, & much of their Time is muchspent in Intrigues of State to well other matters have given place.

But tho it does not appear that they had the use of Letters yet the traces of Government maystill be seen, and there is reason to believe that they made use of Hieroglyphics Tho theyNeglect them at present, for Hieroglyphicks are understood to be figures, intended to conceal some-what from the Vulgar, But theirs are drawn to the utmost of their skill to represent the tilingintended, for Instance, when they go to War, they paint some trees with the figures of men, often theexact number of their party, and if they go by Water, they delineate a Canoe, when they makeany atchievement, they mark the Handle of their Tomahawks with human figures to signify prisoners,bodies without heads to express scalps. The figures which they affix to Deeds , have led some toimagine that they had Characters or an Alphabet. The case is this, every Nation is divided into aCertain Number of Tribes, of which some have 3. as the Turtle, Bear & Wolf, to well others add theSnake, Deer , &ca, each of These Tribes form a Little Community within the Nation, and as theNation has its peculiar Symbol so each Tribe has the peculiar Badge from whence it is denomi-nated, and a Sachem of each Tribe being a necessary party to a fair Conveyance such Sachim affixesthe Mark of the Tribe thereto, wch is not that of a particular family (unless the whole Tribe is sodeemed) but rather as the publick Seal of a Corporation.

As this Letter is already of an Immoderate Length, I shall only at present add, that with respectto the Deed of 1726, of wch you sent me the Signatures, The Transaction was in some measureof a partial nature, wch I can another time Explain. All the Nations of the Confed c y did not Subscribeit, and those Chiefs that did neglec ted to pay due regard [to] their proper Symbols, but signedagreeable to fancy, of which I have seen other Instances, altho’ the manner I have mentioned isthe most authentic and agreeable to their orig 1 practise.

As to the information wch you observe I formerly Transmitted to the Gov r of N. York concerningthe belt & 15 Bloody Sticks sent by the Mississagaes, The like is very Comon and the Ind 8 useSticks as well to Express the alliance of Castles as the number of Individuals in a party, TheseSticks are generally ab l 6 Inches in length & very slender & painted Red if the Subject is War but"without any peculiarity as to Shape. Their belts are mostly black Wampum , painted red whenthey denote War they describe Castles sometimes upon them as square figures of White Wampum, &in Alliances Human figures holding a Chain of friendship, each figure represents a nation, an axe isalso sometimes described wch is always an Emblem of War, The Taking it up is a Declaration [oftvar] and the burying it a token of Peace, But as I have accounted lor not entering into fartherparticulars at present, I shall conclude w th assuring you that if these loose remarks prove of any useto you, I shall readily descend to any other matters of Information that may demonstrate howmuch I am Sir &c.

Note. —The portions of the above letter included within [ ] are taken from the abridged Philos. Trans, of the RoyalSoc; of London , XII. 407-409. They were added, we presume, to the final Copy sent to England, as they are not in theor iginal draught which we follow for the other portions of the letter. We have taken the liberty to insert them, with thisexplanation, in order to furnish to the reader all Sir Wm. Johnson’s observations on this interesting subject.

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