observances of their
dances and in their pictorial records, I do not recollect a single one
in which this sacred character is not assigned to it. Their priests are
usually drawn with outstretched and uplifted hands. Sometimes one hand
and one arm, but more commonly both are uplifted. It is not uncommon
for those among them who profess the arts of medicine, magic, and
prophecy (the three are sometimes united and sometimes not) to draw or
depict a series of representative or symbolical figures on bark, skins
of animals, or even tabular pieces of wood, which are a kind of
notation, and the characters are intended to aid the memory in singing
the sacred songs and choruses. When the inscriptions are found to be on
wood, as they often are in the region of Lake Superior and the sources
of the Mississippi, they have been sometimes called "music boards." I
induced a noted meta, or priest, to part with one of these figured
boards, many years ago, and afterward obtained impressions from it in
this city by passing it through Mr. Maverick's rolling press. It was
covered with figures on both sides, one side containing forty principal
figures; six embrace the symbol of the uplifted hand, four of which had
also the arm, but no other part of the body, attached. Their import,
which the man also imparted to me, is given in the general remark
above. On the reverse of this board, consisting of thirty eight
characters, nine embrace the uplifted hand, in one case from a headless
trunk, but in the eight others connected with the whole frame.

The design of the hand is uniformly the same with our tribes, whether
it be used disjunctively or alone, or connected with the arm alone, or
with the whole body. In the latter cases it is a compound symbol, and
reveals some farther particular or associated idea of the action. The
former is the most mysterious use of it, precisely because there are no
accessories to help out the meaning, and it is, I think, in such
isolated cases, to be regarded as a general sign of devotion.

In the course of many years' residence on the frontiers, including
various journeyings among the tribes, I have had frequent occasion to
remark the use of the _hand alone_ as a symbol, but it has generally
been a symbol applied to the naked body after its preparation and
decoration for sacred or festive dances. And the fact deserves farther
consideration, from these preparations being generally made in the
arcanum of the medicine,