The old accounts, however, are not quite accordant concerning these details, probably because the different Atlantic tribes followed in this particular their own taste rather than a general rule. At any rate, however, the wampum belts were considered as objects of importance, being, as has been stated, the tokens by which the memory of remarkable events was transmitted to posterity. They were employed somewhat in the manner of the Peruvian guipu, which they also resembled in that particular, that their meaning could not be conveyed without oral comment. At certain times the belts were exhibited, and their relations to former occurrences explained. This was done by the aged and experienced of the tribe, in the presence of the young men, who made themselves thoroughly acquainted with the shape, size, and marks of the belts, as well as with the events they were destined to commemorate, in order to be able to transmit these details to others at a future time. Thus the wampum belts represented the archives of polished nations. Among the Iroquois tribes, who formed the celebrated " league," there was a special keeper of the wampuni. whose duty it was to preserve the belts and to interpret their meaning, when required.

The civil institutions of the Mohican Indians were democratic, showing but slight modifications of the purely democratic principle. Charles Ran, Government Printing Office. 1873.

ABORIGINAL

INHABITANTS

" Though this people,*' says Van der Donck, " do not make such a distinction between man and man as ether nations, yet they have high and low families, inferior and superior chiefs." Their rulers were called sachems, the title usually remaining hereditarily in the family, although the people claimed the right of election. It does not appear that the sachems ever assumed oppressive powers, or, on the other hand, that rebellious or intrigues against their authority were ever undertaken to any noticeable extent.