The Documentary History of the State of New York, Vol. I — Passage 4
[E.B. O'Callaghan (1849)] Y. Fashion of painting the dead; the two first are men and the third is a woman who is distin-guished only by the waistcloth that she has. As regards the dead, they inter them with all they have. When it is a man they paint red calu-mets, calumets of peace on the tomb; some times they plant a stake on which they paint how often 1 Three or four miles. — Colden. 14 THE IROQUOIS AND OTHER INDIAN TRIBES. he has been in battle; how many prisoners he has taken; the post ordinarily is only four or five feet high and much embellished. a. These are punctures on his body. b. This is the way they mark when they have been to war, and when there is a bar extending from one mark to the other, it signifies that after having been in battle, he did not come back to Ms village and that he returned with other parties whom he met or formed. c. This arrow, which is broken, denotes that they were wounded in this expedition.