The literature of wampum would fill a volume, but I forbear presenting more than will give an outline of the subject, confining myself to such quotations as will serve to show clearly the extent and importance of this ancient custom and its attendant practices. The method of handling the belts of wampum in the presence of ceremonial assemblies is extremely interesting, and cannot be better presented than in the words of eye-witnesses. The following is quoted from Brice, who is describing a council held in the Muskingum Valley in 1764: "An Indian council, on solemn occasions, was always opened with preliminary forms, sufficiently wearisome and tedious, but made indispensable by immemorial custom, for this people are as much bound by their conventional usages as the most artificial children of civilization. The forms were varied, to some extent, according to the imagination of the speaker, but in all essential respects they were closely similar throughout the tribes of the Algonkin and Iroquois lineage. "They run somewhat as follows, each sentence being pronounced with great solemnity, and confirmed by the delivery of a wampum belt: 'Brothers, with this belt I open your ears that you may hear; I remove grief and sorrow from your hearts; I draw from your feet the thorns that pierced them as you journeyed thither; I clean the seats of the council-house, that you may sit at ease; I wash your head and body, that your spirits may be refreshed; I condole with you on the loss of the friends who have died since we last met; I wipe out any blood which may have been spilt between us.' This ceremony, which, by the delivery of so many belts of wampum, entailed no small expense, was never used except on the most important occasions; and at the councils with Colonel Bouquet the angry warriors seem wholly to have dispensed with it. * * * And his memory was refreshed by belts of wampum, which he delivered after every clause in his harangue, as a pledge of the sincerity and truth of his words. "These belts were carefully preserved by the hearers as a substitute for written records, a use for which they were the better adapted, as they were often worked in hieroglyphics expressing the meaning they were designed to preserve. Thus at a treaty of peace the principal belt often bore the figure of an Indian and a white man holding a chain between them."[96]