Phaeton AEthereus. (?) COMMUNICATION FROM MR. SCHOOLCRAFT. THE RED HAND. The figure of the human hand is used by the North American Indians to denote supplication to the Deity or Great Spirit; and it stands in the system of picture writing as the symbol for strength, power, or mastery, thus derived. In a great number of instances which I have met with of its being employed, both in the ceremonial 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.