Sometimes, instead of knots on a string, notches on a piece of wood are used. This system of knot-tying, the quippoo system of the Peruvians, which occurs in nearly identical form in all parts of the world, is not only used as in the above instance for calendar-keeping, but also to record items of any sort; for instance, if one Indian owes another a certain number of balls of cotton or other articles, debtor and creditor each has a corresponding string or stick, with knots or notches to the number of the owed article, and one or more of these is oblitered each time a payment is made until the debt is wiped out. Darius (Herodot. IV, 98) did something of the kind when he took a thong and, tying sixty knots in it, gave it to the Ionian chiefs, that they might untie a knot every day and go back to their own land if he had not returned when all the knots were undone. Champlain (_a_) describes a mode of preparation for battle among the Canadian Algonquins which partook of the nature of a military drill as well as of an appointment of rank and order. It is in its essentials mnemonic. He describes it as follows: Les chefs prennent des bâtons de la longueur d’un pied autant en nombre qu’ils sont et signalent par d’autres un peu plus grands, leurs chefs; puis vont dans le bois et esplanadent une place de cinq ou six pieds en quarré où le chef comme Sergent Major, met par ordre tous ces bâtons comme bon luy semble; puis appelle tous ses compagnons, qui viennent tous armez, et leur monstre le rang et ordre qu’ils deuvont tenir lors qu’ils se battront avec leurs ennemis. The author adds detail with regard to alignment, breaking ranks, and resumption of array. SECTION 8. NUMERATION. D. W. Eakins, in Schoolcraft I, p. 273, describes the mnemonic numeration marks of the Muskoki thus: Each perpendicular stroke stood for one, and each additional stroke marked an additional number. The ages of deceased persons or number of scalps taken by them, or war-parties which they have headed, are recorded on their grave-posts by this system of strokes. The sign of the cross represents ten. The dot and comma never stood as a sign for a day, or a moon, or a month, or a year. The chronological marks that were and are in present use are a small number of sticks made generally of cane. Another plan sometimes in use was to make small holes in a board, in which a peg was inserted to keep the days of the week. Capt. Bourke (_b_) gives the following account of an attempt at compromise between the aboriginal method of numbering days, weeks, and months, and that of the civilized intruders to whose system the Indians found it necessary to conform.