The distinctive method by which these Indians were accustomed to confirm and signalize a formal covenant, or a treaty, was the exchange of belts of wampum; and that these wampum belts were not merely conventional gifts, but were actual records, tokens, and reminders, of the covenant itself, there is abundant evidence. In a careful paper on the “Art in Shell of the Ancient Americans,” in one of the reports of the Bureau of Ethnology, of the Smithsonian Institution, the writer[731] says: “One of the most remarkable customs practiced by the Americans is found in the mnemonic use of wampum.... It does not seem probable ... that a custom so unique and so widespread could have grown up within the historic period, nor is it probable that a practice foreign to the genius of tradition-loving races could have become so well established and so dear to their hearts in a few generations.... The mnemonic use of wampum is one, which, I imagine, might readily develop from the practice of gift giving and the exchange of tokens of friendship, such mementoes being preserved for future reference as reminders of promises of assistance or protection.... The wampum records of the Iroquois [and the same is found to be true in many other tribes] were generally in the form of belts [as an encircling and binding token of a covenant], the beads being strung or woven into patterns formed by the use of different colors.” Illustrations, by the score, of this mnemonic use of the covenant-confirming belts, or “necklaces,”[732] as they are sometimes called, are given, or are referred to, in this interesting article. In the narrative of a council held by the “Five Nations,” at Onondaga, nearly two hundred years ago, a Seneca sachem is said to have presented a proposed treaty between the Wagunhas and the Senecas, with the words: “We come to join the two bodies into one”; and he evidenced his good faith in this endeavor, by the presentation of the mnemonic belts of wampum. “The belts were accepted by the Five Nations, and their acceptance was a ratification of the treaty.”[733] Lafitau, writing of the Canadian Indians, in the early years of the eighteenth century, says: “They do not believe that any transaction can be concluded without these belts;” and he mentions, that according to Indian custom these belts were to be exchanged in covenant making; “that is to say, for one belt [received] one must give another [belt].”[734] And a historian of the Moravian Missions says: “Everything of moment transacted at solemn councils, either between the Indians themselves, or with Europeans, is ratified and made valid by strings and belts of wampum.”[735] “The strings,” according to Lafitau, “are used for affairs of little consequence, or as a preparation for other more considerable presents”; but the binding “belts” were as the bond of the covenant itself.