The Indian who had artistically bedaubed his skin with red, ochreous clay, was esteemed In full dress, and delightful to look upon. Hence the term _wulit_, fine, pretty, came to be applied to the paint itself. The custom of using such sticks, painted or notched, was by no means peculiar to the Delawares. They were familiar to the Iroquois, and the early travelers found them in common employment among the southern tribes.[117] As the art advanced, in place of simple sticks, painted or notched, wooden tablets came into use, on which the symbols were scratched or engraved with a sharp flint or knife. Such are those still in use among the Chipeway, described by Dr. James as "rude pictures carved on a flat piece of wood;"[118] by the native Copway, as "board plates;"[119] and more precisely by Mr. Schoolcraft, as "a tabular piece of wood, covered on both sides with a series of devices cut between parallel lines."[120] The Chipeway terms applied to these devices or symbols are, according to Mr. Schoolcraft, _kekeewin_, for those in ordinary and common use, and _kekeenowin_, for those connected with the mysteries, the "meda worship" and the "great medicine." Both words are evidently from a radical signifying a mark or sign, appearing in the words given in Baraga's "Otchipwe Dictionary," _kikinawadjiton_, I mark it, I put a certain mark on it, and _kikinoamawa_, I teach, instruct him. _Moral and Mental Character._ The character of the Delawares was estimated very differently, even by those who had the best opportunities of judging. The missionaries are severe upon them. Brainerd described them as "unspeakably indolent and slothful. They have little or no ambition or resolution; not one in a thousand of them that has the spirit of a man."[121] No more favorable was the opinion of Zeisberger. He speaks of their alleged bravery with the utmost contempt, and morally he puts them down as "the most ordinary and the vilest of savages."[122] Perhaps these worthy missionaries measured them by the standard of the Christian ideal, by which, alas, we all fall wofully short. Certainly, other competent observers report much more cheerfully. One of the first explorers of the Delaware, Captain Thomas Young (1634), describes them as "very well proportioned, well featured, gentle, tractable and docile."[123] Of their domestic affections, Mr. Heckewelder writes: "I do not believe that there are any people on earth who are more attached to their relatives and offspring than these Indians are."[124] Their action toward the Society of Friends in Pennsylvania indicates a sense of honor and a respect for pledges which we might not expect. They had learned and well understood that the Friends were non-combatants, and as such they never forgot to spare them, even in the bloody scenes of border warfare.