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I enclose with this communication a hieroglyphical figure by which the Sacs &c. are in the habit of representing human life. The picture of a spear at the right hand of the E(lk) as is stated below on that paper, represents a man's life and those other marks acrost it represent what he calls his war roads. The figure was originally drawn by one of the Sacs at my request and copies exactly by my interpreter, and below he added the explanation. But I have made some corrections of spelling &c. so as to make it more intelligible as he could write the English language indifferently. In that drawing the Indian represented his own life. The tribe is divided into clans, as for example, there is the clan of the Elk, of the Bear and of the Thunder: and it is a curious fact that each person has a name given him expressive of the creature or thing after which that clan is called. 

Wisconsin Historical Collection, 1834. Vol. XV, pp.152-153