Roger Williams,âpé describing the New England Indians, speaks of "_Wunnam_, their red painting, which they most delight in, and is both the Barke of the Fine, as also a red Earth."[116]
The word is derived from Narr. _wunne_, Del. _wulit_, Chip. _gwanatsch_ = beautiful, handsome, good, pretty, etc.
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.
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]