It is intended to mean nothing else than myself, or the singing, bathing, and sacrificing Indian. No one knows it but I and the man who gave me the writing and explained it. If it were an easy matter for any of our friends to see or guess what the signs mean, they would soon steal our birch-bark books. Hence all our ideas, thoughts and persons are represented in various mysterious disguises. (Kitagiguan, or Spotted Feather, as cited in Kohl, 1860, pp. 289-290)