Chapter XLV: Section 2: Winter Counts (1)

In the preliminary paper on “Pictographs of the North American Indians,” published in the Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 58 pages of text and 46 full-page plates were devoted to the winter counts of the Dakota Indians. The minute detail of explanation, the systematic comparison, and the synoptic presentation which seemed to be necessary need not now be repeated to establish the genuine character of the invention. This consisted in the use of events, which were in some degree historical, to form a system of chronology. The record of the events was only the device by which was accomplished the continuous designation of years, in the form of charts corresponding in part with the orderly arrangement of divisions of time termed calendars. It was first made public by the present writer in a paper entitled “A Calendar of the Dakota Nation,” which was issued in April, 1877, in Bulletin III, No. I, of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey. The title is now changed to that adopted by the Dakotas themselves, viz, Winter Counts--in the original, wan'iyetu wo'wapi.

The lithographed chart published with that paper, substantially the same as Pl. XX, Lone-Dog’s Winter Count, now much better presented than ever before, is the winter count used by, or at least known to, a large portion of the Dakota people, extending over the seventy-one years commencing with the winter of A. D. 1800-’01.

LONE DOG’S WINTER COUNT.]

The copy from which the lithograph was taken is traced on a strip of cotton cloth, in size 1 yard square, which the characters almost entirely fill, and is painted in two colors, black and red, used in the original, of which it is a facsimile. The plate is a representation of the chart as it would appear on the buffalo robe. It was photographed from the copy on linen cloth, and not directly from the buffalo robe. It was painted on the robe by Lone-Dog, an Indian belonging to the Yanktonais tribe of the Dakotas, who in the autumn of 1876 was near Fort Peck, Montana. His Dakota name is given in the ordinary English literation as Shunka-ishnala, which words correspond nearly with the vocables in Riggs’s lexicon for dog-lone. Lone-Dog claimed that, with the counsel of the old men of his tribe, he decided upon some event or circumstance which should distinguish each year as it passed, and marked what was considered to be its appropriate symbol or device upon a buffalo robe kept for the purpose. The robe was at convenient times exhibited to other Indians of the tribe, who were thus taught the meaning and use of the signs as designating the several years.

It is not, however, supposed that Lone-Dog was of sufficient age in the year 1800 to enter upon the work. Either there was a predecessor from whom he received the earlier records or, when he had reached manhood, he gathered the traditions from his elders and worked back, the object either then or before being to establish some system of chronology for the use of the tribe or more probably in the first instance for the use of his own band.

Present knowledge of the winter-count systems shows that Lone-Dog was not their originator. They were started, at the latest, before the present generation, and have been kept up by a number of independent recorders. The idea was one specially appropriate to the Indian genius, yet the peculiar mode of record was an invention, and it is not probably a very old invention, as it has not been used beyond a definite district and people. If an invention of that character had been of great antiquity it would probably have spread by intertribal channels beyond the bands or tribes of the Dakota, where alone the copies of such charts have been found and are understood.

The fact that Lone-Dog’s Winter Count, the only one known at the time of its first publication, begins at a date nearly coinciding with the first year of the present century, as it is called in the arbitrary computation that prevails among most of the civilized peoples, awakened a suspicion that it might be due to civilized intercourse and was not a mere coincidence. If the influence of missionaries or traders started any plan of chronology, it is remarkable that they did not suggest one in some manner resembling the system so long and widely used, and the only one they knew, of counting the numbers from an era, such as the birth of Christ, the Hegira, the Ab Urbe Conditâ, or the first Olympiad. But the chart shows nothing of this nature. The earliest character merely represents the killing of a small number of Dakotas by their enemies, an event neither so important nor interesting as many others of the seventy-one shown in the chart, more than one of which, indeed, might well have been selected as a notable fixed point before and after which simple arithmetical notation could have been used to mark the years. Instead of any plan that civilized advisers would naturally have introduced, the one actually adopted was to individualize each year by a specific recorded symbol. The ideographic record, being preserved and understood by many, could be used and referred to with ease and accuracy. Definite signs for the first appearance of the smallpox and for the first capture of wild horses were dates as satisfactory to the Dakota as the corresponding expressions A. D. 1802 and 1813 are to the Christian world, and far more certain than the chronology expressed in terms of A. M. and B. C. The arrangement of separate characters in an outward spiral starting from a central point is a clever expedient to dispense with the use of numbers for noting the years, yet allowing every date to be determined by counting backward or forward from any other known. The whole conception seems one strongly characteristic of the Indians, who in other instances have shown such expertness in ideography. The discovery of several other charts, which differ in their times of commencement and ending from that of Lone-Dog and from each other, removed any inference arising from the above-mentioned coincidence in beginning with the present century. The following copies of charts, substantially the same as that of Lone-Dog, are now or have been in the possession of the present writer:

1. A chart made and kept by Bo-i'-de, The-Flame, a Dakota, who, in 1877, lived near Fort Sully, Dakota.

The facsimile copy is on a cotton cloth about a yard square and in black and red, thus far similar to the copy of Lone-Dog’s chart, but the arrangement is different. The character for the first year mentioned appears in the lower left-hand corner, and the record proceeds toward the right to the extremity of the cloth, then crossing toward the left and again toward the right at the edge of the cloth, and so throughout, in the style called boustrophedon. It thus answers the same purpose of orderly arrangement, allowing constant additions, like the more circular spiral of Lone-Dog. This record is for the years 1786-’87 to 1876-’77, thus commencing earlier and ending later than that of Lone-Dog.

2. A Minneconjou chief, The-Swan, kept another record on the dressed skin of an antelope or deer, claiming that it had been preserved in his family for seventy years.

The characters are arranged in a spiral similar to those in Lone-Dog’s chart, but more oblong in form. The course of the spiral is from left to right, not from right to left.

3. Another chart was kindly loaned to the writer by Bvt. Maj. Joseph Bush, captain Twenty-second U. S. Infantry. It was procured by him, in 1870 at the Cheyenne Agency. This copy is one yard by three-fourths of a yard, spiral, beginning in the center, from right to left. The figures are substantially the same as those in Lone-Dog’s chart, with which it coincides in time, except that it ends at 1869-’70, but the interpretation differs from that accompanying the latter in a few particulars.

4. The chart of Mato Sapa, Black-Bear. He was a Minneconjou warrior, residing in 1868 and 1869 on the Cheyenne Agency reservation, on the Missouri river, near the mouth of the Cheyenne river.

This copy is on a smaller scale than that of Lone-Dog, being a flat and elongated spiral, 2 feet 6 inches by 1 foot 6 inches. The spiral reads from right to left. This chart, which begins like that of Lone-Dog, ends with the years 1868-’69.

5. A most important and interesting Winter Count is that made by Battiste Good, a Brulé Dakota, which was kindly contributed by Dr. William H. Corbusier, surgeon U. S. Army. It begins with peculiar cyclic devices from the year A. D. 900, and in thirteen figures embraces the time to A. D. 1700, all these devices being connected with myths, and some of them showing European influence. From 1700-’01 to 1879-’80 a separate character is given for each year, with its interpretation, in much the same style as shown in the other charts mentioned. Several Indians and half-breeds said that this count formerly embraced about the same number of years as the others, but that Battiste Good gathered the names of many years from the old people and placed them in chronological order as far back as he was able to learn them.

Another Winter Count, communicated by Dr. Corbusier, is that in the possession of American-Horse, an Oglala Dakota, at the Pine Ridge agency in 1879, who asserted that his grandfather began it, and that it is the production of his grandfather, his father, and himself.

A third Winter Count is communicated by Dr. Corbusier as kept by Cloud-Shield. He was also an Oglala Dakota, at the Pine Ridge agency, but of a different band from American-Horse. The last two counts embrace nearly the same number of years, viz, from A. D. 1775 to 1878. Two dates belong to each figure, as a Dakota year covers a portion of two of the calendar years common to civilization.

Dr. Corbusier also saw copies of a fourth Winter Count, which was kept by White-Cow-Killer, at the Pine Ridge agency. He did not obtain a copy of it, but learned most of the names given to the winters.

With reference to all the Winter Counts and to the above remarks that a Dakota year covers a portion of two calendar years, the following explanation may be necessary: The Dakota count their years by winters (which is quite natural, that season in their high levels and latitudes practically lasting more than six months), and say a man is so many snows old, or that so many snow seasons have passed since an occurrence. They have no division of time into weeks, and their months are absolutely lunar, only twelve, however, being designated, which receive their names upon the recurrence of some prominent physical phenomenon. For example, the period partly embraced by February is called the “raccoon moon;” March, the “sore-eye moon;” and April, that “in which the geese lay eggs.” As the appearance of raccoons after hibernation, the causes inducing inflamed eyes, and oviposition by geese vary with the meteorological character of each year, and as the twelve lunations reckoned do not bring back the point in the season when counting commenced, there is often dispute in the Dakota tipis toward the end of winter as to the correct current date. In careful examination of the several counts it often is left in doubt whether the event occurred in the winter months or was selected in the months immediately before or in those immediately after the winter. No regularity or accuracy is noticed in these particulars.

In considering the extent to which Lone-Dog’s chart is understood and used, it may be mentioned that every intelligent Dakota of full years to whom the writer has shown it has known what it meant, and many of them knew a large part of the years portrayed. When there was less knowledge, there was the amount that may be likened to that of an uneducated person or a child who is examined about a map of the United States, which had been shown to him before, with some explanation only partially apprehended or remembered. He would tell that it was a map of the United States; would probably be able to point out with some accuracy the state or city where he lived; perhaps the capital of the country; probably the names of the states of peculiar position or shape, such as Maine, Delaware, or Florida. So the Indian examined would often point out in Lone-Dog’s chart the year in which he was born, or that in which his father died, or in which there was some occurrence that had strongly impressed him, but which had no relation whatever to the significance of the character for the year in question. It had been pointed out to him before, and he had remembered it, while forgetting the remainder of the chart.

On comparing all the Winter Counts it is found that they often correspond, but sometimes differ. In a few instances the differences are in the succession of events, but they are usually due to an omission or to the selection of another event. When a year has the same name in all of them, the bands were probably encamped together, or else the event fixed upon was of general interest; and when the name is different the bands were scattered, or nothing of general interest occurred. Many of the recent events are fresh in the memory of the people, as the warriors who strive to make their exploits a part of the tribal traditions proclaim them on all occasions of ceremony, count their coups, as the performance is called. Declarations of this kind partake of the nature of affirmations made in the invoked presence of a supposed divinity. War shirts, on which scores of the enemies killed are kept, and which are carefully transmitted from generation to generation, help to refresh their memories in regard to some of the events.

The study of all the charts renders plain some points remaining in doubt while the Lone-Dog chart was the only example known. It became clear that there was no fixed or uniform mode of exhibiting the order of continuity of the year-characters. They were arranged spirally or lineally, or in serpentine curves, by boustrophedon or direct, starting backward from the last year shown or proceeding uniformly forward from the first year selected or remembered. Any mode that would accomplish the object of continuity with the means of regular addition seemed equally acceptable. So a theory advanced that there was some symbolism in the right-to-left circling of Lone-Dog’s chart was abandoned, especially when an obvious reproduction of that very chart was made by an Indian with the spiral reversed. It was also obvious that when copies were made, some of them probably from memory, there was no attempt at Chinese accuracy. It was enough to give the graphic or ideographic character, and frequently the character is better defined on one of the charts than on the others for the corresponding year. One interpretation would often throw light on the others. It also appeared that, while different events were selected by the recorders of the different systems, there was sometimes a selection of the same event for the same year and sometimes for the next, such as would be natural in the progress of a famine or epidemic, or as an event gradually became known over a vast territory.

A test of the mode of selecting events for designating the Winter Counts may be found in a suggestion made by the present writer in his account of Lone-Dog’s chart, published in 1877, as follows:

The year 1876 has furnished good store of events for the
recorder’s choice, and it will be interesting to learn whether
he has selected as the distinguishing event the victory over
Custer, or, as of still greater interest, the general seizure of
ponies, whereat the tribes, imitating Rachel, weep and will not be
comforted, because they are not.

It now appears that two of the Counts made for 1876 and observed by the writer several years later have selected the event of the seizure of the ponies, and that none of them make any allusion to the defeat of Custer.

After examination of all the charts it is obvious that the design is not narrative, that the noting of events is being subordinated to the marking of the years by them, and that the pictographic serial arrangements of sometimes trivial though generally notorious incidents having been selected with special adaptation for use as a calendar. That in a few instances small personal events, such as the birth of the recorder or the death of members of his family, are set forth, may be regarded as interpolations in or unauthorized additions to the charts. If they had exhibited a complete national or tribal history for the years embraced in them, their discovery would have been in some respects more valuable, but they are interesting to anthropologists because they show an attempt before unsuspected among the northern tribes of American Indians to form a system of chronology.

While, as before mentioned, it is not now necessary to recapitulate the large amount of matter before published concerning the Winter Counts of the Dakota, it has been decided to present in an abbreviated form the characters and interpretations of the Lone-Dog chart as being the system which was first discovered, and the publication of which occasioned the discovery of all the other charts mentioned. The Winter Count of Battiste Good has not hitherto been published, and it possesses special importance and interest apart from its chronology, for which reason it is inserted in the present paper, see infra.

The several charts of The-Flame, The-Swan, American-Horse, and Cloud-Shield, published in the Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, are omitted, but selections from all of them are presented under the headings of Ideography, Tribal and Personal Designations, Religion, Customs, History, Biography, Conventionalizing, Comparison, and in short are interspersed through the present paper where they appropriately belong.

The reader of the Lone-Dog and Battiste Good charts may find it convenient to note the following brief account of the tribal names frequently mentioned:

The great linguistic stock or family which embraces not only the Sioux or Dakota proper, but the Missouri, Omaha, Ponka, Osage, Kansa, Oto, Assinaboin, Gros Ventre or Minnitari, Crow, Iowa, Mandan, and some others, has been frequently styled the Dakota family. Maj. J. W. Powell, the Director of the Bureau of Ethnology, from consideration of priority, has lately adopted the name Siouan for the family, and for the grand division of it popularly called Sioux has used the term Dakota, which the people claim for themselves.

The word “Dakota” is translated in Riggs’s dictionary of that language as “leagued” or “allied.” The title Sioux, which is indignantly repudiated by the people, is either the last syllable or the last two syllables, according to pronunciation, of “Nadowesioux,” which is the French plural of the Algonkin name for the Dakotas “Nadowessi,” “hated foe.” The Ojibwa called the Dakota “Nadowessi,” which is their word meaning rattlesnake, or, as others translate, adder, with a contemptuous or diminutive termination; the plural is Nadowessiwak or Nadawessyak. The French gave the name their own form of the plural and the voyagers and trappers cut it down to “Sioux.”

The more important of the tribes and organized bands into which the Dakotas are now divided, being the dislocated remains of the “Seven Great Council Fires,” are as follows:

Yankton and Yanktonai or Ihankto^nwạ^n, both derived from a root meaning “at the end,” alluding to the former locality of their villages.

Sihasapa, or Blackfeet.

Oheno^npa, or Two-Kettles.

Itaziptco, Without Bow. The French equivalent Sans Arc is more commonly used.

Minneconjou, translated “Those who plant by the water,” the physical features of their old home.

Sitca^ngu, Burnt Hip or Brulé.

Santee, subdivided into Wahpeton, Men among Leaves, i. e., among forests, and Sisseton, Men of Prairie Marsh. Two other bands, now practically extinct, formerly belonged to the Santee, or as it is more correctly spelled, Isanti tribes, from the root “Issan,” knife. Their former territory furnished the material for stone knives, from the manufacture of which they were called the “knife people.”

Uncpapa, once the most warlike and probably the most powerful of all the bands, though not the largest.

Oglala. The meaning and derivation of this name and of Uncpapa have been the subjects of controversy.

Hale, Gallatin, and Riggs designate a “Titon tribe” as located west of the Missouri, and as much the largest division of the Dakotas, the latter authority subdividing into the Sicha^ngu, Itazipcho, Sihasapa, Minneconjou, Ohenonpa, Oglala, and Huncpapa, seven of the tribes specified above, which he calls bands. “Titon,” (from the word _ti^ntan_, meaning “at or on land without trees or prairie,”) was the name of a tribal division, but it has become only an expression for all those tribes whose ranges are on the prairie, and thus it is a territorial and accidental, not a tribular distinction. One of the Dakotas at Fort Rice spoke to the present writer of the “hostiles” as “Titons,” with obviously the same idea of locality, “away on the prairie,” it being well known that they were a conglomeration from several tribes.

LONE-DOG’S WINTER COUNT.

Fig. 183, 1800-’01.--Thirty Dakotas were killed by Crow Indians. The device consists of thirty parallel black lines in three columns, the outer lines being united. In this chart, such black lines always signify the death of Dakotas killed by their enemies.

The Absaroka or Crow tribe, although belonging to the Siouan family, has nearly always been at war with the Dakotas proper since the whites have had any knowledge of either. They are noted for the extraordinary length of their hair, which frequently distinguishes them in pictographs.

Fig. 184, 1801-’02.--Many died of smallpox. The smallpox broke out in the tribe. The device is the head and body of a man covered with red blotches. In this, as in all other cases where colors in this chart are mentioned, they will be found to correspond with Pl. XX, but not in that respect with the text figures, which have no coloration.

Fig. 185, 1802-’03.--A Dakota stole horses with shoes on, i. e., stole them either directly from the whites or from some other Indians who had before obtained them from whites, as the Indians never shoe their horses. The device is a horseshoe.

Fig. 186, 1803-’04.--They stole some “curly horses” from the Crows. Some of these horses are still on the plains, the hair growing in closely curling tufts. The device is a horse with black marks for the tufts. The Crows are known to have been early in the possession of horses.

Fig. 187, 1804-’05.--The Dakota had a calumet dance and then went to war. The device is a long pipestem, ornamented with feathers and streamers. The feathers are white, with black tips, evidently the tail feathers of the adult golden eagle (Aquila chrysaëtos), highly prized by the Plains Indians. The streamers anciently were colored strips of skin or flexible bark; now gayly colored strips of cloth are used. The word calumet is a corruption of the French chalumeau. Capt. Carver (_c_) in his Three Years Travels Through the Interior Parts of North America, after puzzling over the etymology of “calumet,” describes the pipe as “about 4 feet long, bowl of red marble, stem of a light wood curiously painted with hieroglyphics in various colors and adorned with feathers. Every nation has a different method of decorating these pipes and can tell at once to what band it belongs. It is used as an introduction to all treaties, also as a flag of truce is among Europeans.” Among the Indian tribes generally the pipe, when presented or offered to a stranger or enemy, was the symbol of peace, yet when used ceremonially by members of the same tribe among themselves was virtually a token of impending war. For further remarks on this point see the year 1842-’43 of this Winter Count.

Fig. 188, 1805-’06.--The Crows killed eight Dakotas. Again the short parallel black lines, this time eight in number, united by a long stroke. The interpreter, Fielder, says that this character with black strokes is only used for grave marks.

Fig. 189, 1806-’07.--A Dakota killed an Arikara (Ree) as he was about to shoot an eagle. The sign gives the head and shoulders of a man with a red spot of blood on his neck, an arm being extended, with a line drawn to a golden eagle.

The drawing represents an Indian in the act of catching an eagle by the legs, as the Arikara were accustomed to catch eagles in their earth traps. These were holes to which the eagles were attracted by baits and in which the Indians were concealed. They rarely or never shot war eagles. The Arikara was shot in his trap just as he put his hand up to grasp the bird.

Fig. 190, 1807-’08.--Red-Coat, a chief, was killed. The figure shows the red coat pierced by two arrows, with blood dropping from the wounds.

Fig. 191, 1808-’09.--The Dakota who had killed the Ree shown in this record for 1806-’07 was himself killed by the Rees. He is represented running, and shot with two arrows, blood dripping. These two figures, taking in connection, afford a good illustration of the method pursued in the chart, which was not intended to be a continuous history, or even to record the most important event of each year, but to exhibit some one of special peculiarity. There was some incident about the one Ree who was shot when, in fancied security, he was bringing down an eagle, and whose death was avenged by his brethren the second year afterward. It would, indeed, have been impossible to have graphically distinguished the many battles, treaties, horse-stealings, big hunts, etc., so most of them were omitted and other events of greater individuality and better adapted for portrayal were taken for the year count, the criterion being not that they were of historic moment, but that they were of general notoriety, or perhaps of special interest to the recorders.

Fig. 192, 1809-’10.--A chief, Little-Beaver, set fire to a trading store, and was killed. The character simply designates his name-totem. The other interpretations say that he was a white trapper, but probably he had gained a new name among the Indians.

Fig. 193, 1810-’11.--Black-Stone made medicine. The expression medicine is too common to be successfully eliminated, though it is altogether misleading. The “medicine men” have no connection with therapeutics, feel no pulses, and administer no drugs, or, if sometimes they direct the internal or external use of some secret preparation, it is as a part of superstitious ceremonies, and with main reliance upon those ceremonies. Their incantations are not only to drive away disease, but for many other purposes, such as to obtain success in war, avert calamity, and were very frequently used to bring within reach the buffalo, on which the Dakotas depended for food. The rites are those known as shamanism, noticeable in the ethnic periods of savagery and barbarism. In the ceremonial of “making medicine,” a buffalo head, and especially the head of an albino buffalo, held a prominent place among the plains tribes. Many references to this are to be found in the Prince of Wied’s Travels in the Interior of North America. Also see infra, Chap. XIV. The device in the chart is the man figure, with the head of an albino buffalo held over his own.

Fig. 194, 1811-’12.--The Dakota fought a battle with the Gros Ventres and killed a great many. Device, a circle inclosing three round objects with flat bases, resembling heads severed from trunks, which are too minute in this device for decision of objects represented; but they appear more distinct in the record for 1864-’65 as the heads of enemies slain in battle. In the sign language of the plains, the Dakota are denoted by drawing a hand across the throat, signifying that they cut the throats of their enemies. The Dakota count by the fingers, as is common to most peoples, but with a peculiarity of their own. When they have gone over the fingers and thumbs of both hands, one finger is temporarily turned down for _one ten_. At the end of the next ten another finger is turned, and so on to a hundred. _Opawinge_ (_Opawi^nxe_), one hundred, is derived from pawinga (pawi^nxa), to go round in circles, to make gyrations, and contains the idea that the round of all the fingers has again been made for their respective tens. So the circle is never used for less than one hundred, but sometimes signifies an indefinite number greater than a hundred. The circle, in this instance, therefore, was at first believed to express the killing in battle of many enemies. But the other interpretations removed all symbolic character, leaving the circle simply as the rude drawing of a dirt lodge to which the Gros Ventres were driven. The present writer, by no means devoted to symbolism, had supposed a legitimate symbol to be indicated, which supposition further information on the subject showed to be incorrect.

Fig. 195, 1812-’13.--Wild horses were first run and caught by the Dakotas. The device is a lasso. The date is of value, as showing when the herds of prairie horses, descended from those animals introduced by the Spaniards in Mexico, or those deposited by them on the shores of Texas and at other points, had multiplied so as to extend into the far northern regions. The Dakotas undoubtedly learned the use of the horse and perhaps also that of the lasso from southern tribes, with whom they were in contact; and it is noteworthy that notwithstanding the tenacity with which they generally adhere to ancient customs, in only two generations since they became familiar with the horse they had been so revolutionized in their habits as to be utterly helpless, both in war and the chase, when deprived of that animal.

Fig. 196, 1813-’14.--The whooping-cough was very prevalent and fatal. The sign is suggestive of a blast of air coughed out by the man-figure.

The interruption in the cough peculiar to the disease is more clearly delineated in the Winter Count of The-Flame for the same year, Fig. 197, and still better in The-Swan’s Winter Count, Fig. 198.

Fig. 199, 1814-’15.--A Dakota killed an Arapaho in his lodge. The device represents a tomahawk or battle-ax, the red being blood from the cleft skull.

Fig. 200, 1815-’16.--The Sans Arcs made the first attempt at a dirt lodge. This was at Peoria Bottom, Dakota. Crow-Feather was their chief, which fact, in the absence of the other charts, seemed to explain the fairly drawn feather of that bird protruding from the lodge top, but the figure must now be admitted to be a badly drawn bow, in allusion to the tribe Sans Arc, without, however, any sign of negation. As the interpreter explained the figure to be a crow feather and as Crow-Feather actually was the chief, Lone-Dog’s chart with its interpretation may be independently correct.

Fig. 201, 1816-’17.--“Buffalo belly was plenty.” The device rudely portrays a side of buffalo.

Fig. 202, 1817-’18.--La Framboise, a Canadian, built a trading store with dry timber. The dryness is shown by the dead tree. La Framboise was an old trader among the Dakota, who once established himself in the Minnesota valley. His name is mentioned by various travelers.

Fig. 203, 1818-’19.--The measles broke out and many died. The device in the copy is the same as that for 1801-’02, relating to the smallpox, except a very slight difference in the red blotches; and, though Lone-Dog’s artistic skill might not have been sufficient to distinctly vary the appearance of the two patients, both diseases being eruptive, still it is one of the few serious defects in the chart that the sign for the two years is so nearly identical that, separated from the continuous record, there would be confusion between them. Treating the document as a mere aide-de-mémoire no inconvenience would arise, it probably being well known that the smallpox epidemic preceded that of the measles; but care is generally taken to make some, however minute, distinction between the characters. It is also to be noticed that the Indian diagnosis makes little distinction between smallpox and measles, so that no important pictographic variation could be expected. The head of this figure is clearly distinguished from that in 1801-’02.

Fig. 204, 1819-’20.--Another trading store was built, this time by Louis La Conte, at Fort Pierre, Dakota. His timber, as one of the Indians consulted especially mentioned, was rotten.

Fig. 205, 1820-’21.--The trader, La Conte, gave Two-Arrow a war dress for his bravery. So translated an interpreter, and the sign shows the two arrows as the warrior’s name-totem; likewise the gable of a house, which brings in the trader; also a long strip of black tipped with red streaming from the roof, which possibly may be the piece of parti-colored material out of which the dress was fashioned. This strip is not intended for sparks and smoke, which at first sight was suggested, as in that case the red would have been nearest the roof instead of farthest from it.

Fig. 206, 1821-’22.--The character represents the falling to earth of a very brilliant meteor.

Fig. 207, 1822-’23.--Another trading house was built, which was by a white man called Big-Leggings, and was at the mouth of the Little Missouri or Bad river. The drawing is distinguishable from that for 1819-’20.

Fig. 208, 1823-’24.--White soldiers made their first appearance in the region. So said the interpreter, Clement, but from the unanimous interpretation of others the event portrayed is the attack of the United States forces accompanied by Dakotas upon the Arikara villages, the historic account of which is given in some detail in Chap. XVI, infra.

The device represents an Arickara palisaded village and attacking soldiers. Not only the remarkable character and triumphant result of this expedition, but the connection that the Dakotas themselves had with it, made it a natural subject for the year’s totem.

All the winter counts refer to this expedition.

Fig. 209, 1824-’25.--Swan, chief of the Two-Kettle tribe, had all of his horses killed. Device, a horse pierced by a lance, blood flowing from the wound.

Fig. 210, 1825-’26.--There was a remarkable flood in the Missouri river and a number of Indians were drowned. With some exercise of fancy the symbol may suggest heads appearing above a line of water, and this is more distinct in some of the other charts.

Fig. 211, 1826-’27.--“An Indian died of the dropsy.” So Basil Clement said. It was at first suggested that this circumstance was noted because the disease was so unusual in 1826 as to excite remark. Baron de La Hontan (_c_), a good authority concerning the Northwestern Indians before they had been greatly affected by intercourse with whites, specially mentions dropsy as one of the diseases unknown to them. Carver, op. cit., also states that this malady was extremely rare. The interpretations of other charts explained, however, that some Dakotas on the warpath had nearly perished with hunger when they found and ate the rotting carcass of an old buffalo on which the wolves had been feeding. They were seized soon after with pains in the stomach, their abdomens swelled, and gas poured from the mouth. This disease is termed tympanites, the external appearance occasioned by it much resembling that of dropsy.

Fig. 212, 1827-’28.--Dead-Arm was stabbed with a knife or dirk by a Mandan. The illustration is quite graphic, showing the long-handled dirk in the bloody wound and withered arm.

Fig. 213, 1828-’29.--A white man named Shadran, who lately, as reported in 1877, was still living in the same neighborhood, built a dirt lodge. The hatted head appears under the roof. This name should probably be spelled Chadron, with whom Catlin hunted in 1832, in the region mentioned.

Fig. 214, 1829-’30.--A Yanktonai Dakota was killed by Bad-Arrow Indians.

The Bad-Arrow Indians is a translation of the Dakota name for a certain band of Blackfeet Indians.

Fig. 215, 1830-’31.--Bloody battle with the Crows, of whom it is said twenty-three were killed. Nothing in the sign denotes number, it being only a man figure with red or bloody body and red war bonnet.

Fig. 216, 1831-’32.--Le Beau, a white man, killed another named Kermel. Le Beau was still alive at Little Bend, 30 miles above Fort Sully, in 1877.

Fig. 217, 1832-’33.--Lone-Horn had his leg “killed,” as the interpretation gave it. The single horn is on the figure, and a leg is drawn up as if fractured or distorted, though not unlike the leg in the character for 1808-’09, where running is depicted.

Fig. 218, 1833-’34.--“The stars fell,” as the Indians all agreed. This was the great meteoric shower observed all over the United States on the night of November 12 of that year. In this chart the moon is black and the stars are red.

Fig. 219, 1834-’35.--The chief Medicine-Hide was killed. The device shows the body as bloody, but not the war bonnet, by which it is distinguished from the character for 1830-’31.

Fig. 220, 1835-’36.--Lame-Deer shot a Crow Indian with an arrow; drew it out and shot him again with the same arrow. The hand is drawing the arrow from the first wound. This is another instance of the principle on which events were selected. Many fights occurred of greater moment, but with no incident precisely like this. Lame-Deer was a distinguished chief among the hostiles in 1876. His camp of five hundred and ten lodges was surprised and destroyed by Gen. Miles, and four hundred and fifty horses, mules, and ponies were captured.

Fig. 221, 1836-’37.--Band’s-Father, chief of the Two Kettles, died. The device is nearly the same as that for 1816-’17, denoting plenty of buffalo belly.

Interpreter Fielder throws light on the subject by saying that this character was used to designate the year when The-Breast, father of The-Band, a Minneconjou, died. The-Band himself died in 1875, on Powder river. His name was O-ye-a-pee. The character was, therefore, the Buffalo-Breast, a personal name.

Fig. 222, 1837-’38.--Commemorates a remarkably successful hunt, in which it is said 100 elk were killed. The drawing of the elk is good enough to distinguish it from the other quadrupeds in this chart.

Fig. 223, 1838-’39.--A dirt lodge was built for Iron-Horn. The other dirt lodge (1815-’16) has a mark of ownership, which this has not. A chief of the Minneconjous is mentioned in Gen. Harney’s report in 1856 under the name of The-One-Iron-Horn.

The word translated “iron” in this case and appearing thus several times in the charts does not always mean the metal of that name. According to Rev. J. Owen Dorsey it has a mystic significance, in some manner connected with water and with water spirits. In pictographs objects called iron are painted blue when that color can be obtained.

Fig. 224, 1839-’40.--The Dakotas killed an entire village of Snake or Shoshoni Indians. The character is the ordinary tipi pierced by arrows.

Fig. 225, 1840-’41.--The Dakotas made peace with the Cheyennes. The symbol of peace is the common one of the approaching hands of two persons. The different coloration of the two hands and arms shows that they belonged to two different persons, and in fact to different tribes. The mere unceremonial hand grasp or “shake” of friendship was not used by the Indians before it was introduced by Europeans.

Fig. 226, 1841-’42.--Feather-in-the-Ear stole 30 spotted ponies. The spots are shown red, distinguishing them from those of the curly horse in the character for 1803-’04.

A successful theft of horses, demanding skill, patience, and daring, is generally considered by the Plains Indians to be of equal merit with the taking of scalps. Indeed, the successful horse thief is more popular than a mere warrior, on account of the riches gained by the tribe, wealth until lately being generally estimated in ponies as the unit of value.

Fig. 227, 1842-’43.--One-Feather raised a large war party against the Crows. This chief is designated by his long solitary red eagle feather, and holds a pipe with black stem and red bowl, alluding to the usual ceremonies before starting on the warpath. For further information on this subject see Chap. XV. The Red-War-Eagle-Feather was at this time a chief of the Sans Arcs.

Fig. 228, 1843-’44.--The Sans Arcs made medicine to bring the buffalo. The medicine tent is denoted by a buffalo’s head drawn on it, which in this instance is not the head of an albino buffalo.

Fig. 229, 1844-’45.--The Minneconjous built a pine fort. Device, a pine tree connected with a tipi. Another account explains that they went to the woods and erected their tipis there as affording some protection from the unusually deep snow. This would account for the pine tree.

Fig. 230, 1845-’46.--Plenty of buffalo meat, which is represented as hung upon poles and trees to dry. This device has become the conventional sign for plenty and frequently appears in the several charts.

Fig. 231, 1846-’47.--Broken-Leg died. Rev. Dr. Williamson says he knew him. He was a Brulé. There is enough difference between this device and those for 1808-’09 and 1832-’33 to distinguish each.

Fig. 232, 1847-’48.--Two-Man was killed. His totem is drawn, two small man figures side by side. Another interpretation explains the figure as indicating twins.

Fig. 233, 1848-’49.--Humpback was killed. An ornamented lance pierces the distorted back. Other records name him Broken-Back. He was a distinguished chief of the Minneconjous.

Fig. 234, 1849-’50.--The Crows stole a large drove of horses (it is said eight hundred) from the Brulés. The circle is a design for a camp or corral from which a number of horse-tracks are departing.

Fig. 235, 1850-’51.--The character is a distinct drawing of a buffalo containing a human figure. Clément translated that “a buffalo cow was killed in that year and an old woman found in her belly;” also that all the Indians believed this. Good-Wood, examined through another interpreter, could or would give no explanation except that it was “about their religion.” The Dakotas have long believed in the appearance from time to time of a monstrous animal that swallows human beings. This superstition was perhaps suggested by the bones of mastodons, often found in the territory of those Indians; and, the buffalo being the largest living animal known to them, its name was given to the legendary monster, in which nomenclature they were not wholly wrong, as the horns of the fossil _Bison latifrons_ are 10 feet in length. Major Bush suggests that perhaps some old squaw left to die sought the carcass of a buffalo for shelter and then died. He has known this to occur.

Fig. 236, 1851-’52.--Peace with the Crows. Two Indians, with differing arrangement of hair, showing two tribes, are exchanging pipes for a peace smoke.

Fig. 237, 1852-’53.--The Nez Percés came to Lone-Horn’s lodge at midnight. The device shows an Indian touching with a pipe a tipi, the top of which is black or opaque, signifying night.

Touch-the-Clouds, a Minneconjou, son of Lone-Horn, when this chart was shown to him by the present writer, designated this character as being particularly known to him from the fact of its being his father’s lodge. He remembered all about it from talk in his family, and said it was the Nez Percés who came.

Fig. 238, 1853-’54.--Spanish blankets were first brought to the country. A fair drawing of one of those striped blankets is held out by a white trader.

Fig. 239, 1854-’55.--Brave-Bear was killed. His extended arms are ornamented with pendent stripes.

Fig. 240, 1855-’56--Gen. Harney, called by the Dakota Putinska (“white beard” or “white mustache”), made peace with a number of the tribes or bands of the Dakotas. The figure shows an officer in uniform shaking hands with an Indian.

Executive document No. 94, Thirty-fourth Congress, first session, Senate, contains the “minutes of a council held at Fort Pierre, Nebraska, on the 1st day of March, 1856, by Brevet Brig. Gen. William S. Harney, U. S. Army, commanding the Sioux expedition, with the delegations from nine of the bands of the Sioux, viz, the Two Kettle band, Lower Yankton, Uncpapas, Blackfeet Sioux, Minneconjous, Sans Arcs, Yanctonnais (two bands), Brulés of the Platte.”

Fig. 241, 1856-’57.--Four-Horn was made a calumet or medicine man.

A man with four horns holds out the same kind of ornamented pipestem shown in the character for 1804-’05, it being his badge of office. Four-Horn was one of the subchiefs of the Uncpapas, and was introduced to Gen. Harney at the council of 1856 by Bear-Rib, head chief of that tribe.

Interpreter Clément, in the spring of 1874, said that Four-Horn and Sitting-Bull were the same person, the name Sitting-Bull being given him after he was made a calumet man. No other authority tells this.

Fig. 242, 1857-’58.--The Dakotas killed a Crow squaw. She is pierced by four arrows, and the peace made with the Crows in 1851-’52 seems to have been short lived.

Fig. 243, 1858-’59.--Lone-Horn, whose solitary horn appears, made buffalo “medicine,” doubtless on account of the scarcity of that animal. Again the head of an albino bison. One-Horn, probably the same individual, is recorded as the head chief of the Minneconjous at this date.

Fig. 244, 1859-’60.--Big-Crow, a Dakota chief, was killed by the Crows. He had received his name from killing a Crow Indian of unusual size.

Fig. 245, 1860-’61.--Device, the head and neck of an elk, similar to that part of the animal for 1837-’38, with a line extending from its mouth, at the extremity of which is the albino buffalo head. “The elk made you understand the voice while he was walking.” The interpreter persisted in this oracular rendering. This device and its interpretation were unintelligible to the writer until examination of Gen. Harney’s report, above referred to, showed the name of a prominent chief of the Minneconjous set forth as “The Elk that Holloes Walking.” It then became probable that the device simply meant that the aforesaid chief made buffalo medicine, which conjecture, published in 1877, was verified by the other records subsequently discovered.

Interpreter A. Lavary said, in 1867, that The-Elk-that-Holloes-Walking, then chief of the Minneconjous, was then at Spotted-Tail’s camp. His father was Red-Fish. He was the elder brother of Lone-Horn. His name is given as A-hag-a-hoo-man-ie, translated The Elk’s Voice Walking; compounded of he-ha-ka, elk, and omani, walk; this according to Lavary’s literation. The correct literation of the Dakota word meaning elk is heqaka; voice, ho; and to walk, walking, mani. Their compound would be heqaka-ho-mani, the translation being the same as above given.

Fig. 246, 1861-’62.--Buffalo were so plentiful that their tracks came close to the tipis. The cloven-hoof mark is cleverly distinguished from the tracks of horses in the character for 1849-’50.

Fig. 247, 1862-’63.--Red-Feather, a Minneconjou, was killed. His feather is shown entirely red, while the “one-feather” in 1842-’43 has a black tip.

It is to be noted that there is no allusion to the great Minnesota massacre, which commenced in August, 1862, and in which many of the Dakotas belonging to the tribes familiar with these charts were engaged. Little-Crow was the leader. He escaped to the British possessions, but was killed in July, 1863. Perhaps the reason of the omission of any character to designate the massacre was the terrible retribution that followed it.

Fig. 248, 1863-’64.--Eight Dakotas were killed. Again the short, parallel black lines united by a long stroke. In this year Sitting-Bull fought General Sully in the Black Hills.

Fig. 249, 1864-’65.--The Dakotas killed four Crows. Four of the same rounded objects, like severed heads, shown in 1825-’26, but these are bloody, thus distinguishing them from the cases of drowning.

Fig. 250, 1865-’66.--Many horses died for want of grass. The horse here drawn is sufficiently distinct from all others in the chart.

Fig. 251, 1866-’67.--Swan, father of Swan, chief of the Minneconjous in 1877, died. With the assistance of the name the object intended for his totem may be recognized as a swan swimming on the water.

Fig. 252, 1867-’68.--Many flags were given them by the Peace Commission. The flag refers to the visit of the Peace Commissioners, among whom were Generals Sherman, Terry, and other prominent military and civil officers. Their report appears in the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1868. They met at Fort Leavenworth, August 13, 1867, and between August 30 and September 13 held councils with the various bands of the Dakota Indians at Forts Sully and Thompson, and also at the Yankton, Ponka, and Santee reservations. These resulted in the Dakota treaty of 1868.

Fig. 253, 1868-’69.--Texas cattle were brought into the country. This was done by Mr. William A. Paxton, a well-known business man, resident in Dakota in 1877.

Fig. 254, 1869-’70.--An eclipse of the sun. This was the solar eclipse of August 7, 1869, which was central and total on a line drawn through the Dakota country. This device has been criticised because Indians generally believe an eclipse to be occasioned by a dragon or aerial monster swallowing the sun, and it is contended that they would so represent it. An answer is that the design is objectively good, the sun being painted black, as concealed, while the stars come out red, i. e., bright, and graphic illustration prevails throughout the charts where it is possible to employ it.

Dr. Washington Matthews, surgeon, U. S. Army, communicated the fact that the Dakotas had opportunities all over their country of receiving information about the real character of the eclipse. He was at Fort Rice during the eclipse and remembers that long before it occurred the officers, men, and citizens around the post told the Indians of the coming event and discussed it with them so much that they were on the tip-toe of expectancy when the day came. Two-Bears and his band were then encamped at Fort Rice, and he and several of his leading men watched the eclipse along with the whites and through their smoked glass, and then and there the phenomenon was thoroughly explained to them over and over again. There is no doubt that similar explanations were made at all the numerous posts and agencies along the river that day. The path of the eclipse coincided nearly with the course of the Missouri for over a thousand miles. The duration of totality at Fort Rice was nearly two minutes (1′ 48″).

Fig. 255, 1870-’71.--The Uncpapas had a battle with the Crows, the former losing, it is said, 14, and killing 29 out of 30 of the latter, though nothing appears to show those numbers. The central object is not a circle denoting multitude, but an irregularly rounded object, perhaps intended for one of the wooden inclosures or forts frequently erected by the Indians, and especially the Crows. The Crow fort is shown as nearly surrounded, and bullets, not arrows or lances, are flying. This is the first instance in this chart in which any combat or killing is portrayed where guns explicitly appear to be used by Indians, though nothing in the chart is at variance with the fact that the Dakotas had for a number of years been familiar with firearms. The most recent indications of any weapon were those of the arrows piercing the Crow squaw in 1857-’58, and Brave-Bear in 1854-’55, while the last one before those was the lance used in 1848-’49, and those arms might well have been employed in all the cases selected, although rifles and muskets were common. There is an obvious practical difficulty in picturing, by a single character, killing with a bullet, not arising as to arrows, lances, dirks, and hatchets, all of which can be and are shown in the chart projecting from the wounds made by them. Other pictographs show battles in which bullets are denoted by continuous dotted lines, the spots at which they take effect being sometimes indicated, and the fact that they did hit the object aimed at is expressed by a specially invented symbol. It is, however, to be noted that the bloody wound on the Ree’s shoulder (1806-’07) is without any protruding weapon, as if made by a bullet.

More distinct information regarding this fight, the record of which concludes the original Lone-Dog chart, has been kindly communicated by Mr. Luther S. Kelly, of Garfield County, Colorado.

The war party of Uncpapas mentioned charged upon a small trading post for the Crows on the Upper Missouri river, at the mouth of Musselshell river. Usually this post was garrisoned by a few frontiersmen, but on that particular day there happened to be a considerable force of freighters and hunters. The Indians were afoot and, being concealed by the sage brush, got within shooting distance of the fort before being discovered. They were easily driven off, and going a short distance took shelter from the rain in a circular washout, not having any idea of being followed by the whites. Meanwhile the whites organized and followed. The surprise was complete, the leading white man only being killed. The Indians sang their song and made several breaks to escape, but were shot down as fast as they rose above the bank. Twenty-nine were killed.

BATTISTE GOOD’S WINTER COUNT.