Chapter LXXX: Section 4: Record of Notable Events

In this group are presented some figures from the Dakota Winter Counts, which record events of tribal or intertribal importance not included under other heads.

Fig 797.--The-people-were-burnt winter. Battiste Good’s Winter Count 1762-’63. He explains the origin of the title “Brulé” Dakota as follows:

Some of the Dakotas were living east of their present country, when a prairie fire destroyed their entire village. Many of their children and a man and his wife, who were on foot some distance away from the village, were burned to death. Many of their horses were also burned to death. All the people that could get to a long lake which was near by saved themselves by jumping into it. Many of these were badly burned about the thighs and legs, and this circumstance gave rise to the name, si-can-gu, translated properly in to English as Burnt Thigh and by the French abbreviated as Brulé, by which latter name they have since been generally known.

Fig. 798.--The Oglalas engaged in a drunken brawl, which resulted in a division of the tribe, the Kiyuksas (Cut-Offs) separating from the others. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1841-’42.

Fig. 799.--Nine white men came to trade with the Dakotas. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1800-’01.

The hatted head stands for a white man and also indicates that the eight dots over it are for white men. According to this count the first whites came in 1794-’95, and the party now depicted succeeded them and were the first traders.

Fig. 800.--The Good-White-Man came. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1800-’01.

He was the first white man to trade and live with that division of the Dakotas of which Cloud-Shield’s chart gives the early records.

Fig. 801.--A trader brought the Dakotas their first guns. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1801-’02.

Fig. 802.--The Dakotas saw wagons for the first time. Red-Lake, a white trader, brought his goods in them. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1830-’31.

The earliest traders came by the river, in boats.

Fig. 803.--Some Crows came to the Dakota camp and scalped a boy. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1862-’63.

This is represented also in the next figure.

Fig. 804.--The Crows scalped an Oglala boy alive. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1862-’63.

This unusually cruel outrage renewed the violence of warfare between Dakota and Absaroka.

Fig. 805.--All of Standing Bull’s horses were killed. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1832-’33.

Hoof-prints, blood-stains, and arrows are shown under the horse. It may be remarked with regard to the name-device for Standing-Bull, that the quadruped can stand on two legs, but cannot run or even walk with that limitation, so that the exhibition of two legs only may properly signify standing, though for convenience the fore legs are depicted.

Fig. 806.--They received their first annuities at the mouth of Horse creek. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1851-’52.

A one-point blanket is depicted and denotes dry goods. It is surrounded by a circle of marks which represent the people.

Fig. 807.--Many goods were issued to the Dakotas at Fort Laramie. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1851-’52.

The goods were the first they received from the United States Government. The blanket which is represented stands for the whole issue.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Large-issue-of-goods-on-the-Platte-river-winter.”

This is a more conventionalized form of the preceding figure.

Fig. 808.--The Dakotas received annuities at Raw-Hide Butte. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1856-’57.

The house and the blanket represent the agency and the goods.

Fig. 809.--The Dakotas bought Mexican blankets of John Richard, who bought many wagon-loads of the Mexicans. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1858-’59.

Fig. 810.--They captured a train of wagons near Tongue river. The men who were with it got away. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1867-’68.

The blanket protruding from the front of the wagon represents the goods found in the wagons.

Fig. 811.--The Oglalas killed the Indian agent’s (Seville’s) clerk inside the stockade of the Red Cloud agency at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1873-’74.

Fig. 812.--The Oglalas at the Red Cloud agency, near Fort Robinson, Nebraska, cut to pieces the flagstaff which had been cut and hauled by order of their agent, but which they would not allow him to erect, as they did not wish to have a flag flying over their agency. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1874-’75.

This was in 1874. The flag which the agent intended to hoist was lately at the Pine ridge agency, Dakota.

Fig. 813.--Horses taken by United States government. The Flame’s Winter Count, 1876-’77.

This figure refers to the action of the military authorities of the United States toward the Indian tribes which had been connected with or suspected of favoring the outbreak which resulted in the defeat of the force under Gen. Custer. A body of troops swept the reservations on the Missouri river and took away all the ponies of the tribes, thereby depriving them of their means of transportation for hostile purposes. The hatted man with a star above his head is the brigadier-general in command of the United States forces. The hoof prints without marks of horseshoes indicate the Indian ponies as usual. The black blurs among them probably refer to the considerable number of the ponies that fell and died before they reached Bismark and other points of sale to which they were driven. It was promised that the amount realized from the sale of the drove should be returned to the owners, but the latter received little.