IX. MNEMONIC

This is the most obvious and probably was the earliest use to which picture-writing was applied. The contrivance of drawing the representations of objects, to fix in the memory either the objects themselves or the concepts, facts, or other matters connected with them, is practiced early by human individuals and is found among peoples the most ancient historically or in the horizons of culture. After the adoption of the characters for purely mnemonic purposes, those at first intended to be iconographic often became converted into ideographic, emblematic, or symbolic designs, and perhaps in time so greatly conventionalized that the images of the things designed could no longer be perceived by the imagination alone.

It is believed, however, that this form and use of picturing were preceded by the use of material objects which afterwards were reproduced graphically in paintings, cuttings, and carvings. In the present paper many examples appear of objects known to have been so used, the graphic representations of which, made with the same purpose, are explained by knowledge of the fact. Other instances are mentioned as connected with the evolution of pictographs, and they possibly may interpret some forms of the latter which are not yet understood.

This chapter is divided into (1) knotted cords and objects tied; (2) notched or marked sticks; (3) wampum; (4) order of songs; (5) traditions; (6) treaties; (7) appointment; (8) numeration; (9) accounting.

SECTION 1.

KNOTTED CORDS AND OBJECTS TIED.

Dr. Hoffman reports a device among the Indians formerly inhabiting the mountain valleys north of Los Angeles, California, who brought or sent to the settlements blankets, skins, and robes for sale. The man trusted to transport and sell those articles was provided with a number of strings made of some flexible vegetable fiber, one string for each class of goods, which were attached to his belt. Every one confiding an article to the agent fixed the price, and when he disposed of it a single knot was tied to the proper cord for each real received, or a double knot for each peso. Thus any particular string indicated the kind of goods sold, as well as the whole sum realized for them, which was distributed according to the account among the former owners of the goods.

Mr. George Turner (a) says that among the South Sea Islanders tying a number of knots in a piece of cord was a common way of noting and remembering things in the absence of a written language.

A peculiar and ingenious mode of expressing thoughts without pronouncing or writing them in language is still met with among the Indian shepherds in the Peruvian Cordilleras, though it is practiced merely in the accounts of the flocks. This system consists of a peculiar intertwining of various strings into a net-like braidwork, and the diverse modes of tying these strings form the record, the knots and loops signifying definite ideas and their combination the connection of these ideas. This system of mnemonic device, which was practiced by the ancient Peruvians, was called quipu, and, though a similar knot-writing is found in China, Tartary, eastern Asia, on many islands of the Pacific, and even in some parts of Africa, yet in Peru, at the time of the Incas, it was so elaborately developed as to permit its employment for official statistics of the government. Of course, as this writing gave no picture of a word and did not suggest sounds, but, like the notched stick, merely recalled ideas already existing, the writing could be understood by those only who possessed the key to it; but it is noteworthy that when the Jesuit missions began their work in Peru they were able to use the quipus for the purpose of making the Indians learn Latin prayers by heart.

A more detailed account of the ancient quipu is extracted from Dr. von Tschudi’s Travels in Peru (a) with condensation as follows:

This method consisted in the dexterous intertwining of knots on strings, so as to render them auxiliaries to the memory. The instrument was composed of one thick head or top string, to which, at certain distances, thinner ones were fastened. The top string was much thicker than these pendent strings and consisted of two doubly twisted threads, over which two single threads were wound. The branches, or pendent strings, were fastened to the top ones by a single loop; the knots were made in the pendent strings and were either single or manifold. The length of the strings was various. The transverse or top string often measures several yards, and sometimes only a foot; the branches are seldom more than 2 feet long, and in general they are much shorter.

The strings were often of different colors, each having its own particular signification. The color for soldiers was red; for gold, yellow; for silver, white; for corn, green, etc. The quipu was especially employed for numerical and statistical tables; each single knot representing ten; each double knot stood for one hundred; each triple knot for one thousand, etc.; two single knots standing together made twenty; and two double knots, two hundred.

In this manner the ancient Peruvians kept the accounts of their army. On one string were numbered the soldiers armed with slings; on another the spearmen; on a third, those who carried clubs, etc. In the same manner the military reports were prepared. In every town some expert men were appointed to tie the knots of the quipu and to explain them. These men were called quipucamayocuna (literally, officers of the knots.) The appointed officers required great dexterity in unriddling the meaning of the knots. It, however, seldom happened that they had to read a quipu without some verbal commentary. Something was always required to be added if the quipu came from a distant province, to explain whether it related to the numbering of the population, to tributes, or to war, etc. This method of calculation is still practiced by the shepherds of Puna. On the first branch or string they usually place the number of the bulls; on the second, that of the cows, the latter being classed into those which were milked and those which were not milked; on the next string were numbered the calves according to their ages and sizes. Then came the sheep, in several subdivisions. Next followed the number of foxes killed, the quantity of salt consumed, and, finally, the cattle that had been slaughtered. Other quipus showed the produce of the herds in milk, cheese, wool, etc. Each list was distinguished by a particular color or by some peculiarity in the twisting of the string.

Other accounts tell that the descendants of the Quiches still use the quipu, perhaps as modified by themselves, for numeration. They pierce beans and hang them by different colored strings, each of which represents one of the column places used in decimal arithmetic. A green string signifies 1,000; a red one, 100; a yellow, 10, and a white refers to the 9 smaller digits. Thus if 7 beans are on a green, 2 on a red, 8 on a yellow, and 6 on a white string, and the whole tied together, the bundle expresses the number 7,286.

Before the time of their acquaintance with the quipus, the Peruvians used in the same way pebbles or maize-beans of various colors. The same practice was known in Europe in the prehistoric period. The habit of many persons in civilized countries to tie a knot in the handkerchief to recall an idea or fact to mind is a familiar example to show how naturally the action would suggest itself for the purpose, and perhaps indicates the inheritance of the practice.

Dr. Andree (b) gives an illustration of a quipu (here reproduced as part of Pl. XVI), which he represents as taken from Perez, and states that the drawing was made soon after the exhuming of the object from an ancient Peruvian grave.

Capt. Bourke (a) gives descriptions and illustrations of varieties of the izze-kloth or medicine cord of the Apache. A condensed extract of his remarks is as follows:

These cords, in their perfection, are decorated with beads and shells strung along at intervals, with pieces of the sacred green chalchihuitl, which has had such a mysterious ascendancy over the minds of the American Indians--Aztec, Peruvian, Quiche, as well as the more savage tribes like the Apache and Navajo; with petrified wood, rock crystal, eagle down, claws of the hawk or eaglet, claws of the bear, rattle of the rattlesnake, buckskin bags of hoddentin, circles of buckskin in which are inclosed pieces of twigs and branches of trees which have been struck by lightning, small fragments of the abalone shell from the Pacific coast, and much other sacred paraphernalia of a similar kind.

That the use of these cords was reserved for the most sacred and important occasions I soon learned. They were not to be seen on occasions of no moment, but the dances for war, medicine, and summoning the spirits at once brought them out, and every medicine man of any consequence would appear with one hanging from his right shoulder over his left hip.

These cords will protect a man while on the warpath, and many of the Apache believe firmly that a bullet will have no effect upon the warrior wearing one of them. This is not their only virtue by any means; the wearer can tell who has stolen ponies or other property from him or from his friends, can help the crops, and cure the sick. If the circle attached to one of these cords is placed upon the head it will at once relieve any ache, while the cross attached to another prevents the wearer from going astray, no matter where he may be; in other words, it has some connection with cross-trails and the four cardinal points, to which the Apache pay the strictest attention.

I was at first inclined to associate these cords with the quipus of the Peruvians and also with the wampum of the aborigines of the Atlantic coast, and investigation only confirms this first suspicion.

The praying beads of the Buddhists and of many Oriental peoples, who have used them from high antiquity, are closely allied to the quipu. They are more familiar now in the shape of the rosaries of Roman Catholics. In the absence of manufactured articles, arranged on wires, the necessary materials were easily procured. Berries, nuts, pease, or beans strung in any manner answered the purpose. The abacus of the Chinese and Greeks was connected in origin with the same device.

E. F. im Thurn (d) says of the Nikari-Karu Indians of Guiana:

At last, after four days’ stay, we got off. The two or three people from Euwari-manakuroo who came with us gave their wives knotted strings of quippus, each knot representing one of the days they expected to be away, and the whole string thus forming a calendar to be used by the wives until the return of their husbands.

That the general idea or invention for mnemonic purposes appearing in the quipu was actually used pictorially is indicated in the illustrations of the sculptures of Santa Lucia Cosumalhuapa in Guatemala given by Dr. S. Habel (b). Upon these he remarks:

It has been frequently affirmed that the aborigines of America had nowhere arisen high enough in civilization to have characters for writing and numeral signs, but the sculptures of Santa Lucia exhibit signs which indicate a kind of cipher-writing higher in form than mere hieroglyphics. From the mouth of most of the human beings, living or dead, emanates a staff, variously bent, to the sides of which nodes are attached. These nodes are of different sizes and shapes, and variously distributed on the sides of the staff, either singly or in twos and threes, the last named either separated or in shape of a trefoil. This manner of writing not only indicates that the person is speaking or praying, but also indicates the very words, the contents of the speech or prayer. It is quite certain that each staff, as bent and ornamented, stood for a well-known petition, which the priest could read as easily as those acquainted with a cipher dispatch can know its purport. Further, one may be allowed to conjecture that the various curves of the staves served the purpose of strength and rhythm, just as the poet chooses his various meters for the same purpose.

The following notices of the ancient mnemonic use of knotted cords and of its survival in various parts of the world are extracted from the essay of Prof. Terrien de Lacouperie (d):

The Yang tung, south of Khoten, and consequently north of Tibet, who first communicated with China in A. D. 641, had no written characters. They only cut notches in sticks and tied knots in strings for records.

The Bratyki and Buriats of Siberia are credited with the use of knotted cords.

The Japanese are also reputed to have employed knots on strings or bind-weeds for records.

The Li of Hainan, being unacquainted with writing, use knotted cords or notched sticks in place of bonds or agreements.

In the first half of the present century cord records were still generally used in the Indian archipelago and Polynesia proper. The tax-gatherers in the island of Hawaii by this means kept accounts of all the articles collected by them from the inhabitants. A rope 400 fathoms long was used as a revenue book. It was divided into numerous portions corresponding to the various districts of the island; the portions were under the care of the tax-gatherers, who, with the aid of loops, knots, and tufts of different shapes, colors, and sizes, were enabled to keep an accurate account of the hogs, pigs, and pieces of sandal wood, etc., at which each person was taxed.

In Timor island, according to the Chinese records in 1618, the people had no writing. When they wanted to record something they did it with flat stones, and a thousand stones were represented by a string.

Knotted cords were originally used in Tibet, but we have no information about their system of using them. The bare statement comes from the Chinese annals.

The following statement regarding the same use by the Chinese is made by Ernest Faber (a). He says: “In the highest antiquity, government was carried on successfully by the use of knotted cords to preserve the memory of things. In subsequent ages, the sages substituted for these written characters. By means of these the doings of all the officers could be regulated and the affairs of all the people accurately examined.”

SECTION 2.

NOTCHED OR MARKED STICKS.

The use of notches for mere numeration was frequent, but there are also instances of their special significance.

The Dakotas, Hidatsa, and Shoshoni have been observed to note the number of days during which they journeyed from one place to another by cutting lines or notches upon a stick.

The coup sticks carried by Dakota warriors often bear a number of small notches, which refer to the number of the victims hit with the stick after they had been wounded or killed.

The young men and boys of the several tribes at Fort Berthold, Dakota, frequently carry a stick, upon which they cut a notch for every bird killed during a single expedition.

In Seaver’s (a) life of Mary Jemison it is set forth that the war chief in each tribe of Iroquois keeps a war-post, in order to commemorate great events and preserve the chronology of them. This post is a peeled stick of timber 10 or 12 feet high, and is erected in the village. For a campaign they make, or rather the chief makes, a perpendicular red mark about 3 inches long and half an inch wide. On the opposite side from this, for a scalp taken, they make a red cross, thus [Illustration] On another side, for a prisoner taken alive, they make a red cross in this manner [Illustration] with a head or dot, and by placing these significant signs in so conspicuous a situation they are enabled to ascertain with great certainty the time and circumstances of past events.

It is suggested that the device first mentioned represents the scalp severed and lifted from the head, and that the second refers to the manner in which the prisoners were secured at night, pegged and tied in the style called spread-eagle.

Rev. Richard Taylor (a) notes that the Maori had neither the quipus nor wampum, but only a board shaped like a saw, which was called “he rakau wakapa-paranga,” or genealogical board. It was, in fact, a tally, having a notch for each name, and a blank space to denote where the male line failed and was succeeded by that of the female; youths were taught their genealogies by repeating the names of each ancestor to whom the notches referred.

It is supposed that the use by bakers of notched sticks or tallies, as they are called, still exists in some civilized regions, and there is an interesting history connected with the same wooden tallies, which until lately were used in the accounts of the exchequer of Great Britain. They also appear more recently and in a different use as the Khe-mou circulated by Tartar chiefs to designate the number of men and horses required to be furnished by each camp.

SECTION 3.

WAMPUM.

Prof. Robert E. C. Stearns (a) says that wampum consisted of beads of two principal colors having a cylindrical form, a quarter of an inch, more or less, in length, the diameter or thickness being usually about half the length. The color of the wampum determined its value. The term wampum, wampon, or wampom, and wampum-peege was apparently applied to these beads when strung or otherwise connected, fastened, or woven together. The illustration given by him is now reproduced as Fig. 163.

In the Jesuit Relations, 1656, p. 3, the first present of an Iroquois chief to Jesuit missionaries at a council is described. This was a great figure of the sun, made of 6,000 beads of wampum, which explained to them that the darkness shall not influence them in the councils and the sun shall enlighten them even in the depth of night.

Among the Iroquoian and Algonquian tribes wampum belts were generally used to record treaties. Mr. John Long (a) describes one of them:

The wampum belts given to Sir William Johnson, of immortal Indian memory, were in several rows, black on each side and white in the middle; the white being placed in the center was to express peace and that the path between them was fair and open. In the center of the belt was a figure of a diamond made of white wampum, which the Indians call the council fire.

In the Jesuit Relations, 1642, p. 53, it is said that among the northern Algonquins a present to deliver a prisoner consisted of three strings of wampum to break the three bonds by which he was supposed to be tied, one around the legs, one around the arms, and the third around the middle.

In the same Relations, 1653, p. 19, is a good example of messages attached to separate presents of wampum, etc. This was at a council in 1653 at the Huron town, 2 leagues from Quebec:

The first was given to dry the tears which are usually shed at the news of brave warriors massacred in combat.

The second served as an agreeable drink, as an antidote to whatever bitterness might remain in the heart of the French on account of the death of their people.

The third was to furnish a piece of bark or a covering for the dead, lest the sight of them should renew the old strife.

The fourth was to inter them and to tread well the earth upon their graves, in order that nothing should ever come forth from their tombs which could grieve their friends and cause the spirit of revenge to arise in their minds.

The fifth was to serve as a wrapping to pack up the arms which were henceforth not to be touched.

The sixth was to cleanse the river, soiled with so much blood.

The last, to exhort the Hurons to agree to what Onontio, the great captain of the French, should decide upon touching the peace.

As a rule there was no intrinsic significance in a wampum belt, or collar, as the French sometimes called it. It was not understood except by the memory of those to whom and by whom it was delivered. This is well expressed in a dialogue reported by Capt. de Lamothe Cadillac (a) in 1703:

[Council of Hurons at Fort Ponchartrain, June 3, 1703.]

QUARANTE-SOLS. I come on my way to tell you what I propose to do at Montreal. Here is a collar which has been sent to us by the Iroquois, and which the Ottawas have brought to us; we do not know what it signifies.

M. de LAMOTHE. How have you received this collar without knowing the purpose for which it was sent you?

QUARANTE-SOLS. It has already been long since we received it. I was not there, and our old men have forgotten what it said.

M. de LAMOTHE. Your old men are not regarded as children to have such a short memory.

QUARANTE-SOLS. We do not accept this collar; but we are going to take it to Sonnontouan [the Seneca town] to find out what it means; because it is a serious matter not to respond to a collar; it is the custom among us. The Ottawas can tell you what it is, because our people have forgotten it.

M. de LAMOTHE. The Ottawas will reply that having received it you should remember it, but since this collar is dumb and has lost its speech I am obliged to be silent myself.

In the Diary of the Siege of Detroit (a) it is narrated that after receiving a belt of wampum from the commanding officer the Pottawatomi chief called it the officer’s “mouth,” and said that those to whom it was sent would believe it when “they saw his mouth.”

But wampum designs, besides being mere credentials, and thus like the Australian message sticks, and also mnemonic, became, to some extent, conventional. The predominance of white beads indicated peace, and purple or violet meant war.

On the authority of Sir Daniel Wilson (a) a string of black wampum sent round the settlement is still among the Indians of the Six Nations the notice of the death of a chief.

The Iroquois belts had an arrangement of wampum to signify the lakes, rivers, mountains, valleys, portages, and falls along the path of trail between them and the Algonkins, who were parties to their treaty in 1653.

On the authority of a manuscript letter from St. Ange to D’Abbadie, September 9, 1764, quoted by Parkman (a), Pontiac’s great wampum belt was 6 feet long, 4 inches wide, and was wrought from end to end with the symbols of tribes and villages, 47 in number, which were leagued with him.

In addition to becoming conventional the designs in wampum, perhaps from expertness in their workmanship, exhibited ideographs in their later development, of which the following description, taken from Rev. Peter Jones’s (a), “History of the Ojebway Indians” is an instance:

Johnson then explained the emblems contained in the wampum belt brought by Yellowhead, which, he said, they acknowledged to be the acts of their fathers. Firstly, the council fire at the Sault Ste. Marie has no emblem, because then the council was held. Secondly, the council fire at Mamtoulni has the emblem of a beautiful white fish; this signifies purity, or a clean white heart--that all our hearts ought to be white toward each other. Thirdly, the emblem of a beaver, placed at an island on Penetanguishew bay, denotes wisdom--that all the acts of our fathers were done in wisdom. Fourthly, the emblem of a white deer, placed at Lake Simcoe, signified superiority; the dish and ladles at the same place indicated abundance of game and food. Fifthly, the eagle perched on a tall pine tree at the Credit denotes watching, and swiftness in conveying messages. The eagle was to watch all the council fires between the Six Nations and the Ojebways, and being far-sighted, he might, in the event of anything happening, communicate the tidings to the distant tribes. Sixthly, the sun was hung up in the center of the belt to show that their acts were done in the face of the sun, by whom they swore that they would forever after observe the treaties made between the two parties.

In the same work, p. 119, is a description of a wampum belt that recorded the first treaty between the Ojibwa and the Six Nations of the Iroquois confederacy. It has the figure of a dish or bowl at its middle to represent that the Ojibwa and the Six Nations were all to eat out of the same dish, meaning, ideographically, that all the game in the region should be for their common use.

Mr. W. H. Holmes (c) gives an illustration of the well-known Penn wampum belt, reproduced here as Fig. 164, with remarks condensed as follows:

It is believed to be the original belt delivered by the Leni-Lenape sachems to William Penn at the celebrated treaty under the elm tree at Schackamaxon in 1682. Up to the year 1857 this belt remained in the keeping of the Penn family. In March, 1857, it was presented to the Pennsylvania Historical Society by Granville John Penn, a great-grandson of William Penn. Mr. Penn, in his speech on this occasion, states that there can be no doubt that this is the identical belt used at the treaty, and presents his views in the following language:

“In the first place, its dimensions are greater than of those used on more ordinary occasions, of which we have one still in our possession--this belt being composed of 18 strings of wampum, which is a proof that it was the record of some very important negotiation. In the next place, in the center of the belt, which is of white wampum, are delineated in dark-colored beads, in a rude, but graphic style, two figures--that of an Indian grasping with the hand of friendship the hand of a man evidently intended to be represented in the European costume wearing a hat, which can only be interpreted as having reference to the treaty of peace and friendship which was then concluded between William Penn and the Indians, and recorded by them in their own simple but descriptive mode of expressing their meaning by the employment of hieroglyphics.”

SECTION 4.

ORDER OF SONGS.

The Indian songs or, more accurately, chants, with which pictography is connected, have been preserved in their integrity by the use of pictured characters. They are in general connected with religious ceremonies, and are chiefly used in the initiation of neophytes to secret religious orders. Some of them, however, are used in social meetings or ceremonies of cult societies, though the distinction between social or any other general associations and those to be classified as religious is not easily defined. Religion was the real life of the tribes, permeating all their activities and institutions.

The words of these songs are invariable, even to the extent that by their use for generations many of them have become archaic and form no part of the colloquial language. Indeed, they are not always understood by the best of the shaman songsters, which fact recalls the oriental memorization of the Veda ritual through generations by the priests, who thus, without intent, preserved a language. The sounds were memorized, although the characters designating or, more correctly, recalling them, were not representations of sound, but of idea.

Practically, the words--or sounds, understood or not, which passed for words--as well as the notes, were memorized by the singers, and their memory, or that of the shaman, who acted as leader or conductor or precentor, was assisted by the charts. Exoteric interpretation of any ideographic and not merely conventional or purely arbitrary characters in the chart, which may be compared for indistinctness with the translated libretto of operas, may suggest the general subject-matter, perhaps the general course, of the chant, but can not indicate the exact words, or, indeed, any words, of the language chanted.

A simple mode of explaining the amount of symbolism necessarily contained in the charts of the order of songs is by likening them to the illustrated songs and ballads lately published in popular magazines, where every stanza has at least one appropriate illustration. Let it be supposed that the text was obliterated forever, indeed, the art of reading lost, the illustrations remaining, as also the memory to some persons of the words of the ballad. The illustrations, kept in their original order, would always supply the order of the stanzas and also the particular subject-matter of each particular stanza, and that subject-matter would be a reminder of the words. This is what the rolls of birchbark supply to the initiated Ojibwa. Schoolcraft pretended that there is intrinsic symbolism in the characters employed, which might imply that the words of the chants were rather interpretations of those characters than that the latter were reminders of the words. But only after the vocables of the actual songs and chants have been learned can the mnemonic characters be clearly understood. Doubtless the more ideographic and the less arbitrary the characters the more readily can they be learned and retained in the memory, and during the long period of the practical use of the mnemonic devices many exhibiting ideography and symbolism have been invented or selected.

The ceremonial songs represented pictorially in Pl. XVII, A, B, C, and D, were obtained from Ojibwa shamans at White Earth, Minnesota, by Dr. Hoffman, and pertain to the ceremony of initiating new members into the Midē' wiwin or Grand Medicine Society. The language, now omitted, differs to some extent from that now spoken. The songs and ritual are transmitted from generation to generation, and although an Indian who now receives admission into the society may compose his own songs for use in connection with his profession, he will not adopt the modern Ojibwa words, but employs the archaic whenever practicable. To change the ancient forms would cause loss of power in the charms which such songs are alleged to possess.

The translation of the songs was given by the Ojibwa singers, while the remarks in smaller type further elucidate the meaning of the phrases, as afterwards explained by the shaman.

The characters were all drawn upon birch bark, as is usual with the “medicine songs” of the Ojibwa, and the words suggested by the incisions were chanted. The incompleteness of some of the phrases was accounted for by the shaman by the fact that they are gradually being forgotten. The ceremonies are now of infrequent occurrence, which tends to substantiate this assertion.

One song, as presented on a single piece of birch bark, really consists of as many songs as there are mnemonic characters. Each phrase, corresponding to a character, is repeated a number of times; the greater the number of repetitions the greater will be the power of inspiration in the singer. One song or phrase may, therefore, extend over a period of from two to ten or more minutes.

The song covers much more time when dancing accompanies it, as is the case with the first one presented below. The dancing generally commences after a pause, designated by a single vertical bar.

The following characters are taken from A, Pl. XVII, and are here reproduced separately to facilitate explanation:

The earth, spirit that I am, I take medicine out of the earth.

The upper figure represents the arm reaching down toward the earth, searching for hidden remedies.

(Because of) a spirit that I am, my son.

The headless human figure emerging from the circle is a mysterious being, representing the power possessed by the speaker. He addresses a younger and less experienced Midē' or shaman.

Bar or rest.

The vertical line denotes a slight pause in the song, after which the chant is renewed, accompanied by dancing.

They have pity on me, that is why they call us to the Grand Medicine.

The inner circle represents the speaker’s heart; the outer circle, the gathering place for shamans, while the short lines indicate the directions from which the shamans come together.

I want to see you, medicine man.

The figure of a head is represented with lines running downward (and forward) from the eyes, donating sight. The speaker is looking for the shaman, spoken to, to make his appearance within the sacred structure where the Midē' ceremonies are to take place.

My body is a spirit.

The character is intended to represent the body of a bear, with a line across the body, signifying one of the most powerful of the sacred Man'idōs or spirits, of the Midē' wiwin or “Grand Medicine Society.”

You would [know] it, it being a spirit.

The figure of a head is shown with lines extending both upward and downward from the ears, denoting a knowledge of things in realm of the Man'idōs above, and of the secrets of the earth beneath.

As I am dressed, I am.

The otter is emerging from the sacred Midē' inclosure; the otter typifies the sacred Man'idō who received instruction for the people from Mi'nabō'zho, the intermediary between the “Great Spirit” and the Ânîshinâbeg.

That is what ails me, I fear my Midē' brothers.

The arm reaching into a circle denotes the power of obtaining mysterious influence from Kítschi Man'idō, but the relation between the pictograph and the phrase is obscure; unless the speaker fears such power as possessed by others.

The following is the order of another Midē' song. The general style of the original resembles the specific class of songs which are used when digging medicines, i. e., plants or roots. The song is shown in Pl. XVII, B as the character appears on the bark.

As I arise from [slumber].

The speaker is shown as emerging from a double circle, his sleeping place.

What have I unearthed?

The speaker has discovered a bear Man'idō, as shown by the two hands grasping that animal by the back.

Down is the bear.

The bear is said to have his legs cut off, by the outline of the Midē' structure, signifying he has become helpless because he is under the influence of the shamans.

Big, I am big.

The speaker is great in his own estimation; his power of obtaining gifts from superior beings is shown by the arm reaching for an object received from above; he has furthermore overcome the bear Man'idō and can employ it to advantage.

You encourage me.

Two arms are shown extended toward a circle containing spots of mī'gis, or sacred shells. The arms represent the assistance of friends of the speaker encouraging him with their assistance.

I can alight in the medicine pole.

The eagle or thunder-bird is perched upon the medicine pole erected near the shamans’ sacred structure. The speaker professes to have the power of flight equal to the thunder-bird, that he may transport himself to any desired locality.

The following is another example of a pictured Midē' song, and is represented in Pl. XVII, C.

I know you are a spirit.

The figure is represented as having waving lines extending from the eyes downward toward the earth, and indicating search for secrets hidden beneath the surface of the earth. The hands extending upward indicate the person claims supernatural powers by which he is recognized as “equal to a spirit.”

I lied to my son.

The signification of the phrase could not be explained by the informant, especially its relation to the character, which is an arm, reaching beyond the sky for power from Ki'tshi Man'idō. The waving line upon the arm denotes mysterious power.

Spirit I am, the wolf.

The speaker terms himself a wolf spirit, possessing peculiar power. The animal as drawn has a line across the body signifying its spirit character.

At last I become a spirit.

The circle denotes the spot occupied by the speaker; his hands extended are directed toward the source of his powers.

I give you the mī'gis.

The upper character represents the arm reaching down giving a sacred shell, the mī'gis, the sacred emblem of the “Grand Medicine Society.” The “giving of the mī'gis” signifies its “being shot” into the body of a new member of the society to give him life and the power of communing with spirits, or Man'idōs.

You are speaking to me.

An arm is extended toward a circle containing a smaller one, the latter representing the spot occupied by Midē' friends.

The characters next explained are taken from the last line, D, of the series given in Pl. XVII. The speaker appears to have great faith in his own powers as a Midē'.

Spirit I am, I enter.

The otter, which Man'idō, the speaker, professes to represent, is entering the sacred structure of Midē' lodge.

Midē' friends, do you hear me?

The circles denote the locality where the Midē' are supposed to be congregated. The waving lines signify hearing, when, as in this case, attached to the ears.

The first time I heard you.

The speaker asserts that he heard the voices of the Man'idōs when he went through his first initiation into the society. He is still represented as the otter.

The spirit, he does hear (?)

The interpretation is vague, but could not be otherwise explained. The lines from the ears denote hearing.

They, the Midē' friends, have paid enough.

The arm in the attitude of giving, to Ki'tshi Man'idō, signifies that the Midē' have made presents of sufficient value to be enabled to possess the secrets, which they received in return.

They have pity on me, the chief Midē'.

The arms of Ki'tshi Man'idō are extended to the Midē' lodge, giving assistance as besought.

The song mnemonically represented in Pl. XVIII A (reproduced from Pl. X A. of the Seventh Ann. Rep. Bur. of Ethn.) is sung by the Ojibwa preceptor who has been instructing the candidate for initiation. It praises the preceptor’s efforts and the character of the knowledge he has imparted. Its delivery is made to extend over as much time as possible.

The mnemonic characters were drawn by Sikas'sigĕ, and are a copy of an old birchbark scroll, which has for many years been in his possession, and which was a transcript of one in the possession of his father Baiédzĭk, one of the leading Midē' at Mille Lacs, Minnesota.

My arm is almost pulled out with digging medicine. It is full of medicine.

The short zigzag lines signifying magic influence, erroneously designated “medicine.”

Almost crying because the medicine is lost.

The lines extending downward from the eye signify weeping; the circle beneath the figure, the place where the “medicine” is supposed to exist. The idea of “lost” signifies that some information has been forgotten through death of those who possessed it.

Yes, there is much medicine you may cry for.

Refers to that which is yet to be taught.

Yes, I see there is plenty of it.

The Midē' has knowledge of more than he has imparted, but reserves that knowledge for a future time. The lines of “sight” run to various medicines which he perceives or knows of.

Rest.

When I come out the sky becomes clear.

When the otter-skin Midē' sack is produced the sky becomes clear, so that the ceremonies may proceed.

The spirit has given me power to see.

The Midē' sits on a mountain the better to commune with the good Man'idō.

I brought the medicine to bring life.

The Midē' Man'idō, the Thunderer, after bringing some of the plants--by causing the rains to fall--returns to the sky. The short line represents part of the circular line usually employed to designate the imaginary vault of the sky.

I too, see how much there is.

His power elevates the Midē' to the rank of a Man'idō, from whose position he perceives many secrets hidden in the earth.

I am going to the medicine lodge.

The vertical, left-hand figure denotes a leg going toward the Midē'wigân.

I take life from the sky.

The Midē' is enabled to reach into the sky and to obtain from Ki'tshi Man'idō' the means of prolonging life. The circle at the top denotes the sacred migis or shell.

Let us talk to one another.

The circles denote the places of the speaker (Midē') and the hearer (Ki'tshi Man'idō), the short lines signifying magic influences, the Midē' occupying the left hand and smaller seat.

The spirit is in my body, my friend.

The mī'gis, given by Ki'tshi Man'idō, is in contact with the Midē'’s body, and he is possessed of life and power.

In the order of song, Pl. XVIII, B, reproduced from Pl. IX, C, of the Seventh Ann. Rep. of the Bureau of Ethnology, the preceptor appears to feel satisfied that the candidate is prepared to receive the initiation, and therefore tells him that the Midē' Man'idō announces to him the assurance. The preceptor therefore encourages his pupil with promises of the fulfillment of his highest desires:

I hear the spirit speaking to us.

The Midē'-singer is of superior power, as designated by the horns and pointer upon his head. The lines from the ears indicate hearing.

I am going into the medicine lodge.

The Midē'wigân is shown with a line through it, to signify that the preceptor is going through it in imagination, as in the initiation.

I am taking (gathering) medicine to make me live.

The disks indicate the sacred objects sought for, which are successively obtained by the speaker, who represents the officiating shaman.

I give you medicine, and a lodge, also.

The Midē', as the personator of Makwá Man'idō, is empowered to offer this privilege to the candidate.

I am flying into my lodge.

Represents the thunder-bird, a deity flying into the arch of the sky, the abode of spirits or Man'idōs. The short lines cutting the curve are spirit lines.

The spirit has dropped medicine from the sky where we can get it.

The line from the sky, diverging to various points, indicates that the sacred objects fall in scattered places.

I have the medicine in my heart.

The singer’s heart is filled with knowledge relating to sacred objects from the earth.

The song depicted in Pl. XVIII C, was drawn by “Little Frenchman,” an Ojibwa Midē' of the first degree, who reproduced it from a bark record belonging to his preceptor. “Little Frenchman” had not yet received instruction in these characters, and consequently could not sing the songs, but from his familiarity with mnemonic delineations of the order of the Grand Medicine of ideas he was able to give an outline of the signification of the figures and the phraseology which they suggested to his mind. In the following description the first line pertaining to a character is the objective description, the second being the explanation.

It is furthermore to be remarked that in this chart and the one following the interpretation of characters begins at the right hand instead of the left, contrary to rule. The song is reproduced from. Pl. XXII, A, of the Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology:

From the place where I sit.

A man, seated and talking or singing.

The big tree in the middle of the earth.

Tree; inclosure represents the world as visible from a given spot of observation--horizon.

I will float down the fast running stream.

Stream of water; the spots indicate progress of traveler, and may be rude indications of canoes or equally rude foot tracks, the usual pictograph for traveling.

The place that is feared I inhabit; the swift running stream.

A spirit surrounded by a line indicating the shore.

You who speak to me.

Two spirits communing.

I have long horns.

Horned water monster.

Rest; dancing begins with next character.

I, observing, follow your example.

Man listening to water monster (spirit).

You are my body; you see anybody; you see my nails are worn off in grasping the stone (from which medicine is taken).

Bear, with claws, scratching; depression shown by line under claws, where scratching has been done.

You (i. e., the spirits who are there), to whom I am speaking.

Spirit panther.

I am floating down smoothly.

Spirit otter, swimming; outer lines are river banks.

Rest.

I have finished my drum.

Spirit holding drum; sound ascending.

My body is like unto you.

This is the mī'gis shell--the special symbol of the Midē' wiwin.

Hear me, thou, who art talking to me.

Listening, and wanting others (spirits) to hear.

See what I am taking.

Spirit (Midē') taking “medicine root.”

See me whose head is out of the water.

Otters, two spirits, the left-hand one being the “speaker.”

The Midē' song, Pl. XVIII, D, was also copied by “Little Frenchman” upon birchbark, from one in the possession of his preceptor, but upon which he had not yet received careful instruction; hence the incompleteness of some of his interpretations. It is reproduced from Pl. XXII, B, of the Seventh Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology.

I am sitting down with my pipe.

Man sitting, holding a pipe. He has been called upon to “make medicine.” The short lines beneath the body represent that he is seated. He holds a filled pipe which he is not yet smoking.

I, me the spirit, the spirit of the owl.

Owl, held by Midē'; arm above bird. This character appears upon the Grand Medicine chart from Red Lake, as passing from the midē' lodge to the ghost lodge.

It stands, that which I am going after.

Tree; showing tracks made by bear spirit. The speaker terms himself equal with this spirit and represents himself seeking remedies.

I, who fly.

Medicine bag, flying. The figure is that of the thunder bird (eagle) whose skin was used for a bag. The trees beneath show the bird to have ascended beyond their tops.

Kibinan is what I use--the magic arrow.

An arrow, held by hand.

I am coming to the earth.

Otter spirit. Circle denotes the surrounding sky in which is the spirit. The earth is shown by the horizontal line above which is the Indian hut. The speaker likens himself to the otter spirit who first received the rites of the Midē' initiation.

I am feeling for it.

Man (spirit) seeking for hidden medicine. The circle represents a hole in the earth.

I am talking to it.

Medicine bag made of an owl skin is held by shaman; latter is talking to the magic elements contained therein.

They are sitting in a circle (“around in a row”).

Midē' lodge; Midē' sitting around. The crosses represent the persons present.

You who are newly hung, and you who have reached half, and you who are now full.

Full moon, one half, and quarter moon.

I am going for my dish.

Footprints leading to dish (ghost society dish). The circular objects here each denotes a “feast,” usually represented by a “dish.”

I go through the medicine lodge.

Grand medicine lodge; tracks leading through it. The speaker, after having prepared a feast, is entitled to enter for initiation.

Let us commune with one another.

Two men conversing; two Midē'.

The mnemonic order of song, Pl. XIX a, is another example from Red Lake, prepared by the Ojibwa last mentioned:

“Carved images.”

Carved images. These represent the speaker to say that he prepares fetishes for hunting, love, etc.

I am holding my grand medicine sack.

Man holding “medicine bag.”

“Wants a woman.” [No interpretation was ventured by “Little Frenchman.”]

Hear me, great spirit.

Lines from the ears, to denote hearing.

I am about to climb.

Medicine tree at grand lodge. The marks on either side are bear tracks, the footprints of the bear spirit--the speaker representing him.

I am entering the grand medicine lodge.

The Midē'wigân, showing footprints of the bear Man'idō which are simulated by the boastful shaman.

I am making my tracks on the road.

Footprints on the path.

I am resting at my home.

Human figure, with “voice” issuing--singing.

Pl. XIX b is a similar song, also made by “Little Frenchman,” and relates to magic remedies and his powers of incantation:

The stars.

Stars, preceded by a mark of rest or beginning. It may be noticed that one star has eight and the other six rays, showing that their number is not significant.

The wolf that runs.

Wolf; the banded tail distinguishes it from the otter.

See me what I have; what I have (goods given in the midē' wigwân).

Man holding bow.

See what I am about to do.

Arm, holding a gun.

The house of the beaver.

Beaver, in his house.

I, who make a noise.

A frog, croaking, shown by “voice” lines.

My white hair.

Head with hair. The signification of white hair is great age, though there is no way to ascertain this without oral statement by the singer.

The house of the otter.

Otter in his burrow.

Hear me, you, to whom I am talking.

Mī'gis, spoken to by man, lines showing hearing. The sacred emblem of the Midē'wiwin is implored for aid in carrying out a desired scheme.

I stoop as I walk.

An old man. Age is denoted by the act of walking with a staff.

I stand by the tree.

Standing near medicine tree. The speaker knows of valued remedies which he desires to dispose of for payment.

I am raising a rock.

Man with stone for Midē' lodge. Carrying stone to Midē' lodge, against which to place a patient.

I am holding my pail.

Vessel of medicine; arm reaching down to it.

My arrow point is of iron, and about to kill a male bear.

Bear, above arrow. Bow--lower character.

I am about to speak to the sky.

Speaking to the “sky.” Power of communing with the Great Spirit, Ki'tshi Man'idō'.

I am about to depart; I will liken myself to a bear.

Bear, tracks and path.

I am walking on the hard sand beach.

Body of water, and lynx. The ellipse denotes a lake.

Another song of a similar character, reproduced from birchbark on Pl. XIX c, is explained below. It was also made by “Little Frenchman,” and relates to the searching for and preparation of objects used in sorcery.

It is fiery, that which I give you.

Vessel, with flames on top. Contains strong water wi-bīn', a magical decoction.

It is growing, the tree.

Midē'wigân, with trees growing around it at four corners.

I cover the earth with my length.

Snakes; guardians of the first degree.

The bear is contained within me.

Bear spirit within the man--i. e., the speaker. This indicates that he possesses the power of the Bear Man'idō, one of the most powerful of the guardians of the Midē' society.

He has Man'idō (spirit) in his mouth.

Possessing the power of curing by “sucking” bad spirits from patient’s body. This is the practice of the lower shamans, known as Jēs'sakkīd'.

The hawk genus et sp.

Ki-ni-en', the hawk from which “medicine” is obtained.

I, who am about to talk.

Head of man; lines from mouth denote speech.

The interpretation now again proceeds from right to left.

I am about to walk.

Bear spirit, talking. The lines upon the back indicate his spirit character.

I am crawling away.

Mī'gis shell. The sacred emblem of the Midē' society.

Rest.

From this, I wish to be able to walk.

Taking “medicine” trail (behind man). The speaker is addressing a Man'idō which he holds.

I am being called to go there.

Sacred lodges, with spirits within.

I am going.

Footprints, leading toward a wigwam.

Rest.

The Ojibwa chart, used in the “Song for the Metai, or for Medicine Hunting,” is taken from Tanner’s (a) Narrative and reproduced in Fig. 165. It should be noted that the Metai of Tanner’s interpretation, which follows, is the same as the Midē' in the foregoing interpretations:

a. Now I hear it, my friends of the Metai, who are sitting about me.

This and the three following are sung by the principal chief of the Metai, to the beat of his bwoin ah-keek, or drum. The line from the sides of the head of the figure indicate hearing.

b. Who makes this river flow? The Spirit, he makes this river flow.

The second figure is intended to represent a river, and a beaver swimming down it.

c. Look at me well, my friends; examine me, and let us understand that we are all companions.

This translation is by no means literal. The words express the boastful claims of a man who sets himself up for the best and most skillful in the fraternity.

d. Who maketh to walk about, the social people? A bird maketh to walk about the social people.

By the bird the medicine man means himself; he says that his voice has called the people together. Weej-huh nish-a-nauba, or weeja-nish-a-nau-ba seems to have the first syllable from the verb which means to accompany. The two lines drawn across, between this figure and the next, indicate that here the dancing is to commence.

e. I fly about and if anywhere I see an animal, I can shoot him.

This figure of a bird (probably an eagle or hawk) seems intended to indicate the wakefulness of the senses and the activity required to insure success in hunting. The figure of the moose which immediately follows, reminding the singer of the cunning and extreme shyness of that animal, the most difficult of all to kill.

f. I shoot your heart; I hit your heart, oh, animal--your heart--I hit your heart.

This apostrophe is mere boasting and is sung with much gesticulation and grimace.

g. I make myself look like fire.

This is a medicine man disguised in the skin of a bear. The small parallelogram under the bear signifies fire, and the shamans, by some composition of gunpowder, or other means, contrive to give the appearance of fire to the mouth and eyes of the bear skin, in which they go about the village late at night, bent on deeds of mischief, oftentimes of blood. We learn how mischievous are these superstitions when we are informed that they are the principal men of the Metai, who thus wander about the villages in the disguise of a bear, to wreak their hatred on a sleeping rival or their malice on an unsuspecting adversary. But the customs of the Indians require of anyone who may see a medicine man on one of these excursions to take his life immediately, and whoever does so is accounted guiltless.

h. I am able to call water from above, from beneath, and from around.

Here the medicine man boasts of his power over the elements, and his ability to do injury or benefit. The segment of a circle with dots in it represents water and the two short lines touching the head of the figure indicate that he can draw it to him.

i. I cause to look like the dead, a man I did.

I cause to look like the dead, a woman I did.

I cause to look like the dead, a child I did.

The lines drawn across the face of this figure indicate poverty, distress, and sickness; the person is supposed to have suffered from the displeasure of the medicine man. Such is the religion of the Indians. Its boast is to put into the hands of the devout supernatural means by which he may wreak vengeance on his enemies whether weak or powerful, whether they be found among the foes of his tribe or the people of his own village. This Metai, so much valued and revered by them, seems to be only the instrument in the hands of the crafty for keeping in subjection the weak and the credulous, which may readily be supposed to be the greater part of the people.

k. I am such, I am such, my friends; any animal, any animal, my friends, I hit him right, my friends.

This boast of certain success in hunting is another method by which he hopes to elevate himself in the estimation of his hearers. Having told them he has the power to put them all to death, he goes on to speak of his infallible success in hunting, which will always enable him to be a valuable friend to such as are careful to secure his good will.

The following chart for the “Song for beaver hunting and the Metai,” is taken from the same author, loc. cit., and reproduced in Fig. 166, with interpretations as follows:

a. I sit down in the lodge of the Metai, the lodge of the Spirit.

This figure is intended to represent the area of the Metai-we-gaun, or medicine lodge, which is called also the lodge of the Man'idō, and two men have taken their seats in it. The matter of the song seems to be merely introductory.

b. Two days must you sit fast, my friend; four days must you sit fast, my friend.

The two perpendicular lines on the breast of this figure are read ne-o-gone (two days), but are understood to mean two years; so of the four lines drawn obliquely across the legs, these are four years. The heart must be given to this business for two years, and the constrained attitude of the legs indicates the rigid attention and serious consideration which the subject requires.

c. Throw off, woman, thy garments, throw off.

The power of their medicines and the incantations of the Metai are not confined in their effect to animals of the chase, to the lives and health of men; they control also the minds of all and overcome the modesty as well as the antipathies of women. The Indians firmly believe that many a woman who has been unsuccessfully solicited by a man is not only by the power of the Metai made to yield, but even in a state of madness to tear off her garments and pursue after the man she before despised. These charms have greater power than those in the times of superstition among the English, ascribed to the fairies, and they need not, like the plant used by Puck, be applied to the person of the unfortunate being who is to be transformed; they operate at a distance through the medium of the Miz-zin-ne-neens.

d. Who makes the people walk about? It is I that calls you.

This is in praise of the virtue of hospitality, that man being most esteemed among them who most frequently calls his neighbors to his feast.

e. Anything I can shoot with it (this medicine) even a dog, I can kill with it.

f. I shoot thy heart, man, thy heart.

He means, perhaps, a buck moose by the word e-nah-ne-wah, or man.

g. I can kill a white loon, I can kill.

The white loon (rara avis nigroque similimo cygno) is certainly a rare and most difficult bird to kill; so we may infer that this boaster can kill anything, which is the amount of the meaning intended in that part of his song recorded by the five last figures. Success in hunting they look upon as a virtue of a higher character, if we may judge from this song, than the patience under suffering or the rakishness among women, or even the hospitality recommended in the former part.

h. My friends——

There seems to be an attempt to delineate a man sitting with his hands raised to address his friends; but the remainder of his speech is not remembered. This is sufficient to show that the meaning of the characters in this kind of picture writing is not well settled and requires a traditional interpretation to render it intelligible.

i. I open my wolf skin and the death struggle must follow.

This is a wolf skin used as a medicine bag and he boasts that whenever he opens it something must die in consequence.

Tanner’s Narrative (b) says of musical notation drawn on bark by Ojibwas:

Many of these songs are noted down by a method probably peculiar to the Indians, on birch bark, or small flat pieces of wood: the ideas being conveyed by emblematic figures, somewhat like those * * * used in communicating ordinary information.

Rev. P. J. De Smet (a) gives an account of the mnemonic order of songs among the Kickapoo and Pottawatomi. He describes a stick 1-1/2 inches broad and 8 or 10 long, upon which are arbitrary characters which they follow with the finger in singing the prayers, etc. There are five classes of these characters. The first represents the heart, the second heart and flesh (chair), the third life, the fourth their names, and the fifth their families.

A. W. Howitt (b) says:

The makers of the Australian songs, or of the combined songs and dances are the poets or bards of the tribe and are held in great esteem. Their names are known to the neighboring peoples, and their songs are carried from tribe to tribe until the very meaning of the words is lost as well as the original source of the song.

Such an instance is a song which was accompanied by a carved stick painted red, which was held by the chief singer. This traveled down the Murray river from some unknown source. The same song, accompanied by such a stick, also came into Gippsland many years ago from Melbourne and may even have been the above mentioned one on its return.

SECTION 5.

TRADITIONS.

Even since the Columbian discovery some tribes have employed devices yet ruder than the rudest pictorial attempt as markers for the memory. An account of one of these is given in E. Winslow’s Relation (A. D. 1624), Col. Mass. Hist. Soc., 2d series, IX, 1822, p. 99, as follows:

Instead of records and chronicles they take this course: Where any remarkable act is done, in memory of it, either in the place or by some pathway near adjoining, they make a round hole in the ground about a foot deep and as much over, which, when others passing by behold, they inquire the cause and occasion of the same, which, being once known, they are careful to acquaint all men as occasion serveth therewith. And lest such holes should be filled or grown over by any accident, as men pass by they will often renew the same, by which means many things of great antiquity are fresh in memory. So that as a man traveleth, if he can understand his guide, his journey will be the less tedious by reason of the many historical discourses which will be related unto him.

In connection with this section students may usefully consult Dr. Brinton’s (f) Lenâpé and their Legends.

As an example of a chart used in the exact repetition of traditions, Fig. 167 is presented with the following explanation by Rev. J. Owen Dorsey:

The chart accompanies a tradition chanted by members of a secret society of the Osage tribe. It was drawn by an Osage, Red Corn.

The tree at the top represents the tree of life. By this flows a river. The tree and the river are described later in the degrees. When a woman is initiated she is required by the head of her gens to take four sips of water (symbolizing the river), then he rubs cedar on the palms of his hands, with which he rubs her from head to foot. If she belongs to a gens on the left side of a tribal circle, her chief begins on the left side of her head, making three passes, and pronouncing the sacred name three times. Then he repeats the process from her forehead down; then on the right side of her head; then at the back of her head; four times three times, or twelve passes in all.

Beneath the river are the following objects: The Watse ʇuʞa, male slaying animal (?), or morning star, which is a red star. 2. Six stars called the “Elm rod” by the white people in the Indian territory. 3. The evening star. 4. The little star. Beneath these are the moon, seven stars, and sun. Under the seven stars are the peace pipe and war hatchet; the latter is close to the sun, and the former and the moon are on the same side of the chart. Four parallel lines extending across the chart, represent four heavens or upper worlds through which the ancestors of the Tsiↄu people passed before they came to this earth. The lowest heaven rests on an oak tree; the ends of the others appear to be supported by pillars or ladders. The tradition begins below the lowest heaven, on the left side of the chart, under the peace pipe. Each space on the pillar corresponds with a line of the chant; and each stanza (at the opening of the tradition) contains four lines. The first stanza precedes the arrival of the first heaven, pointing to a time when the children of the “former end” of the race were without human bodies as well as human souls. The bird hovering over the arch denotes an advance in the condition of the people; then they had human souls in the bodies of birds. Then followed the progress from the fourth to the first heaven, followed by the descent to earth. The ascent to four heavens and the descent to three, makes up the number seven.

When they alighted, it was on a beautiful day when the earth was covered with luxuriant vegetation. From that time the paths of the Osages separated; some marched on the right, being the war gentes, while those on the left were peace gentes, including the Tsiↄu, whose chart this is.

Then the Tsiↄu met the black bear, called in the tradition Káxe-wáhü-sa^n' (Crow-bone-white), in the distance. He offered to become their messenger, so they sent him to the different stars for aid. According to the chart he went to them in the following order: Morning star, sun, moon, seven stars, evening star, little star.

Then the black bear went to the Waↄiñʞa-ↄüʇse, a female red bird sitting on her nest. This grandmother granted his request. She gave them human bodies, making them out of her own body.

The earth lodge at the end of the chart denotes the village of the Hañʞa uta¢a^nʇsi, who were a very warlike people. Buffalo skulls were on the tops of the lodges, and the bones of the animals on which they subsisted whitened on the ground. The very air was rendered offensive by the decaying bodies and offal.

The whole of the chart was used mnemonically. Parts of it, such as the four heavens and ladders, were tattooed on the throat and chest of the old men belonging to the order.

The tradition relating to Minabō'zho and the sacred objects received from Kítshi Man'idō is illustrated in Fig. 168, which, represents a copy (one-third original size) of the record preserved at White Earth. This record is read from left to right and is, briefly, as follows:

a represents Minabō'zho, who says of the adjoining characters representing the members of the Midéwin: “They are the ones, they are the ones who put into my heart the life.” Minabō'zho holds in his left hand the sacred medicine bag.

b and c represent the drummers; at the sound of the drum everybody rises and becomes inspired, because the Great Spirit is then present in the lodge.

d denotes that women also have the privilege of becoming members of the Midéwin. This figure holds a snake-skin “medicine bag” in her left hand.

e represents the tortoise, the good spirit, who was the giver of some of the sacred objects used in the rite.

f the bear, also a benevolent spirit, but not held in so great veneration as the tortoise. His tracks are visible in the lodge.

g the sacred medicine bag, Biń-ji-gú-sân, which contains life and can be used by the Midē' to prolong the life of a sick person.

h represents a dog given by the spirits to Minabō'zho as a companion.

Fig. 169 gives copies, one-third actual size, of two records in possession of different Midē' at Red lake. The characters are almost identical, and one record appears to have been copied from the other. The lower figure, however, contains an additional character. The following is an incomplete interpretation of the characters, the letters applying equally to both:

a, Esh'gibŏ'ga, the great uncle of the Unish'-in-ab'-aig, the receiver of the Midéwin.

b, the drum and drumsticks.

c, a bar or rest, observed while chanting the words pertaining to the records.

d, the bin'-ji-gu'-sân, or sacred medicine bag. It consists of an otter skin, and is the mī'gis, or sacred symbol of the midē'wigân' or grand medicine lodge.

e, a Midē' shaman, the one who holds the mī'gis while chanting the Midē' song in the grand medicine lodge, f. He is inspired, as indicated by the line extending from the heart to the mouth.

f, representation of the grand medicine lodge. This character, with slight addition, is usually employed by the southern division of the Ojibwa to denote the lodge of a jĕssakkī'd, and is ordinarily termed a “jugglery.”

g, a woman, and signifies that women may also be admitted to the midē'wigân', shown in the preceding character.

h, a pause or rest in the chant.

i, the sacred snake-skin bag, having the power of giving life through its skin. This power is indicated by the lines radiating from the head and the back of the snake.

j represents a woman.

k, another illustration of the mī'gis, represented by the sacred otter.

l denotes a woman who is inspired, as shown by the line extending from the heart to the mouth in the lower chart, and simply showing the heart in the upper. In the latter she is also empowered to cure with magic plants.

m represents a Midē' shaman, but no explanation was obtained of the special character delineated.

In Fig. 170 is presented a variant of the characters shown in a of Fig. 169. The fact that this denotes the power to cure by the use of plants would appear to indicate an older and more appropriate form than the delineation of the bow and arrow, as well as being more in keeping with the general rendering of the tradition.

Fig. 171, two-thirds real size, is a reproduction, introduced here for comparison and explanation, of a record illustrating the alleged power of a Midē'.

a, the author, is the Midē', who was called upon to take a man’s life at a distant camp. The line extending from the Midē' to i, explained below, signifies that his power extended to at least that distance.

b, an assistant Midē'.

c, d, e, and f represent the four degrees of the Midéwin, of which both shamans are members. The degrees are also indicated by the vertical lines above each lodge character.

g is the drum used in the ceremony.

h is an outline of the victim. A human figure is drawn upon a piece of birchbark, over which the incantations are made, and, to insure the death of the subject, a small spot of red paint is rubbed upon the breast and a sharp instrument thrust into it.

i, the outer line represents a lake, while the inner one is an island, upon which the victim resides.

The ceremony indicated in the above description actually occurred at White Earth during the autumn of 1884, and, by a coincidence, the Indian “conjured” died the following spring of pneumonia resulting from cold contracted during the winter. This was considered as the result of the Midē'’s power, and naturally secured for him many new adherents and believers.

Fig. 172 represents a jĕssakkī'd, named Ne-wik'-ki, curing a sick woman by sucking the demon through a bone tube. It is introduced here for comparison, though equally appropriate to Chap. XIV, sec. 3. The left-hand character represents the Midē' holding a rattle in his hand. Around his head is an additional circle, denoting quantity (literally, more than an ordinary amount of knowledge), the short line projecting to the right therefrom indicating the tube used. The right-hand character is the patient operated upon.

The juggling trick of removing disease by sucking it through tubes is performed by the Midē' after fasting and is accompanied with many ceremonies.

THE ORIGIN OF THE INDIANS.

Sikas'sigé, one of the officiating priests of the Midē' society of the Ojibwa at White Earth, Minnesota, gives the following explanation of Fig. 173, which is a reduced copy of a pictorial representation of a tradition explaining the origin of the Indians:

In the beginning, Ki'tshi Man'idō--Dzhe Man'idō, a--made the Midē' Man'idōs. He first created two men, b and c, and two women, d and e, but they had no power of thought or reason. Then Dzhe Man'idō made them reasoning beings. He then took them in his hands so that they should multiply; he paired them, and from this sprung the Indians. Then, when there were people, he placed them upon the earth; but he soon observed that they were subject to sickness, misery, and death, and that unless he provided them with the sacred medicine they would soon become extinct.

Between the position occupied by Dzhe Man'idō and the earth were four lesser spirits, f, g, h, and i, with whom Dzhe Man'idō decided to commune, and to impart the mysteries by which the Indians could be benefited; so he first spoke to a spirit at f, and told him all he had to say, who in turn communicated the same information to g, and he in turn to h, who also communed with i. Then they all met in council and determined to call in the four wind gods at j, k, l, and m. After consulting as to what would be best for the comfort and welfare of the Indians, these spirits agreed to ask Dzhe Man'idō to communicate the mystery of the sacred medicine to the people.

Dzhe Man'idō then went to the Sun Spirit (o) and asked him to go to the earth and instruct the people as had been decided upon by the council. The Sun Spirit, in the form of a little boy, went to the earth and lived with a woman (p) who had a little boy of her own.

This family went away in the autumn to hunt, and during the winter this woman’s son died. The parents were so much distressed that they decided to return to the village and bury the body there; so they made preparations to return, and as they traveled along they would each evening erect several poles upon which the body was placed to prevent the wild beasts from devouring it. When the dead boy was thus hanging upon the poles the adopted child--who was the Sun Spirit--would play about the camp and amuse himself, and finally told his adopted father he pitied him, and his mother, for their sorrow. The adopted son said he could bring his dead brother to life, whereupon the parents expressed great surprise and desired to know how that could be accomplished.

The adopted boy then had the party hasten to the village, when he said, “Get the women to make a wig'iwam of bark (q), put the dead boy in a covering of birch bark and place the body on the ground in the middle of the wig'iwam.” On the next morning, when this had been done, the family and friends went into this lodge and seated themselves around the corpse.

After they had all been sitting quietly for some time they saw, through the doorway, the approach of a bear (r), which gradually came toward the wig'iwam, entered it, and placed itself before the dead body, and said hŭ', hŭ', hŭ', hŭ', when he passed around it toward the left side, with a trembling motion, and as he did so the body began quivering, which increased as the bear continued, until he had passed around four times, when the body came to life and stood up. Then the bear called to the father, who was sitting in the distant right-hand corner of the wig'iwam, and addressed to him the following words:

The little bear boy (r) was the one who did this. He then remained among the Indians (s) and taught them the mysteries of the Grand Medicine (t), and after he had finished he told his adopted father that as his mission had been fulfilled, that he was to return to his kindred spirits, the Indians would have no need to fear sickness, as they now possessed the Grand Medicine which would assist them to live. He also said that his spirit could bring a body to life but once, and he would now return to the sun from which they would feel his influence.

This is called Kwi'-wi-sĕns' wed-di'-shi-tshi' ge'-wi-nĭp'--“Little boy, his work.”

From subsequent information it was learned that the line (w) denotes the earth, and that, being considered as one step in the course of initiation into the Midē'wiwin, three others must be taken before a candidate can be admitted. These steps, or rests, as they are denominated, are typified by four distinct gifts of goods, which must be remitted to the Midē' priests before the ceremony can take place.

The characters s and t are repetitions of the figures alluded to in the tradition (q and r) to signify that the candidate must personate the Makwa' Man'idō--bear spirit--when entering the Midē'wiwin (t); t is the Midē' Man'idō, as Ki'tshi Man'idō is termed by the Midē' priests. The device of horns, attached to the head, is a common symbol of superior power, found in connection with the figures of human and divine forms in many Midē' songs and other mnemonic records; v represents the earth’s surface, similar to that designated as w. w, x, y, and z represent the four degrees of the grand medicine.

SECTION 6.

TREATIES.

Fig. 174 is copy of a birchbark record which was made to commemorate a treaty of peace between the Ojibwa and Assinaboin Indians. The drawing on bark was made by an Ojibwa chief at White Earth, Minnesota.

The figure on the left, holding a flag, represents the Ojibwa chief, while that on the right denotes the chief acting on the part of the Assinaboins. The latter holds in his left hand the pipe which was used in the preliminaries, and smoke is seen issuing from the mouth of the Assinaboin. He also holds in his right hand the drum used as an accompaniment to the songs.

The Ojibwa holds a flag used as an emblem of peace.

A considerable number of pictographic records of treaties are presented in different parts of the present work (see under the headings of Wampum, Chap. ix, Sec. 3; Notices, Chap. xi; History, Chap. xvi; Winter Counts, Chap. x, Sec. 2).

SECTION 7.

APPOINTMENT.

Le Page Du Pratz (b) says in describing the council of conspiracy which resulted in the Natchez war of 1729:

An aged councillor advised that after all the nations had been informed of the necessity of taking this violent action, each one should receive a bundle of sticks, all containing an equal number, and which were to mark the number of days to pass before that on which they were all to strike at once; that in order to guard against any mistake it would be necessary to take care to extract one stick every day and to break it and throw it away; a man of wisdom should be charged with this duty. All the old men approved of his advice and it was adopted.

Père Nicholas Perrot (a) says:

Celui qui, chez les Hurons, prenait la parole en cette circonstance, recevait un petit faisceau de pailles d’pied de long qui luy servoient comme de jetons, pour supputer les nombres et pour ayder la mémoire des assistans, les distribuant en divers lots, suyvant la diversité des choses. Dans l’Amérique du Sud, les Galibis de la rivière d’Amacourou et de l’Orénoque usaient du même procédé mnémotechnique, mais perfectionné. Le capitaine [Galibis] et moy, écrit le P. la Pierre (Voyage en terre-ferme et à la coste de Paria, p. 15 du Ms. orig.), eusmes un grand discours ... luy ayant demandé ce qu’il alloit faire à Barime, il me respondit qu’il alloit avertir tous les capitaines des aultres rivières, du jour qu’il en faudroit sortir pour aller donner l’attaque à leurs ennemis. Et, pour me faire comprendre la façon dont il s’y prenoit il me montra vingt petites buches liées ensemble qui se plient à la façon d’un rouleau. Les six premières estoient d’une couleur particulière; elles signifioent que, les six premiers jours, il falloit préparer du magnot [manioc] pour faire vivres. Les quatre suivantes estoient d’une aultre couleur pour marque qu’il falloit avertir les hommes. Les six d’aultre couleur et ainsi du reste, marquant par leur petites buches, faites en façon de paille, l’ordre que chaque capitaine doit faire observer à ses gens pour estre prest tous en mesme temps. La sortie devroit se faire dans vingt jours; car il n’y avoit que cest [vingt] petites buches.

Im Thurn (e) tells of the Indians of Guiana as follows:

When a paiwari feast is to be held, invitations are sent to the people of all neighboring settlements inhabited by Indians of the same tribe as the givers of the feast. The latter prepare a number of strings, each of which is knotted as many times as there are days before the feast day. One of these strings is kept by the headman of the settlement where the feast is to be held; the others are distributed, one to the headman of each of the settlements from which guests are expected. Every day one of the knots, on each of the strings, is untied, and when the last has been untied guests and hosts know that the feast day has come.

Sometimes, instead of knots on a string, notches on a piece of wood are used. This system of knot-tying, the quippoo system of the Peruvians, which occurs in nearly identical form in all parts of the world, is not only used as in the above instance for calendar-keeping, but also to record items of any sort; for instance, if one Indian owes another a certain number of balls of cotton or other articles, debtor and creditor each has a corresponding string or stick, with knots or notches to the number of the owed article, and one or more of these is oblitered each time a payment is made until the debt is wiped out.

Darius (Herodot. IV, 98) did something of the kind when he took a thong and, tying sixty knots in it, gave it to the Ionian chiefs, that they might untie a knot every day and go back to their own land if he had not returned when all the knots were undone.

Champlain (a) describes a mode of preparation for battle among the Canadian Algonquins which partook of the nature of a military drill as well as of an appointment of rank and order. It is in its essentials mnemonic. He describes it as follows:

Les chefs prennent des bâtons de la longueur d’un pied autant en nombre qu’ils sont et signalent par d’autres un peu plus grands, leurs chefs; puis vont dans le bois et esplanadent une place de cinq ou six pieds en quarré où le chef comme Sergent Major, met par ordre tous ces bâtons comme bon luy semble; puis appelle tous ses compagnons, qui viennent tous armez, et leur monstre le rang et ordre qu’ils deuvont tenir lors qu’ils se battront avec leurs ennemis.

The author adds detail with regard to alignment, breaking ranks, and resumption of array.

SECTION 8.

NUMERATION.

D. W. Eakins, in Schoolcraft I, p. 273, describes the mnemonic numeration marks of the Muskoki thus:

Each perpendicular stroke stood for one, and each additional stroke marked an additional number. The ages of deceased persons or number of scalps taken by them, or war-parties which they have headed, are recorded on their grave-posts by this system of strokes. The sign of the cross represents ten. The dot and comma never stood as a sign for a day, or a moon, or a month, or a year. The chronological marks that were and are in present use are a small number of sticks made generally of cane. Another plan sometimes in use was to make small holes in a board, in which a peg was inserted to keep the days of the week.

Capt. Bourke (b) gives the following account of an attempt at compromise between the aboriginal method of numbering days, weeks, and months, and that of the civilized intruders to whose system the Indians found it necessary to conform.

The Apache scouts kept records of the time of their absence on campaign. There were several methods in vogue, the best being that of colored beads which were strung on a string, six white ones to represent the days of the week, and one black, or other color, to stand for Sundays. This method gave rise to some confusion, because the Indians had been told that there were four weeks, or Sundays (“Domingos”), in each “Luna,” or moon, and yet they soon found that their own method of determining time by the appearance of the crescent moon was much the more satisfactory. Among the Zuñi I have seen little tally sticks with the marks for the days and months incised on the narrow edges, and among the Apache another method of indicating the flight of time by marking on a piece of paper along a horizontal line a number of circles or of straight lines across the horizontal datum line to represent the full days which had passed, a heavy straight line for each Sunday, and a small crescent for the beginning of each month.

It is not necessary to discuss the obvious method of repeating strokes, dots, knots, human heads or forms, weapons, and totemic designs, to designate the number of persons or articles referred to in the pictographs where they appear.

SECTION 9.

ACCOUNTING.

The Abnaki, in especial the Passamaquoddy division of the tribe in Maine, during late years have been engaged in civilized industries in which they have found it necessary to keep accounts. These are interesting as exhibiting the aboriginal use of ideographic devices which are only partially supplemented by the imitation of the symbols peculiar to European civilization. Several of these devices were procured by the present writer in 1888, and are illustrated and explained as follows:

A deer hunter brings 3 deerskins, for which he is allowed $2 each, making $6; 30 pounds of venison, at 10 cents per pound, making $3. In payment thereof he purchases 3 pounds of powder, at 40 cents per pound; 5 pounds of pork, at 10 cents per pound; and 2 gallons of molasses, at 50 cents per gallon. The debit foots $3.30, according to the Indian account, but it seems on calculation to be 30 cents in excess, an overcharge, showing the advance in civilization of the Passamaquoddy trader.

The following explanation will serve to make intelligible the characters employed, which are reproduced in Fig. 175. The hunter is shown as the first character in line a, and that he is a deer-hunter is furthermore indicated by his having a skin-stretcher upon his back, as well as the figure of a deer at which he is shooting. The three skins referred to are shown stretched upon frames in line b, the total number being also indicated by the three vertical strokes, between which and the drying frames are two circles, each with a line across it, to denote dollars, the total sum of $6 being the last group of dollar marks on line b.

The 30 pounds of venison are represented in line c, the three crosses signifying 30, the T-shaped character designating a balance scale, synonymous with pound, while the venison is indicated by the drawing of the hind quarter or ham. The price is given by uniting the X, or numeral, and the T, or pound mark, making a total of $3 as completing the line c.

The line d refers to the purchase of 3 pounds of powder, as expressed by the three strokes, the T, or scale for pound, and the powder horn, the price of which is four Xs or 40 cents per pound, or T; and 3 pounds of powder, the next three vertical strokes succeeded by a number of spots to indicate grains of powder, which is noted as being 10 cents per pound, indicated by the cross and T, respectively. The next item, shown on line e, charges for 5 pounds of pork, the latter being indicated by the outline of a pig, the price being indicated by the X or 10, and T, scale or pound; then two short lines preceding one small oblong square or quart measure, indicates that 2 quarts of molasses, shown by the black spot, cost 5 crosses, or 50 cents per measure, the sum of the whole of the purchase being indicated by three rings with stems and three crosses, equivalent to $3.30.

Another Indian, whose occupation was to furnish basket wood, brought some to the trader for which he received credit to the amount of $1.15, taking in exchange therefor pork sufficient to equal the above amount.

In Fig. 176 the Indian is shown with a bundle of basket wood, the value of which is given in the next characters, consisting of a ring with a line across to denote $1, a cross to represent 10 cents, and the five short vertical lines for an additional 5 cents, making a total of $1.15. The pork received from the trader is indicated by the outline of a pig, while the crossed lines to the right denotes that the “account” is canceled.

Another customer, as shown in Fig. 177, was an old woman, the descendent of an ancient name--one known before the coming of white people. She was therefore called the “Owl,” and is represented in the “account” given below. She had bought on credit 1 plug of smoking tobacco, designated by one vertical stroke for the quantity and an oblong square figure corresponding to the shape of the package, which was to be used for smoking, as indicated by the spiral lines to denote smoke. She had also purchased 2 quarts of kerosene oil, the quantity designated by the two strokes preceding the small squares to represent quart measures, and the liquid is indicated by the rude outline of a kerosene lamp. This is followed by two crosses, representing 20 cents, as the value of the amount of her purchases. This account was settled by giving one basket, as shown in the device nearly beneath the owl, half of which is marked with crossed lines, connected by a line of dots or dashes with the cancellation mark at the extreme right of the record.

Another Passamaquoddy Indian, unable to read or write, carries on business and keeps his books according to a method of his own invention. One account is reproduced in Fig. 178. It is with a very slim Indian, as will be observed from the drawing, who carries on “trucking” and owns a horse, that animal being represented in outline and connected by lines with its owner. For services he was paid $5.45, which sum is shown in the lower line of characters by five dollar-marks--i. e., rings with strokes across them--4 crosses or numerals signifying 10 cents each, and five short vertical lines for 5 cents. The date is shown in the upper line of characters, the 4 short lines in front of the horse signifying 4, the oval figure next, to the right and intended for a circle, denoting the moon--i. e., the fourth moon, or April--while the 10 short strokes signify the tenth day of the month--i. e., he was paid $5.45 in full for services to April 10.

Another account was with a young woman noted as very slim, and is shown in Fig. 179. The girl brought a basket to the store, for which she was allowed 20 cents. She received credit for 10 cents on account of a plug of tobacco bought some time previously.

In the illustration the decidedly slim form of the girl is portrayed, her hands holding out the basket which she had made. The unattached cross signifies 10 cents, which she probably received in cash, while the other cross is connected by a dotted line with the piece of plug tobacco for which she had owed 10 cents. The attachment of the plug to the unpaid dime is amusingly ideographic.

Another Indian, descended from the prehistoric Indians, was called “Lox,” the evil or tricksy deity, appearing as an animal having a long body and tail and short legs, which is probably a wolverine, under which form Lox is generally depicted by the Passamaquoddy. His account with the trader is given in Fig. 180, and shows that he brought 1 dozen ax handles, for which he received $1.50.

Beneath the figure of Lox are 2 axes, the 12 short lines denoting the number of handles delivered, while the dotted line to the right connects them with the amount received, which is designated by 1 one dollar mark and 5 crosses or dime marks.

Dr. Hoffman found in Los Angeles, California, a number of notched sticks, which had been invented and used by the Indians at the Mission of San Gabriel. They had chief herders, who had under their charge overseers of the several classes of laborers, herders, etc. The chief herder was supplied with a stick of hard wood, measuring about 1 inch in breadth and thickness and from 20 to 24 inches long. The corners were beveled at the handle. The general form of the stick is given in the upper character of Fig. 181, with the exception that the illustration is intentionally shortened so as to show both ends.

Upon each of the beveled surfaces on the handle are marks to indicate the kind of horned cattle referred to. The cross indicates that the corner of the stick upon which it is incised relates to heifers, each notch designating one head, the long transverse cut denoting ten, with an additional three cuts signifying that the herder has in charge thirteen heifers. Upon the next beveled edge appears an arrow-pointed mark, to denote in like manner which edge of the stick is to be notched for indicating the oxen. Upon the third beveled surface is one transverse cut for the record of the number of bulls in the herd, while upon the fourth bevel of the handle are two notches to note the number of cows.

The stick is notched at the end opposite the handle to signify that it refers only to horned cattle. That used to designate horses is sharpened from two sides only, so that the end is wedge-shaped, or exactly the reverse of the one first mentioned. The marks upon the handle would be the same, however, with this exception--that one cut would mean a stallion, two cuts a mare, the cross a gelding, and the arrow-shaped figure a colt. Sticks were also marked to denote the several kinds of stock and to record those which had been branded.

Another class of sticks were also used by the overseers, copies of which were likewise preserved by the laborers and herders, to keep an account of the number of days on which labor was performed, and to record the sums of money received by the workman.

The lower character of Fig. 181 represents a stick, upon the beveled edge of the handle of which is a cross to denote work. The short notches upon the corner of the stick denote days, each seventh day or week being designated by a cut extending across the stick.

Upon the opposite side of the handle is a circle or a circle with a cross within it to denote the number of reals paid, each real being indicated upon the edge of the stick by a notch, while each ten reals or peso is noted by making the cut all the way across that face of the stick.

Mr. Dall (a) says that the Innuit frequently keep accounts by tying knots in a string or notching a stick. Capt. Bourke (c) reports:

In the Mexican state of Sonora I was shown, some twenty years ago, a piece of buckskin, upon which certain Opata or Yaqui Indians--I forget exactly which tribe, but it matters very little, as they are both industrious and honest--had kept account of the days of their labor. There was a horizontal datum line as before, with complete circles to indicate full days and half circles to indicate half days, a long heavy black line for Sundays and holidays, and a crescent moon for each new month. These accounts had to be drawn up by the overseer or superintendent of the rancho at which the Indians were employed before the latter left for home each night.

Terrien de Lacouperie (e) says of the Sonthals of Bengal:

Their accounts are either notches on a stick, like those formerly used by the rustics for keeping scores at cricket matches in country villages in England, or knots on a piece of grass string, or a number of bits of straw tied together. I well remember my astonishment while trying my first case between a grasping Mahajun and a Sonthal when I ordered them to produce their accounts. * * * The Sonthal produced from his back hair, where it had been kept, I suppose, for ornament, a dirty bit of knotted grass string and threw it on the table, requesting the court to count that, as it had got too long for him. Each knot represented a rupee, a longer space between two knots represented the lapse of a year.

Many modes of accounting in a pictorial manner are noted in Europe and America among people classed as civilized. Some of these are very curious, but want of space prevents their recital here. A valuable description of the survival of the system in Brittany is given by M. Armand Landrin (a), translated and condensed as follows:

In the department of Finisterre the farmers, in keeping accounts, made bags of their old socks and coat sleeves, of different colors, each color representing one of the divisions of farm outlay or receipt, as cows, butter, milk, and corn. Each amount received was placed in coin in the appropriate bag. When any coins were taken out the same number of small stones or of peas or beans was put in to replace the coins. Other farmers substituted for the bags small sticks of different length and thickness in which they made cuts representing the receipts.

In the accounts with the laborers and farm hands the women were designated by the triangle, intended to represent the Breton head dress á grandes barbes. The kind of work performed was expressed by the tool connected with it, e. g., a horseshoe denoted the blacksmith, a scythe the mower, an ax the carpenter, a saddle the harness-maker, and a tub the cooper. The bill of a veterinary surgeon was rendered by drawing the figures of the several animals treated united in one group by a line.

Until quite recently the important accounts of the British exchequer were kept by wooden tallies, and some bakers in the United States yet persevere in keeping their accounts with their customers by duplicate tallies, one of which is rendered as a bill and is verified by the other.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

X. CHRONOLOGY

It is not within the scope of the present work to examine the several systems of chronology of the American Indians, but only those pictorially exhibited. The Mexican system, much more scientific and more elaborate than that employed by the northern tribes, resembled it in the graphic record or detail of exhibit, and is highly interesting as compared with the Dakota Winter Counts. Although the principle of designating the years was wholly different, the mode of that designation was often similar, as is shown by collating the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Telleriano Remensis with the Winter Counts of Lone Dog and Battiste Good, infra. It is also desirable to note the remarks of Prof. Brinton (e) with regard to the Chilan Balam. At the close of each of the Maya larger divisions of time (the so-called “Katum”), a “chilan” or inspired diviner uttered a prediction of the character of the year or epoch which was about to begin. This prophetic designation of the year was like a Zadkiel’s almanac, while the Dakotan method was a selection of the most important events of the past.

SECTION 1.

TIME.

Dr. William H. Corbusier, surgeon, U. S. Army, gives the following information:

The Dakotas make use of the circle as the symbol of a cycle of time; a small one for a year and a large one for a longer period of time, as a life time, one old man. Also a round of lodges or a cycle of seventy years, as in Battiste Good’s Winter Count. The continuance of time is sometimes indicated by a line extending in a direction from right to left across the page when on paper, and the annual circles are suspended from the line at regular intervals by short lines, as in Fig. 182, upper character, and the ideograph for the year is placed beneath each one. At other times the line is not continuous, but is interrupted at regular intervals by the yearly circle, as in the lower character of Fig. 182.

Under other headings in this paper are presented graphic expressions for divisions of time--month, day, night, morning, noon, and evening. See, for some of them, Chap. XX, Sec. 2.

SECTION 2.

WINTER COUNTS.

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.

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.

Dr. William H. Corbusier, surgeon, U. S. Army, while stationed in 1879 and 1880 at Camp Sheridan, Nebraska, near the Pine Ridge Indian Agency, Dakota, obtained a copy of this Winter Count from its recorder Baptiste, commonly called Battiste Good, a Brulé Dakota, whose Dakotan name is given as Wa-po-cta^n-xi, translated Brown-Hat. He was then living at the Rose Bud Agency, Dakota, and explained the meaning of the pictographs to the Rev. Wm. J. Cleveland, of the last named agency, who translated them into English.

The copy made by Battiste Good from his original record, of which it is said to be a facsimile, is painted in five colors besides black, in which the outlines are generally drawn, but with the exception of red blood-marks these colors do not often appear to be significant. This copy, which was kindly contributed by Dr. Corbusier, is made in an ordinary paper drawing-book, the last page of which contains the first record. This is represented in Fig. 256, and pictures what is supposed to be an introduction in the nature of a revelation. The next page, reading backwards and corresponding with Pl. XXI, is a pretended record of a cycle comprising the years (presumed to be in the Christian chronology) from 901 to 930. Eleven similar pages and cycles bring the record down to 1700. These pages are only interesting from the mythology and tradition referred to and suggested by them, and which must be garnered from the chaff of uncomprehended missionary teaching. From 1700 to 1880, when the record closes, each year, or rather winter, is represented by a special character according to the Dakota system above explained.

Battiste Good, by his own statement in the present record, was born in the year 1821-’22. Any careful examination of the figures as worked over by his own hand shows that he has received about enough education in English and in writing to induce him to make unnecessary additions and presumptuous emendations on the pictographs as he found them and as perhaps he originally kept and drew the more recent of them. He has written English words and Arabic numerals over and connected with the Dakota devices, and has left some figures in a state of mixture including the methods of modern civilization and the aboriginal system. To prevent the confusion to the reader which might result from Battiste’s meddlesome vanity, these interpolated marks are in general omitted from the plates and figures as now presented, but, as specimens of the kind and amount of interference referred to, the designs on the copy for the years 1700-’01, 1701-’02, and 1707-’08 are given below as furnished.

The facts stated to have occurred so long ago as the beginning of the last century can not often be verified, but those of later date given by Battiste are corroborated by other records in the strongest manner--that is, by independent devices which are not mere copies. Therefore, notwithstanding Battiste’s mythic cycles and English writing, the body of his record, which constitutes the true Winter Counts, must be regarded as genuine. He is simply the bad editor of a good work. But whether or not the events occurred as represented, the pictography is of unique interest. It may be remarked that Battiste’s record is better known among the Oglala and Brulé, and Lone-Dog’s Winter Count among the Minneconjou.

It should be noted that when allusions are made to coloration in Fig. 256, and in any one of the other figures in the text which illustrate this Winter Count, they must be understood as applicable to the original. Pls. XXI, XXII, and XXIII are colored copies of those furnished by Battiste Good, reduced, however, in size.

Fig. 256 illustrates Battiste Good’s introduction. He is supposed to be narrating his own experience as follows: “In the year 1856, I went to the Black Hills and cried, and cried, and cried, and suddenly I saw a bird above me, which said: ‘Stop crying, I am a woman, but I will tell you something: My Great-Father, Father God, who made this place, gave it to me for a home and told me to watch over it. He put a blue sky over my head and gave me a blue flag to have with this beautiful green country. [Battiste has made the hill country, as well as the curve for sky and the flag, blue in his copy.] My Great-Father, Father God (or The Great-Father, God my Father) grew, and his flesh was part earth and part stone and part metal and part wood and part water; he took from them all and placed them here for me, and told me to watch over them. I am the Eagle-Woman who tell you this. The whites know that there are four black flags of God; that is, four divisions of the earth. He first made the earth soft by wetting it, then cut it into four parts, one of which, containing the Black Hills, he gave to the Dakotas, and, because I am a woman, I shall not consent to the pouring of blood on this chief house (or dwelling place), i. e., the Black Hills. The time will come that you will remember my words; for after many years you shall grow up one with the white people.’ She then circled round and round and gradually passed out of my sight. I also saw prints of a man’s hands and horse’s hoofs on the rocks [here he brings in petroglyphs], and two thousand years, and one hundred millions of dollars ($100,000,000). I came away crying, as I had gone. I have told this to many Dakotas, and all agree that it meant that we were to seek and keep peace with the whites.”

(NOTE BY DR. CORBUSIER.--The Oglálas and Brulés say that they, with the rest of the Dakota nation, formerly lived far on the other side of the Missouri River. After they had moved to the river, they lived at first on its eastern banks, only crossing it to hunt. Some of the hunting parties that crossed at length wandered far off from the rest and, remaining away, became the westernmost bands.)

Pl. XXI A. The record shown by this figure dates from the appearance of The-Woman-from-Heaven, 901 A. D.; but the Dakotas were a people long before this. The circle of lodges represents a cycle of thirty years, from the year 901 to 930, and incloses the “legend” by which this period is known. All the tribes of the Dakota nation were encamped together, as was then their custom, when all at once a beautiful woman appeared to two young men. One of them said to the other, “Let us catch her and have her for our wife.” The other said, “No; she may be something waka^n” (supernatural or sacred). Then the woman said to them, “I came from Heaven to teach the Dakotas how to live and what their future shall be.” She had what appeared to be snakes about her legs and waist, but which were really braids of grass. She said, “I give you this pipe; keep it always;” and with the pipe she gave them a small package, in which they found four grains of maize, one white, one black, one yellow, and one variegated. The pipe is above the buffalo. She said, “I am a buffalo, The White-Buffalo-Cow. I will spill my milk all over the earth, that the people may live.” She meant by her milk maize, which is seen in the picture dropping from her udders. The colored patches on the four sides of the circle are the four quarters of the heavens (the cardinal points of the compass). In front of the cow are yellow and red. She pointed in this direction and said, “When you see a yellowish (or brownish) cloud toward the north, that is my breath; rejoice at the sight of it, for you shall soon see buffalo. Red is the blood of the buffalo, and by that you shall live.” Pointing east [it will be noticed that Battiste has placed the east toward the top of the page], she said, “This pipe is related to the heavens, and you shall live with it.” The line running from the pipe to the blue patch denotes the relation. The Dakotas have always supposed she meant by this that the blue smoke of the pipe was one with or nearly related to the blue sky; hence, on a clear day, before smoking, they often point the stem of the pipe upward, in remembrance of her words. Pointing south, she said, “Clouds of many colors may come up from the south, but look at the pipe and the blue sky and know that the clouds will soon pass away and all will become blue and clear again.” Pointing west, i. e., to the lowest part of the circle, she said, “When it shall be blue in the west, know that it is closely related to you through the pipe and the blue heavens, and by that you shall grow rich.” Then she stood up before them and said, “I am The White-Buffalo-Cow; my milk is of four kinds; I spill it on the earth that you may live by it. You shall call me Grandmother. If you young men will follow me over the hills you shall see my relatives.” She said this four times, each time stepping back from them a few feet, and after the fourth time, while they stood gazing at her, she mysteriously disappeared. [It is well known that four is the favorite or magic number among Indian tribes generally, and has reference to the four cardinal points.] The young men went over the hills in the direction she took and there found a large herd of buffalo.

(NOTE BY DR. CORBUSIER.--Mr. Cleveland states that he has heard several different versions of this tradition.)

The man who first told the people of the appearance of the woman is represented both inside and outside the circle. He was thirty years old at the time, and said that she came as narrated above, in July of the year of his birth. Outside of the circle, he is standing with a pipe in his hand; inside, he is squatting, and has his hands in the position for the gesture-sign for pipe. The elm tree and yucca, or Spanish bayonet, both shown above the tipis, indicate that in those days the Dakota obtained fire by rapidly revolving the end of a dry stalk of the yucca in a hole made in a rotten root of the elm. The people used the bow and stone-pointed arrows, which are shown on the right. From time immemorial they have kept large numbers of sticks, shown by the side of the pipe, each one about as thick and as long as a lead-pencil (sic), for the purpose of counting and keeping record of numbers, and they cut notches in larger sticks for the same purpose.

(NOTE BY DR. CORBUSIER.--They commonly resort to their fingers in counting, and the V of the Roman system of notation is seen in the outline of the thumb and index, when one hand is held up to express five, and the X in the crossed thumbs, when both hands are held up together to express ten.)

The bundle of these sticks drawn in connection with the ceremonial pipe suggests the idea of an official recorder.

Pl. XXI B, 931-1000. From the time the man represented in Pl. XXI A was seventy years of age, i. e., from the year 931, time is counted by cycles of seventy years until 1700. This figure illustrates the manner of killing buffalo before and after the appearance of The-Woman. When the Dakotas had found the buffalo, they moved to the herd and corralled it by spreading their camps around it. The Man-Who-Dreamed-of-a-Wolf, seen at the upper part of the circle, with bow and arrow in hand, then shot the chief bull of the herd with his medicine or sacred arrow; at this, the women all cried out with joy, “He has killed the chief bull!” On hearing them shout the man with bow and arrow on the opposite side, The-Man-Who-Dreamed-of-the-Thunder-and-received-an-arrow-from-the-Thunder-Bird (wakinyan, accurately translated “the flying one”) shot a buffalo cow, and the women again shouted with joy. Then all the men began to shout, and they killed as many as they wished. The buffalo heads and the blood-stained tracks show what large numbers were killed. They cut off the head of the chief bull, and laid the pipe beside it until their work was done. They prayed to The-Woman to bless and help them as they were following her teachings. Having no iron or knives, they used sharp stones, and mussel shells, to skin and cut up the buffalo. They rubbed blood in the hides to soften and tan them. They had no horses, and had to pack everything on their own backs.

The cyclic characters that embrace the period from 1001 to 1140 illustrate nothing of interest not before presented. Slight distinction appears in the circles so that they can be identified, but without enough significance to merit reproduction.

Pl. XXII A, 1141-1210. Among a herd of buffalo, surrounded at one time during this period, were some horses. The people all cried out, “there are big dogs with them,” having never seen horses before, hence the name for horse, sunka (dog) tanka (big), or sunka (dog) wakan (wonderful or mysterious). After killing all the buffalo they said “let us try and catch the big dogs;” so they cut a thong out of a hide with a sharp stone and with it caught eight, breaking the leg of one of them. All these years they used sharpened deer horn for awls, bone for needles, and made their lodges without the help of iron tools. [All other Dakota traditions yet reported in regard to the first capture of horses, place this important event at a much later period and long after horses were brought to America by the Spaniards. See this count for the year 1802-’03, and also Lone-Dog’s Winter Count for the same year.]

Pl. XXII B, 1211-1280. At one time during this period a war party of enemies concealed themselves among a herd of buffalo, which the Dakotas surrounded and killed before they discovered the enemy. No one knows what people, or how many they were; but the Dakotas killed them all. The red and black lodges indicate war, and that the Dakotas were successful.

The pages of the copy which embrace the period from 1281 to 1420 are omitted as valueless.

Pl. XXIII A, 1421-1490. “Found horses among the buffalo again and caught six.” Five of the horses are represented by the hoof prints. The lasso or possibly the lariat is shown in use. The bundle of sticks is now in the recorder’s hands.

Battiste’s pages which embrace the period from 1491 to 1630 are omitted for the same reason as before offered.

Pl. XXIII B, 1631-1700. This represents the first killing of buffalo on horseback. It was done in the year 1700, inside the circle of lodges pitched around the herd, by a man who was tied on a horse with thongs and who received the name of Hunts-inside-the-lodges. They had but one horse then, and they kept him a long time. Again the bundle of count-sticks is in the recorder’s hands.

This is the end of the obviously mythic part of the record, in which Battiste has made some historic errors. From this time forth each year is distinguished by a name, the explanation of which is in the realm of fact.

It must be again noted that when colors are referred to in the description of the text figures, the language (translated) used by Battiste is retained for the purpose of showing the coloration of the original and his interpretation of the colors, which are to be imagined, as they can not be reproduced by the process used.

Fig. 257, 1700-’01.--“The-two-killed-on-going-back-to-the-hunting-ground winter (or year).” Two Dakotas returned to the hunting ground, after the hunt one day, and were killed by enemies, of what tribe is unknown. The blood-stained arrow in the man’s side signifies killed; the numeral 2 over his head, the number killed; and, the buffalo heads, the carcass of a buffalo--which had been left behind because it was too poor to eat--together with the arrow pointing toward them, the hunting-ground. The dot under the figure 2, and many of the succeeding ones, signifies, That is it. This corresponds with some gesture signs for the same concept of declaration, in which the index finger held straight is thrust forward with emphasis and repeatedly as if always hitting the same point.

With regard to the numeral 2 over the head of the man see remarks, page 288.

Fig. 258, 1701-’02.--“The-three-killed-who-went-fishing winter.” The arrow pointing toward the 3, indicates that they were attacked; the arrow in the man’s arm, and the blood stain, that they were killed; the pole, line, and fish which the man is holding, their occupation at the time.

Fig. 259, 1702-’03.--“Camped-cutting-the-ice-through winter.” A long lake toward the east, near which the Dakotas were encamped, was frozen over, when they discovered about one thousand buffalo. They secured them all by driving them on the ice, through which they broke, and in which they froze fast. Whenever the people wanted meat, they cut a buffalo out of the ice. In the figure, the wave lines represent the water of the lake; the straight lines, the shore; the blue lines outside the black ones, trees; the blue patches inside, the ice through which the heads of the buffalo are seen; the line across the middle, the direction in which they drove the buffalo. The supply of meat lasted one year. (NOTE by DR. CORBUSIER.--The Apache of Arizona, the Ojibwa, and the Ottawa also represent water by means of waved lines.)

Fig. 260, 1703-’04--“The-burying winter,” or “Many-hole winter.”--They killed a great many buffalo during the summer, and, after drying the meat, stored it in pits for winter’s use. It lasted them all winter, and they found it all in good condition. The ring surrounding the buffalo head, in front of the lodge, represents a pit. The forked stick, which is the symbol for meat, marks the pit. [Other authorities suggest that the object called by Battiste a pit, which is more generally called “cache,” is a heap, and means many or much.]

Fig. 261, 1704-’05.--“Killed-fifteen-Pawnees-who-came-to-fight winter.” The Dakotas discovered a party of Pawnees coming to attack them. They met them and killed fifteen. In this chart the Pawnee of the Upper Missouri (Arikara or Ree), the Pawnee of Nebraska, and the Omaha are all depicted with legs which look like ears of corn, but an ear of corn is symbol for the Rees only. The Pawnee of Nebraska may be distinguished by a lock of hair at the back of the head; the Omaha, by a cropped head or absence of the scalp-lock. The absence of all signs denotes Dakota. Dr. W. Matthews, in Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa Indians, states that the Arikara separated from the Pawnee of the Platte valley more than a century ago. [To avoid confusion the literation of the tribal divisions as given by the translator of Battiste Good are retained, though not considered to be accurate.]

Fig. 262, 1705-’06.--“They-came-and-killed-seven-Dakotas winter.” It is not known what enemies killed them.

Fig. 263, 1706-’07.--“Killed-the-Gros-Ventre-with-snowshoes-on winter.” A Gros-Ventre (Hidatsa), while hunting buffalo on snowshoes, was chased by the Dakotas. He accidentally dropped a snowshoe, and, being then unable to get through the snow fast enough, they gained on him, wounded him in the leg, and then killed him. The Gros-Ventres and the Crows are tribes of the same nation, and are therefore both represented with striped or spotted hair, which denotes the red clay they apply to it.

Fig. 264, 1707-’08.--“Many-kettle winter.” A man--1 man--named Corn, killed (3) his wife, 1 woman, and ran off. He remained away for a year, and then came back, bringing three guns with him, and told the people that the English, who had given him these guns, which were the first known to the Dakotas, wanted him to bring his friends to see them. Fifteen of the people accordingly went with him, and when they returned brought home a lot of kettles or pots. These were the first they ever saw. Some numerical marks for reference and the written words in the above are retained as perhaps the worst specimens of Battiste’s mixture of civilized methods with the aboriginal system of pictography. See remarks above, page 288.

Fig. 265, 1708-’09.--“Brought-home-Omaha-horses winter.” The cropped head over the horse denotes Omaha.

Fig. 266, 1709-’10.--“Brought-home-Assiniboin-horses winter.” The Dakota sign for Assiniboin, or Hohe, which means the voice, or, as some say, the voice of the musk ox, is the outline of the vocal organs, as the Dakotas conceive them, and represents the upper lip and roof of the mouth, the tongue, the lower lip and chin, and the neck.

Fig. 267, 1710-’11.--“The-war-parties-met, or killed-three-on-each-side winter.” A war party of Assiniboins met one of Dakotas, and in the fight which ensued three were killed on each side.

Fig. 268, 1711-’12.--“Four-lodges-drowned winter.” When the thunders returned in the summer the Dakotas were still in their winter camp, on the bottom lands of a large creek. Heavy rains fell, which caused the creek to rise suddenly; the bottoms were flooded, and the occupants of four lodges were swept away and drowned. Water is represented by waved lines, as before. The lower part of the lodge is submerged. The human figure in the doorway of the lodge indicates how unconscious the inmates were of their peril.

Fig. 269, 1712-’13.--“Killed-the-Pawnee-who-was-eagle-hunting winter.” A Pawnee (Ree) was crouching in his eagle-trap, a hole in the ground covered with sticks and grass, when he was surprised and killed by the Dakotas. This event is substantially repeated in this count for the year 1806-’07.

Fig. 270, 1713-’14.--“Came-and-shot-them-in-the-lodge winter.” The Pawnee (Rees) came by night, and, drawing aside a tipi door, shot a sleeping man, and thus avenged the death of the eagle-hunter.

Fig. 271, 1714-’15.--“Came-to-attack-on-horseback-but-killed-nothing winter.” The horseman has a pine lance in his hand. It is not known what tribe came. (NOTE BY DR. CORBUSIER.--It is probable that horses were not numerous among any of the Indians yet, and that this mounted attack was the first one experienced by the Brulé.)

Fig. 272, 1715-’16.--“Came-and-attacked-on-horseback-and-stabbed-a-boy-near-the-lodge winter.” Eagle tail-feathers hang from the butt end of the lance.

Fig. 273, 1716-’17.--“Much-pemmican winter.” A year of peace and prosperity. Buffalo were plentiful all the fall and winter. Large quantities of pemmican (wasna) were made with dried meat and marrow. In front of the lodge is seen the backbone of a buffalo, the marrow of which is used in wasna; below this is the buffalo stomach, in which wasna is packed for preservation.

Fig. 274, 1717-’18.--“Brought-home-fifteen-Assiniboin-horses winter.” The sign for Assiniboin is above the horse.

Fig. 275, 1718-’19.--“Brought-home-Pawnee-horses winter.” The sign for Ree, i. e., an ear of corn, is in front of the horse.

Fig. 276, 1719-’20.--“Wore-snowshoes winter.” The snow was very deep, and the people hunted buffalo on snowshoes with excellent success.

Fig. 277, 1720-’21.--“Three-lodges-starved-to-death winter.” The bare ribs of the man denote starvation. [The gesture-sign for poor or lean indicates that the ribs are visible. In the Ojibwa and Ottawa pictographs lines across the chest denote starvation.]

Fig. 278, 1721-’22.--“Wore-snowshoes-and-dried-much-buffalo-meat winter.” It was even a better year for buffalo than 1719-’20.

Fig. 279, 1722-’23.--“Deep-snow-and-tops-of-lodges-only-visible winter.” The spots are intended for snow.

Fig. 280, 1723-’24.--“Many-drying-sticks-set-up winter.” They set up more than the usual number of sticks for scaffolds, etc., as they dried the buffalo heads, hides, and entrails, as well as the meat. This figure is repeated with differentiation for the year 1745-’46 in this chart.

Fig. 281, 1724-’25.--“Blackens-himself-died winter.” This man was in the habit of blacking his whole body with charcoal. He died of some kind of intestinal bend [sic] as is indicated by the stomach and intestines in front of him, which represent the bowels in violent commotion, or going round and round.

Fig. 282, 1725-’26.--“Brought-home-ten-Omaha-horses winter.” The sign for Omaha is the head, as before.

Fig. 283, 1726-’27.--“Killed-two-Pawnees-among-the-lodges winter.” The Pawnees (Rees) made an assault on the Dakota Village, and these two ran among the lodges without any arrows. The sign for Ree is, as usual, an ear of corn.

Fig. 284, 1727-’28.--“Killed-six-Assiniboins winter.” Two signs are given here for Assiniboin. There is some uncertainty as to whether they were Assiniboins or Arikaras, so the signs for both are given.

Fig. 285, 1728-’29.--“Brought-home-Gros-Ventre-horses winter.” A Gros Ventre head is shown in front of the horse.

Fig. 286, 1729-’30.--“Killed-the-Pawnees-camped-alone-with-their-wives winter.” Two Pawnees and their wives, who were hunting buffalo by themselves, and living in one lodge, were surprised and killed by a war party of Dakotas.

Fig. 287, 1730-’31.--“Came-from-opposite-ways-and-camped-together winter.” By a singular coincidence, two bands of Dakotas selected the same place for an encampment, and arrived there the same day. They had been separated a long time, and were wholly ignorant of each other’s movements. The caps of the tipis face one another.

Fig. 288, 1731-’32.--“Came-from-killing-one-Omaha-and-danced winter.” This is the customary feast at the return of a successful war party. The erect arrow may stand for “one,” and the Omaha is drawn at full length with his stiff short hair and painted cheeks.

Fig. 289, 1732-’33.--“Brought-home-Assiniboin-horses winter.” The sign for Assiniboin is as before, over the horse.

Fig. 290, 1733-’34.--“Killed-three-Assiniboins winter.” There is again uncertainty as to whether they were Assiniboins or Arikaras, and both signs are used.

Fig. 291, 1734-’35.--“Used-them-up-with-bellyache winter.” About fifty of the people died of an eruptive disease which was accompanied by pains in the bowels. The eruption is shown on the man in the figure. This was probably the first experience by the Dakotas of the smallpox, which has been so great a factor in the destruction of the Indians.

Fig. 292, 1735-’36.--“Followed-them-up-and-killed-five winter.” A war party of Dakotas were chased by some enemies, who killed five of them. The arrows flying from behind at the man indicate pursuit, and the number of the arrows, each with a bloody mark as if hitting, is five.

Fig. 293, 1736-’37.--“Brought-home-Pawnee-horses winter.” This date must be considered in connection with the figure in this record for 1802-’03. There is a distinction between the wild and the shod horses, but the difference in tribe is great. The ear of corn showing the husk is as common in this record for Pawnee as for Arikara.

Fig. 294, 1737-’38.--“Killed-seven-Assiniboins-bringing-them-to-a-stand-under-a-bank winter.” The daub, blue in the original, under the crouching figure, represents the bank.

Fig. 295, 1738-’39.--“The-four-who-went-on-the-war-path-starved-to-death winter.” Starvation is indicated as before.

Fig. 296, 1739-’40--“Found-many-horse winter.” The horses had thongs around their necks, and had evidently been lost by some other tribe. Hoof prints are represented above and below the horse, that is all around.

Fig. 297, 1740-’41.--“The-two-came-home-having-killed-an-enemy winter.” They took his entire scalp, and carried it home at the end of a pole. Only a part of the scalp is ordinarily taken, and that from the crown of the head.

Fig. 298, 1741-’42.--“Attacked-them-while-gathering-turnips winter.” Some women, who were digging turnips (pomme blanche) near the camp, were assaulted by a party of enemies, who, after knocking them down, ran off without doing them any further harm. A turnip, and the stick for digging it, are seen in front of the horseman.

Fig. 299, 1742-’43.--“Killed-them-on-the-way-home-from-the-hunt winter.” The men were out hunting, and about 100 of their enemies came on horseback to attack the camp, and had already surrounded it, when a woman poked her head out of a lodge and said, “They have all gone on the hunt. When I heard you, I thought they had come back.” She pointed toward the hunting-ground, and the enemies going in that direction, met the Dakotas, who killed many of them with their spears, and put the rest to flight. Hoof-prints surround the circle of lodges, and are on the trail to the hunting-ground.

Fig. 300, 1743-’44.--“The-Omahas-came-and-killed-them-in-the-night winter.” They wounded many, but killed only one. The Dakotas were all encamped together.

Fig. 301, 1744-’45.--“Brought-home-Omaha-horses winter.”

Fig. 302, 1745-’46.--“Many-drying-scaffolds winter.” It was even a better year for buffalo than 1723-’24.

Fig. 303, 1746-’47.--“Came-home-having-killed-one-Gros-Ventre winter.”

Fig. 304, 1747-’48.--“Froze-to-death-at-the-hunt winter.” The arrow pointing toward the buffalo head indicates they were hunting, and the crouching figure of the man, together with the snow above and below him, that he suffered severely from cold or froze to death.

Fig. 305, 1748-’49.--“Eat-frozen-fish winter.” They discovered large numbers of fish frozen in the ice, and subsisted on them all winter.

Fig. 306, 1749-’50.--“Many-hole-camp-winter.” The same explanation as for Fig. 260, for the year 1703-’04. The two figures are different in execution though the same in concept. There would, however, be little confusion in distinguishing two seasons of exceptional success in the hunt that were separated by forty-six years.

Fig. 307, 1750-’51.--“Killed-two-white-buffalo-cows winter.” (Note by Dr. Corbusier: Two white buffalo are so rarely killed one season that the event is considered worthy of record. Most Indians regard the albinos among animals with the greatest reverence. The Ojibwas, who look upon a black loon as the most worthless of birds regard a white one as sacred.)

Fig. 308, 1751-’52.--“Omahas-came-and-killed-two-in-the-lodge winter.” An Omaha war party surprised them in the night, shot into the lodge, wounding two, and then fled. The two shot died of their wounds.

Fig. 309, 1752-’53.--“Destroyed-three-lodges-of-Omahas winter.” The Dakotas went to retaliate on the Omahas, and finding three lodges of them killed them. It will be noticed that in this figure the sign for Omaha is connected with the lodge, and in the preceding figure with the arrow.

Fig. 310, 1753-’54.--“Killed-two-Assiniboins-on-the-hunt winter.”

Fig. 311, 1754-’55.--“Pawnees-shouted-over-the-people winter.” The Pawnees (Rees) came at night, and standing on a bluff overlooking the Dakota village shot into it with arrows, killing one man, and alarmed the entire village by their shouts.

Fig. 312, 1755-’56.--“Killed-two-Pawnees-at-the-hunt winter.” A war party of Dakotas surprised some Pawnee (Ree) hunters and killed two of them.

Fig. 313, 1756-’57.--“The-whole-people-were-pursued-and-two-killed winter.” A tribe, name unknown, attacked and routed the whole band. The man in the figure is retreating, as is shown by his attitude; the arrow on his bow points backward at the enemy, from whom he is retreating. The two blood-stained arrows in his body mark the number killed.

Fig. 314, 1757-’58.--“Went-on-the-warpath-on-horseback-to-camp-of-enemy-but-killed-nothing winter.” The lack of success may have been due to inexperience in mounted warfare as the Dakotas had probably for the first time secured a sufficient number of horses to mount a war party.

Fig. 315, 1758-’59.--“Killed-two-Omahas-who-came-to-the-camp-on-war-path winter.”

Fig. 316, 1759-’60.--“War-parties-met-and-killed-a-few-on-both-sides winter.” The attitude of the opposed figures of the Dakota and Gros Ventre and the footprints indicate that the parties met; the arrows in opposition, that they fought; and the blood-stained arrow in each man that some were killed on both sides.

Fig. 317, 1760-’61.--“Assiniboins-came-and-attacked-the-camp-again winter;” or “Assiniboins-shot-arrows-through-the-camp winter.”

Fig. 318, 1761-’62.--“Killed-six-Pawnees (Rees) winter.” Besides the arrow sticking in the body another is flying near the head of the man figure, who has the tribal marks for Pawnee or Ree, as used in this record.

Fig. 319, 1762-’63.--“The-people-were-burnt winter.” They were living somewhere 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, as also were many of their horses. 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 Sican-zhu, burnt thigh (or simply burnt as translated Brulé by the French), by which they have since been known, and also to the gesture sign, as follows: “Rub the upper and outer part of the right thigh in a small circle with the open right hand, fingers pointing downward.”

Fig. 320, 1763-’64.--“Many-sticks-for-drying-beef winter.” They dried so much meat that the village was crowded with drying poles and scaffolds.

Fig. 321, 1764-’65.--“Stole-their-horses-while-they-were-on-the-hunt winter.” A Dakota war party chanced to find a hunting party of Assiniboins asleep and stole twenty of their horses. It was storming at the time and horses had their packs on and were tied. The marks which might appear to represent a European saddle on the horse’s back denote a pack or load. Hunting is symbolized as before, by the buffalo head struck by an arrow.

Fig. 322, 1765-’66.--“Killed-a-war-party-of-four-Pawnees winter.” The four Pawnees (Rees) made an attack on the Dakota camp.

Fig. 323, 1766-’67.--“Brought-home-sixty-Assiniboin-horses (one spotted) winter.” They were all the horses the Assiniboins had and were on an island in the Missouri river, from which the Dakotas cleverly stole them during a snowstorm.

Fig. 324, 1767-’68.--“Went-out-to-ease-themselves-with-their-bows-on winter.” The Dakotas were in constant fear of an attack by enemies. When a man left his lodge after dark, even to answer the calls of nature, he carried his bows and arrows along with him and took good care not to go far away from the lodge. The squatting figure, etc., close to the lodge tells the story.

Fig. 325, 1768-’69.--“Two-horses-killed-something winter.” A man who had gone over a hill just out of the village was run down by two mounted enemies who drove their spears into him and left him for dead, one of them leaving his spear sticking in the man’s shoulder, as shown in the figure. He recovered, however. (Note by Dr. Corbusier: They frequently speak of persons who have been very ill and have recovered as dying and returning to life again, and have a gesture sign to express the idea.)

Fig. 326, 1769-’70.--“Attacked-the-camp-from-both-sides winter.” A mounted war party--tribe unknown--attacked the village on two sides, and on each side killed a woman. The footprints of the enemies’ horses and arrows on each side of the lodge, which represents the village, show the mode of attack.

Fig. 327, 1770-’71--“Came-and-killed-the-lodges winter.” The enemy came on horseback and assailed the Dakota lodges, which were pitched near together, spoiling some of them by cutting the hide coverings with their spears, but killing no one. They used spears only, but arrows are also depicted, as they symbolize attack. No blood is shown on the arrows, as only the lodges were “killed.”

Fig. 328, 1771-’72.--“Swam-after-the-buffalo winter.” In the spring the Dakotas secured a large supply of meat by swimming out and towing ashore buffalo that were floating past the village and which had fallen into the river on attempting to cross on the weak ice.

Fig. 329, 1772-’73.--“Killed-an-Assiniboin-and-his-wife winter.”

Fig. 330, 1773-’74.--“Killed-two-Pawnee-boys-while-playing winter.” A war party of Dakotas surprised two Pawnee (Ree) boys who were wrestling and killed them while they were on the ground.

Fig. 331, 1774-’75.--“Assiniboins-made-an-attack winter.” They were cowardly, however, and soon retreated. Perhaps the two arrows of the Assiniboins compared with the one arrow of the attacked Dakotas suggests the cowardice.

Fig. 332, 1775-’76.--“Assiniboins-went-home-and-came-back-mad-to-make-a-fresh-attack winter.” They were brave this time, being thoroughly aroused. They fought with bows and arrows only.

Fig. 333, 1776-’77.--“Killed-with-war-club-in-his-hand winter.” A Dakota war club is in the man’s hand and an enemy’s arrow is entering his body.

Fig. 334, 1777-’78.--“Spent-the-winter-in-no-particular-place winter.” They made no permanent camp, but wandered about from place to place.

Fig. 335, 1778-’79.--“Skinned-penis-used-in-the-game-of-haka winter.” A Dakota named as mentioned was killed in a fight with the Pawnees and his companions left his body where they supposed it would not be found, but the Pawnees found it and as it was frozen stiff they dragged it into their camp and played haka with it. The haka-stick which, in playing the game, they cast after a ring, is represented on the right of the man. This event marks 1777-’78 in the Winter Count of American-Horse and 1779-’80 in that of Cloud-Shield. The insult and disgrace made it remarkable.

Fig. 336, 1779-’80.--“Smallpox-used-them-up winter.” The eruption and pains in the stomach and bowels are shown as before.

Fig. 337, 1780-’81.--“Smallpox-used-them-up-again winter.” There is in this figure no sign for pain but the spots alone are shown. An attempt to discriminate and distinguish the year-devices is perceived.

Fig. 338, 1781-’82.--“Came-and-attacked-on-horseback-for-the-last-time winter.” The name of the tribe is not known, but it is the last time they ever attacked the Dakotas.

Fig. 339, 1782-’83.--“Killed-the-man-with-the-scarlet-blanket-on winter.” It is not known what tribe killed him.

Fig. 340, 1783-’84.--“Soldier-froze-to-death winter.” The falling snow and the man’s position with his legs drawn up to his abdomen, one hand in an armpit and the other in his mouth, are indicative of intense cold.

Fig. 341, 1784-’85.--“The-Oglala-took-the-cedar winter.” During a great feast an Oglala declared he was wakan and could draw a cedar tree out of the ground. He had previously fastened the middle of a stick to the lower end of a cedar with a piece of the elastic ligament from the neck of the buffalo and then planted the tree with the stick crosswise beneath it. He went to this tree, dug away a little earth from around it and pulled it partly out of the ground and let it spring back again, saying “the cedar I drew from the earth has gone home again.” After he had gone some young men dug up the tree and exposed the shallow trick.

Fig. 342, 1785-’86.--“The-Cheyennes-killed-Shadow’s-father winter.” The umbrella signifies, shadow; the arrow which touches it, attacked; the three marks under the arrow (not shown in the copy), Cheyenne; the blood-stained arrow in the man’s body, killed. Shadow’s name and the umbrella in the figure intimate that he was the first Dakota to carry an umbrella. The advantages of the umbrella were soon recognized by them, and the first they obtained from the whites were highly prized. It is now considered an indispensable article in a Sioux outfit. They formerly wore a wreath of green leaves or carried green boughs, to shade them from the sun. The marks used for Cheyenne stand for the scars on their arms or stripes on their sleeves, which also gave rise to the gesture-sign for this tribe, see Fig. 495, infra.

Fig. 343, 1786-’87.--“Iron-Head-Band-killed-on-warpath winter.” They formerly carried burdens on their backs, hung from a band passed across the forehead. This man had a band of iron which is shown on his head. So said the interpreter, but probably the band was not of the metal iron. The word so translated has a double meaning and is connected with religious ideas of water, spirit, and the color blue.

Fig. 344, 1787-’88.--“Left-the-heyoka-man-behind winter.” A certain man was heyoka--that is, his mind was disordered and he went about the village bedecked with feathers singing to himself, and, while so, joined a war party. On sighting the enemy the party fled, and called to him to turn back also; as he was heyoka, he construed everything that was said to him as meaning the very opposite, and therefore, instead of turning back, he went forward and was killed. If they had only had sense enough to tell him to go on, he would then have run away, but the thoughtless people talked to him just as if he had been in an ordinary condition and of course were responsible for his death. The mental condition of this man and another device for the event are explained by other records (see Fig. 651).

Fig. 345, 1788-’89.--“Many-crows-died winter.” Other records for the same year give as the explanation of the figure and the reason for its selection that the crows froze to death because of the intense cold.

Fig. 346, 1789-’90.--“Killed-two-Gros-Ventres-on-the-ice winter.”

Fig. 347, 1790-’91.--“Carried-a-flag-about-with-them winter.” They went to all the surrounding tribes with the flag, but for what purpose is unknown. So said the interpreter, but The-Flame’s chart explains the figure by the statement: “The first United States flags in the country brought by United States troops.”

Fig. 348, 1791-’92.--“Saw-a-white-woman winter.” The dress of the woman indicates that she was not an Indian. This is obviously noted as being the first occasion when the Dakotas, or at least the bands which this record concerns, saw a white woman.

Fig. 349, 1792-’93.--“Camped-near-the-Gros-Ventres winter.” They were engaged in a constant warfare during this time. A Gros Ventre dirt lodge, with the entrance in front, is depicted in the figure and on its roof is a Gros Ventre head.

Fig. 350, 1793-’94.--“Killed-a-long-haired-man-at-Rawhide-butte winter.” The Dakotas attacked a village of 58 lodges and killed every soul in it. After the fight they found the body of a man whose hair was done up with deer-hide in large rolls, and, on cutting them open, found it was all real hair, very thick, and as long as a lodge-pole. [Mem. Catlin tells of a Crow called Long-Hair whose hair, by actual measurement, was 10 feet and 7 inches long.] The fight was at Rawhide butte (now so called by the whites), which the Dakotas named Buffalo-Hide butte, because they found so many buffalo hides in the lodges. According to Cloud-Shield, Long-Hair was killed in 1786-’87, and according to American-Horse, Long-Hair, a Cheyenne, was killed in 1796-’97.

Fig. 351, 1794-’95.--“Killed-the-little-faced-Pawnee winter.” The Pawnee’s face was long, flat, and narrow, like a man’s hand, but he had the body of a large man.

White-Cow-Killer calls it: “Little-Face-killed winter.”

Fig. 352, 1795-’96.--“The-Rees-stood-the-frozen-man-up-with-the-buffalo-stomach-in-his-hand winter.” The body of a Dakota who had been killed in an encounter with the Rees (Pawnees), and had been left behind, frozen. The Rees dragged it into their village, propped it up with a stick, and hung a buffalo stomach filled with ice in one hand to make sport of it. The buffalo stomach was in common use at that time as a water-jug.

Fig. 353, 1796-’97.--“Wears-the-War-Bonnet-died winter.” He did not die this winter, but received a wound in the abdomen from which the arrowhead could not be extracted, and he died of the “bellyache” years after.

Fig. 354, 1897-’98.--“Took-the-God-Woman-captive winter.” A Dakota war party captured a woman--tribe unknown--who, in order to gain their respect, cried out, “I am a Wakan-Tanka,” meaning that she belonged to God, whereupon they let her go unharmed. This is the origin of their name for God (Wakan Tanka, the Great Holy, or Supernatural One). They had never heard of a Supernatural Being before, but had offered their prayers to the sun, the earth, and many other objects, believing they were endowed with spirits. [Those are the remarks of Battiste Good, who is only half correct, being doubtless influenced by missionary teaching. The term is much older and signifies mystic or unknown.]

Fig. 355, 1798-’99.--“Many-women-died-in-childbirth winter.” They died of bellyache. The convoluted sign for pain in the abdominal region has appeared before. Cloud-Shield’s winter count for the same year records the same mortality among the women which was perhaps an epidemic of puerperal fever.

Fig. 356, 1799-1800.--“Don’t-Eat-Buffalo-Heart-made-a-commemoration-of-the-dead winter.” A buffalo heart is represented above the man. Don’t Eat is expressed by the gesture sign for negation, a part of which is indicated, and the line connecting the heart with his month. The red flag which is used in the ceremony is employed as its symbol. The name Don’t-Eat-Buffalo-Heart refers to the man for whom that viand is taboo, either by gentile rules or from personal visions. The religious ceremony of commemoration of the dead is mentioned elsewhere in this work, see Chapter XIV, section 6.

Fig. 357, 1800-’01.--“The-Good-White-Man-came winter.” Seven white men came in the spring of the year to their village in a starving condition; after feeding them and treating them well, they allowed them to go on their way unmolested. The Dakotas [of the recorder’s band] had heard of the whites, but had never seen any before. In the fall some more came, and with them, The-Good-White-Man, who is represented in the figure, and who was the first one to trade with them. They became very fond of him because of his fair dealings with them. The gesture made by his hands is similar to benediction, and suggests a part of the Indian gesture sign for “good.”

Fig. 358, 1801-’02.--“Smallpox-used-them-up-again winter.” The man figure is making a part of a common gesture sign for death, which consists substantially in changing the index from a perpendicular to a horizontal position and then pointing to the ground.

Fig. 359, 1802-’03.--“Brought-home-Pawnee-horses-with-iron-shoes-on winter.” The Dakotas had not seen horseshoes before. This agrees with and explains Lone-Dog’s Winter Count for the same year.

Fig. 360, 1803-’04.--“Brought-home-Pawnee-horses-with-their-hair-rough-and-curly winter.” The curly hair is indicated by the curved marks. Lone-Dog’s Winter Count for the same year records the same incident, but states that the curly horses were stolen from the Crows.

Fig. 361, 1804-’05.--“Sung-over-each-other-while-on-the-war-path winter.” A war party while out made a large pipe and sang each other’s praises. The use of an ornamented pipe in connection with the ceremonies of organizing a war party is mentioned in Chapter XV.

Fig. 362, 1805-’06.--“They-came-and-killed-eight winter.” The enemy killed eight Dakotas, as shown by the arrow and the eight marks beneath it.

Fig. 363, 1806-’07.--“Killed-them-while-hunting-eagles winter.” Some Dakota eagle-hunters were killed by enemies. See Lone-Dog’s Winter Count for the same year.

Fig. 364, 1807-’08.--“Came-and-killed-man-with-red-shirt-on winter.” Other records say that Red-Shirt killed in this year was an Uncpapa Dakota, and that he was killed by Arikaras.

Fig. 365, 1808-’09.--“Pawnees-(Rees)-killed-Blue-Blanket’s-father winter.” A blanket, which in the original record is blue, is represented above the arrow and across the man’s body.

Fig. 366, 1809-’10.--“Little-Beaver’s-house-burned winter.” Little-Beaver was an English trader, and his trading house was a log one.

Fig. 367, 1810-’11.--“Brought-home-horse-with-his-tail-braided-with-eagle-feathers winter.” They stole a band of horses beyond the South Platte. One of them was very fleet, and had his tail ornamented as described.

Fig. 368, 1811-’12.--“First-hunted-horses winter.” The Dakotas caught wild horses in the Sand Hills with braided lariats.

Fig. 369, 1812-’13.--“Rees-killed-Big-in-the-Middle’s-father winter.” Other records call this warrior Big-Waist and Big-Belly.

Fig. 370, 1813-’14.--“Killed-six-Pawnees (Rees) winter.” Six strokes are under the arrow, but are not shown in the copy.

Fig. 371, 1814-’15.--“Smashed-a-Kiowa’s-head-in winter.” The tomahawk with which it was done is sticking in the Kiowa’s head.

Fig. 372, 1815-’16.-“The-Sans-Arcs-made-large-houses winter.”

Fig. 373, 1816-’17.--“Lived-again-in-their-large-houses winter.”

Fig. 374, 1817-’18.--“Chozé-built-a-house-of-dead-logs winter.” The house was for trading purposes. The Frenchman’s name is evidently a corruption.

Fig. 375, 1818-’19.--“Smallpox-used-them-up-again winter.” They at this time lived on the Little White river, about 20 miles above the Rosebud agency. The two fingers held up may mean the second time the fatal epidemic appeared in the particular body of Indians concerned in the record.

Fig. 376, 1819-’20.--“Chozé-built-a-house-of-rotten-wood winter.” Another trading house was built.

Fig. 377, 1820-’21.--“They-made-bands-of-strips-of-blanket-in-the-winter.” These bands were of mixed colors and reached from the shoulders to the heels. They also made rattles of deer’s hoofs by tying them to sticks with bead-covered strings. The man has a sash over his shoulders and a rattle in his hand.

Fig. 378, 1821-’22.--“Star-passed-by-with-loud-noise winter,” “Much-whisky winter,” and “Used-up-the-Omahas winter.” In the figure the meteor, its pathway, and the cloud from which it came are shown. Whisky was furnished to them for the first time and without stint. It brought death to them in a new form, many since then having died from the excessive use of it, Red-Cloud’s father among the number. Battiste Good, alias Wa-po’stan-gi, more accurately Wa-po-cta^n-xi (Brown-Hat), historian and chief, was born. He says that Omaha bullets were whizzing through the village and striking and piercing his mother’s lodge as she brought him forth. Red-Cloud was also born. In the count of American-Horse for this year he makes no mention of the meteor, but strongly marks the whisky as the important figure for the winter.

Fig. 379, 1822-’23.--“Peeler-froze-his-leg winter.” Peeler was a white trader, and his leg was frozen while he was on his way to or from the Missouri river. The name is explained by White Cow Killer’s record as follows: “White-man-peels-the-stick-in-his-hand-broke-his-leg winter.” He was probably a Yankee, addicted to whittling.

Fig. 380, 1823-’24.--“General-——-first-appeared-and-the-Dakotas-aided- in-an-attack-on-the-Rees winter.” Also “Much-corn winter”. The gun and the arrow in contact with the ear of corn show that both whites and Indians fought the Rees. This refers to Gen. Leavenworth’s expedition against the Arikara in 1823, when several hundred Dakotas were his allies. This expedition is mentioned several times in this work.

Fig. 381, 1824-’25.--“Killed-two-picking-plums winter.” A Dakota war party surprised and killed two Pawnees who were gathering plums.

Fig. 382, 1825-’26.--“Many-Yanktonais-drowned winter.” The river bottom on a bend of the Missouri river, where they were encamped, was suddenly submerged, when the ice broke and many women and children were drowned. All the Winter Counts refer to this flood.

Fig. 383, 1826-’27.--“Ate-a-whistle-and-died winter.” Six Dakotas on the war path (shown by bow and arrow) 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, the abdomen swelled, and gas poured from mouth and anus, and they died of a whistle or from eating a whistle. The sound of gas escaping from the mouth is illustrated in the figure.

Fig. 384, 1827-’28.--“Wore-snowshoes winter.” The snow was very deep.

Fig. 385, 1828-’29.--“Killed-two-hundred-Gros Ventres (Hidatsas) winter.”

Fig. 386, 1829-’30.--“Old-Speckled-Face-clung-to-his-son-in-law winter.” The daughter of Speckled-Face, who was coming out second best in an altercation with her husband, called to her father for help. The latter ran and grabbed his son-in-law around the waist, and, crying “That is my daughter,” stabbed him. The son-in-law fell and the old man fell on top of him, and, clinging to him, begged the lookers on to put an end to him also, as he wished to bear his beloved son-in-law company to the spirit land. No one, however, was in the humor to speed him on the journey, and he remained with the living.

Fig. 387, 1830-’31.--“Shot-many-white-buffalo-cows winter.”

Fig. 388, 1831-’32.--“Killed-him-while-looking-about-on-the-hill winter.” A Dakota, while watching for buffalo at Buffalo Gap, in the Black Hills, was shot by the Crows. The man is represented on a hill, which is dotted with pine trees and patches of grass. Battiste makes the grass blue. Blue and green are frequently confounded by other Indians than Battiste, and some tribes have but one name for the two colors.

Fig. 389, 1832-’33.--“Stiff-Leg-with-War-Bonnet-on-died winter.” He was killed in an engagement with the Pawnees on the Platte river, in which the Brulés killed one hundred Pawnees.

Fig. 390, 1833-’34.--“Storm-of-stars winter.” All the Winter Counts refer to this great meteoric display, which occurred on the night of November 12, 1833, and was seen over most of the United States.

Fig. 391, 1834-’35.--“Killed-the-Cheyenne-who-came-to-the-camp winter.” A Cheyenne who stole into the village by night was detected and killed. The village was near what is now the Pine Ridge agency.

Fig. 392, 1835-’36.--“Killed-the-two-war-party-leaders winter.” A Dakota war party met one of Pawnees and killed two of their leaders, whereupon the rest ran.

Fig. 393, 1836-’37.--“Fight-on-the-ice winter.” They fought with the Pawnees on the ice, on the Platte river, and killed seven of them. The two vertical marks, which are for the banks of the river, and the two opposed arrows, signify that the tribes were on opposite sides of the river.

Fig. 394, 1837-’38.--“Spread-out-killed winter.” A Santee man, whose name is indicated by his spread hands, was killed by soldiers.

Fig. 395, 1838-’39.--“Came-and-killed-five-Oglálas winter.” They were killed by Pawnees. The man in the figure has on a capote, the hood of which is drawn over his head. This garment is used here as a sign for war, as the Dakotas commonly wear it on their war expeditions.

Fig. 396, 1839-’40.--“Came-home-from-the-starve-to-death-war-path winter.” All of the Dakota tribes united in an expedition against the Pawnees. They killed one hundred Pawnees, but nearly perished with hunger.

Fig. 397, 1840-’41--“Came-and-killed-five-of-Little-Thunder’s-brothers winter,” and “Battiste-alone-returns winter.” The five were killed in an encounter with the Pawnees. Battiste Good was the only one of the party to escape. The capote is shown again.

Fig. 398, 1841-’42.--“Pointer-made-a-commemoration-of-the-dead winter.” Also “Deep-snow winter.” The extended index denotes the man’s name, the ring and spots deep snow.

Fig. 399, 1842-’43.--“Killed-four-lodges-of-Shoshoni-and-brought-home-many-horses winter.”

Fig. 400, 1843-’44.--“Brought-home-the-magic-arrow winter.” This arrow originally belonged to the Cheyennes from whom the Pawnees stole it. The Dakotas captured it this winter from the Pawnees and the Cheyennes then redeemed it for one hundred horses.

Fig. 401, 1844-’45.--“The-Crows-came-and-killed-thirty-eight-Oglálas winter.” The Oglálas were on the warpath, as indicated by the capote.

Fig. 402, 1845-’46.--“Broke-out-on-faces-had-sore-throats-and-camped-under-the-bluff winter.” “Also-had-bellyache.” The position of the camp is shown, also the suggestive attitude of the man.

Fig. 403, 1846-’47.--“Winter-camp-broke-his-neck winter.” He was thrown from his horse while on a hunt. The red on his neck is the break.

Fig. 404, 1847-’48.--“The-Teal-broke-his-leg winter.” His arm is lengthened to direct attention to his leg. The Chinese radical and phonetic character for the same concept, Fig. 1193, infra, may be compared, as also Fig. 231, supra.

Fig. 405, 1848-’49.--“Killed-the-hermaphrodite winter” and “Big-horse-stealing winter.” They captured a Crow who pretended to be a woman, but who proved to be a man, and they killed him. It is probable that this was one of the men, not uncommon among the Indian tribes, who adopt the dress and occupation of women. This is sometimes compulsory from failure to pass an ordeal or from exhibition of cowardice. Eight hundred horses were stolen from the Dakotas, but seven hundred of them were recovered. The Crows killed one Dakota, as is indicated by the arrow in contact with the red spot in the hoof print.

Fig. 406, 1849-’50.--“Brought-the-Crows-to-a-stand winter.” This was done at Crow Butte, near Camp Robinson, Nebraska. It is said that a party of Crows, who were flying from the Dakotas, took refuge on the Butte about dark and that the Dakotas surrounded them, confident of capturing them the next morning, but the Crows escaped during the night, very much to the chagrin of the Dakotas. The Crow’s head is just visible on the summit of the hill, as if the body had gone down.

Fig. 407, 1850-’51.--“The-big-smallpox winter.”

Fig. 408, 1851-’52.--“First-issue-of-goods winter.” The colored patches outside the circle are at the four cardinal points, the colored patches inside the circle are meant for blankets and the other articles issued, and the circle of strokes the people sitting. The Dakotas were told that fifty-five years after that issue they would have to cultivate the ground, and they understood that they would not be required to do it before.

Fig. 409, 1852-’53.--“Deep-snow-used-up-the-horses winter.” The spots around the horses represent snow.

Fig. 410, 1853-’54.--“Cross-Bear-died-on-the-hunt winter.” The travail means they moved; the buffalo, to hunt buffalo; the bear with mouth open and paw advanced, Cross-Bear; the stomach and intestines, took the bellyache and died. The gesture sign for bear is made as follows: Slightly crook the thumbs and little fingers, and nearly close the other fingers; then, with their backs upward, hold the hands a little in advance of the body or throw them several times quickly forward a few inches. The sign is sometimes made with one hand only.

For explanation of the word “travail,” applied to the Indian sledge made of the joined tent poles, see Fig. 764 and accompanying remarks.

Fig. 411, 1854-’55.--“Killed-five-Assiniboins winter.” The Dakotas are ashamed of the part they took in the following deplorable occurrence and it is not therefore noted in the record, although it really marks the year. In consequence of a misunderstanding in regard to an old foot-sore cow, which had been abandoned on the road by some emigrants and which the Dakotas had innocently appropriated, Lieut. Grattan, Sixth U. S. Infantry, killed Conquering Bear (Mato-way'uhi, Startling Bear properly) about ten miles east of Fort Laramie, August 19, 1854. The Dakotas then, in retaliation, massacred Lieut. Grattan and the thirty men of Company G, Sixth U. S. Infantry, he had with him.

The figure without the above statement tells the simple story about the killing of five Assiniboins who are denoted by the usual tribal sign, the number being designated by the five strokes below the arrow.

Fig. 412, 1855-’56.--“Little-Thunder-and-Battiste-Good-and-others-taken-prisoners- at-Ash-Hollow-on-the-Blue-creek winter,” and one hundred and thirty Dakotas were killed by the white soldiers. Also called “Many-sacrificial-flags winter.” The last-mentioned name for the winter is explained by other records and by Executive Document No. 94, Thirty-fourth Congress, first session, Senate, to refer to a council held on March 18, 1856, by Brevet Brig. Gen. W. S. Harney, U. S. Army, with nine of the bands of the Dakotas.

Fig. 413, 1856-’57.--“Bad-Four-Bear-trades-with-Battiste-Good-for-furs-all winter.” Bad-Four-Bear, a white trader, is represented sitting smoking a pipe in front of Battiste’s tipi under a bluff at Fort Robinson, Nebraska.

Fig. 414, 1857-’58.--“Hunted-bulls-only winter.” They found but few cows, the buffalo being composed principally of bulls. The travail is shown.

Fig. 415, 1858-’59.--“Many-Navajo-blankets winter.” A Navajo blanket is shown in the figure. Several of the records agree in the explanation about the bringing of these blankets at that time.

Fig. 416, 1859-’60.--“Came-and-killed-Big-Crow winter.” The two marks under the arrow indicate that two were killed.

Fig. 417, 1860-’61.--“Broke-out-with-rash-and-died-with-pains-in-the-stomach winter.”

Fig. 418, 1861-’62.--“Killed-Spotted-Horse winter.” Spotted Horse and another Crow came and stole many horses from the Dakotas, who followed them, killed them, and recovered their horses.

Fig. 419, 1862-’63--“Cut-up-the-boy-in-the-camp winter.” The Crows came to the lodges and cut up the boy while the people were away. The knife above his head shows that he was cut to pieces.

Fig. 420, 1863-’64.--“Crows-came-and-killed-eight winter.” Some of the eight were Cheyennes. The marks below the arrow represent the killed.

Fig. 421, 1864-’65.--“Roaster-made-a-commemoration-of-the-dead winter.” A piece of roasted meat is shown on the stick in the man’s hand. The Dakotas roast meat on a stick held in front of the fire.

Fig. 422, 1865-’66.--“Deep-snow-used-up-the-horses winter.” The horse is obviously in a deplorable condition.

Fig. 423, 1866-’67.--“Beaver’s-Ears-killed winter.”

Fig. 424, 1867-’68.--“Battiste-Good-made-peace-with-General-Harney-for-the-people winter.” This refers to the great Dakota treaty of 1868 in which other general officers besides Gen. Harney were active and other Indian chiefs much more important than Battiste took part. The assumption of his intercession is an exhibition of boasting.

Fig. 425, 1868-’69.--“Killed-Long-Fish winter” and “Killed-fifteen winter.” The Crows killed fifteen Sans Arcs and Long-Fish also, a Lower Brulé. The long fish is shown attached by a line to the mouth of the man figure in the manner that personal names are frequently portrayed in this paper.

Fig. 426, 1869-’70.--“Trees-killed-them winter.” A tree falling on a lodge killed a woman.

Fig. 427, 1870-’71.--“Came-and-killed-High-Back-Bone winter.” He was a chief. The Crows and Shoshoni shot him at long range, and the pistol with which he was armed was of no service to him.

Fig. 428, 1871-’72.--“Gray-Bear-died winter.” He died of the bellyache.

Fig. 429, 1872-’73.--“Issue-year winter.” A blanket is shown near the tipi. A blanket is often used as the symbol for issue of goods by the United States Government.

Fig. 430, 1873-’74.--“Measles-and-sickness-used-up-the-people winter.”

Fig. 431, 1874-’75.--“Utes-stole-horses winter.” They stole five hundred horses. The Utes are called “black men,” hence the man in the figure is represented as black. He is throwing his lariat in the direction of the hoof prints.

Fig. 432, 1875-’76.--“Bull-Head-made-a-commemoration-of-the-dead winter.”

Fig. 433, 1876-’77.--“Female-Elk-Walks-Crying-died winter.” For some explanation of this figure see Lone Dog’s Winter Count for 1860-’61.

Fig. 434, 1877-’78.--“Crazy-Horse-came-to-make-peace-and-was-killed-with-his- hands-stretched-out winter.” This refers to the well-known killing of the chief Crazy-Horse while a prisoner.

Fig. 435, 1878-’79.--“Brought-the-Cheyennes-back-and-killed-them-in-the-house winter.” The Cheyennes are shown in prison surrounded by blood stains, and with guns pointing toward them. The Cheyennes referred to are those who left the Indian Territory in 1878 and made such a determined effort to reach their people in the north, and who, after committing many atrocities, were captured and taken to Fort Robinson, Nebraska. They broke from the house in which they were confined and attempted to escape January 9, 1879. Many of them were killed; it was reported at the time among the Dakotas that they were massacred in their prison by the troops.

Fig. 436, 1879-’80.--“Sent-the-boys-and-girls-to-school winter.” A boy with a pen in his hand is represented in the picture.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

IX. MNEMONIC…

Cite this passage

MLA

APA

Chicago

IX. MNEMONIC

X. CHRONOLOGY