Pictographs of the North American Indians. A preliminary paper - Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the - Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1882-83, - Government Printing Office, Washington, 1886, pages 3-256

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Title: Pictographs of the North American Indians. A preliminary paper - Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the - Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1882-83, - Government Printing Office, Washington, 1886, pages 3-256
Author: Mallery, Garrick
Language: English
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Transcriber's Note

Italics are indicated by _underscores_, and superscript by caret signs,
e. g. Oheno^npa, 38^{mm}. Individual letters in square brackets were
inverted in the printed text.

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION--BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.

PICTOGRAPHS
OF THE
NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.

A PRELIMINARY PAPER.

BY
GARRICK MALLERY.

CONTENTS.

Page.
List of illustrations 7

Introductory 13

Distribution of petroglyphs in North America 19
Northeastern rock-carvings 19
Rock-carvings in Pennsylvania 20
in Ohio 21
in West Virginia 22
in the Southern States 22
in Iowa 23
in Minnesota 23
in Wyoming and Idaho 24
in Nevada 24
in Oregon and Washington Territory 25
in Utah 26
in Colorado 27
in New Mexico 28
in Arizona 28
in California 30
in Colored pictographs on rocks 33

Foreign petroglyphs 38
Petroglyphs in South America 38
in British Guiana 40
in Brazil 44
Pictographs in Peru 45

Objects represented in pictographs 46

Instruments used in pictography 48
Instruments for carving 48
for drawing 48
for painting 48
for tattooing 49

Colors and methods of application 50
In the United States 50
In British Guiana 53
Significance of colors 53

Materials upon which pictographs are made 58
Natural objects 58
Bone 59
Living tree 59
Wood 59
Bark 59
Skins 60
Feathers 60
Gourds 60
Horse-hair 60
Shells, including wampum 60
Earth and sand 60

The human person 61
Paint on the human person 61
Tattooing 63
Tattoo marks of the Haida Indians 66
Tattooing in the Pacific Islands 73
Artificial objects 78

Mnemonic 79
The quipu of the Peruvians 79
Notched sticks 81
Order of songs 82
Traditions 84
Treaties 86
War 87
Time 88
The Dakota Winter Counts 89
The Corbusier Winter Counts 127

Notification 147
Notice of departure and direction 147
condition 152
Warning and guidance 155
Charts of geographic features 157
Claim or demand 159
Messages and communications 160
Record of expedition 164

Totemic 165
Tribal designations 165
Gentile or clan designations 167
Personal designations 168
Insignia or tokens of authority 168
Personal name 169
An Ogalala roster 174
Red-Cloud’s census 176
Property marks 182
Status of the individual 183
Signs of particular achievements 183

Religious 188
Mythic personages 188
Shamanism 190
Dances and ceremonies 194
Mortuary practices 197
Grave-posts 198
Charms and fetiches 201

Customs 203
Associations 203
Daily life and habits 205

Tribal history 207

Biographic 208
Continuous record of events in life 208
Particular exploits and events 214

Ideographs 219
Abstract ideas 219
Symbolism 221

Identification of the pictographers 224
General style or type 225
Presence of characteristic objects 230

Modes of interpretation 233
Homomorphs and symmorphs 239

Conventionalizing 244

Errors and frauds 247

Suggestions to collaborators 254

ILLUSTRATIONS.

PLATE Page.

I.--Colored pictographs in Santa Barbara County, California 34
II.--Colored pictographs in Santa Barbara County, California 35
III.--New Zealand tattooed heads 76
IV.--Ojibwa Meda song 82
V.--Penn wampum belt 87
VI.--Winter count on buffalo robe 89
VII.--Dakota winter counts: for 1786-’87 to 1792-’93 100
VIII.--Dakota winter counts: for 1793-’94 to 1799-1800 101
IX.--Dakota winter counts: for 1800-’01 to 1802-’03 103
X.--Dakota winter counts: for 1803-’04 to 1805-’06 104
XI.--Dakota winter counts: for 1806-’07 to 1808-’09 105
XII.--Dakota winter counts: for 1809-’10 to 1811-’12 106
XIII.--Dakota winter counts: for 1812-’13 to 1814-’15 108
XIV.--Dakota winter counts: for 1815-’16 to 1817-’18 109
XV.--Dakota winter counts: for 1818-’19 to 1820-’21 110
XVI.--Dakota winter counts: for 1821-’22 to 1823-’24 111
XVII.--Dakota winter counts: for 1824-’25 to 1826-’27 113
XVIII.--Dakota winter counts: for 1827-’28 to 1829-’30 114
XIX.--Dakota winter counts: for 1830-’31 to 1832-’33 115
XX.--Dakota winter counts: for 1833-’34 to 1835-’36 116
XXI.--Dakota winter counts: for 1836-’37 to 1838-’39 117
XXII.--Dakota winter counts: for 1839-’40 to 1841-’42 117
XXIII.--Dakota winter counts: for 1842-’43 to 1844-’45 118
XXIV.--Dakota winter counts: for 1845-’46 to 1847-’48 119
XXV.--Dakota winter counts: for 1848-’49 to 1850-’51 120
XXVI.--Dakota winter counts: for 1851-’52 to 1853-’54 120
XXVII.--Dakota winter counts: for 1854-’55 to 1856-’57 121
XXVIII.--Dakota winter counts: for 1857-’58 to 1859-’60 122
XXIX.--Dakota winter counts: for 1860-’61 to 1862-’63 123
XXX.--Dakota winter counts: for 1863-’64 to 1865-’66 124
XXXI.--Dakota winter counts: for 1866-’67 to 1868-’69 125
XXXII.--Dakota winter counts: for 1869-’70 to 1870-’71 126
XXXIII.--Dakota winter counts: for 1871-’72 to 1876-’77 127
XXXIV.--Corbusier winter counts: for 1775-’76 to 1780-’81 130
XXXV.--Corbusier winter counts: for 1781-’82 to 1786-’87 131
XXXVI.--Corbusier winter counts: for 1787-’88 to 1792-’93 132
XXXVII.--Corbusier winter counts: for 1793-’94 to 1798-’99 133
XXXVIII.--Corbusier winter counts: for 1799-1800 to 1804-’05 134
XXXIX.--Corbusier winter counts: for 1805-’06 to 1810-’11 134
XL.--Corbusier winter counts: for 1811-’12 to 1816-’17 135
XLI.--Corbusier winter counts: for 1817-’18 to 1822-’23 136
XLII.--Corbusier winter counts: for 1823-’24 to 1828-’29 137
XLIII.--Corbusier winter counts: for 1829-’30 to 1834-’35 138
XLIV.--Corbusier winter counts: for 1835-’36 to 1840-’41 139
XLV.--Corbusier winter counts: for 1841-’42 to 1846-’47 140
XLVI.--Corbusier winter counts: for 1847-’48 to 1852-’53 142
XLVII.--Corbusier winter counts: for 1853-’54 to 1858-’59 143
XLVIII.--Corbusier winter counts: for 1859-’60 to 1864-’65 143
XLIX.--Corbusier winter counts: for 1865-’66 to 1870-’71 144
L.--Corbusier winter counts: for 1871-’72 to 1876-’77 145
LI.--Corbusier winter counts: for 1877-’78 to 1878-’79 146
LII.--An Ogalala roster: Big-Road and band 174
LIII.--An Ogalala roster: Low-Dog and band 174
LIV.--An Ogalala roster: The Bear Spares-him and band 174
LV.--An Ogalala roster: Has a War-club and band 174
LVI.--An Ogalala roster: Wall-Dog and band 174
LVII.--An Ogalala roster: Iron-Crow and band 174
LVIII.--An Ogalala roster: Little-Hawk and band 174
LIX.--Red-Cloud’s census: Red-Cloud’s band 176
LX.--Red-Cloud’s census: Red-Cloud’s band 176
LXI.--Red-Cloud’s census: Red-Cloud’s band 176
LXII.--Red-Cloud’s census: Red-Cloud’s band 176
LXIII.--Red-Cloud’s census: Red-Cloud’s band 176
LXIV.--Red-Cloud’s census: Red-Cloud’s band 176
LXV.--Red-Cloud’s census: Red-Cloud’s band 176
LXVI.--Red-Cloud’s census: Red-Cloud’s band 176
LXVII.--Red-Cloud’s census: Red-Shirt’s band 176
LXVIII.--Red-Cloud’s census: Red-Shirt’s band 176
LXIX.--Red-Cloud’s census: Red-Shirt’s band 176
LXX.--Red-Cloud’s census: Black-Deer’s band 176
LXXI.--Red-Cloud’s census: Black-Deer’s band 176
LXXII.--Red-Cloud’s census: Black-Deer’s band 176
LXXIII.--Red-Cloud’s census: Red-Hawk’s band 176
LXXIV.--Red-Cloud’s census: Red-Hawk’s hand 176
LXXV.--Red-Cloud’s census: High-Wolf’s band 176
LXXVI.--Red-Cloud’s census: High-Wolf’s band 176
LXXVII.--Red-Cloud’s census: Gun’s band 176
LXXVIII.--Red-Cloud’s census: Gun’s band 176
LXXIX.--Red-Cloud’s census: Second Black-Deer’s band 176
LXXX.--Rock Painting in Azuza Cañon, California 156
LXXXI.--Moki masks etched on rocks. Arizona 194
LXXXII.--Buffalo-head monument 195
LXXXIII.--Ojibwa grave-posts 199

FIGURE 1.--Petroglyphs at Oakley Springs, Arizona 30
2.--Deep carvings in Guiana 42
3.--Shallow carvings in Guiana 43
4.--Rock etchings at Oakley Springs, Arizona: Beaver 47
5.--Rock etchings at Oakley Springs, Arizona: Bear 47
6.--Rock etchings at Oakley Springs, Arizona: Mountain sheep 47
7.--Rock etchings at Oakley Springs, Arizona: Three Wolf heads 47
8.--Rock etchings at Oakley Springs, Arizona: Three Jackass rabbits 47
9.--Rock etchings at Oakley Springs, Arizona: Cotton-tail rabbit 47
10.--Rock etchings at Oakley Springs, Arizona: Bear tracks 47
11.--Rock etchings at Oakley Springs, Arizona: Eagle 47
12.--Rock etchings at Oakley Springs, Arizona: Eagle tails 47
13.--Rock etchings at Oakley Springs, Arizona: Turkey tail 47
14.--Rock etchings at Oakley Springs, Arizona: Horned toads 47
15.--Rock etchings at Oakley Springs, Arizona: Lizards 47
16.--Rock etchings at Oakley Springs, Arizona: Butterfly 47
17.--Rock etchings at Oakley Springs, Arizona: Snakes 47
18.--Rock etchings at Oakley Springs, Arizona: Rattlesnake 47
19.--Rock etchings at Oakley Springs, Arizona: Deer track 47
20.--Rock etchings at Oakley Springs, Arizona: Three Bird tracks 47
21.--Rock etchings at Oakley Springs, Arizona: Bitterns 47
22.--Bronze head from the necropolis of Marzabotto, Italy 62
23.--Fragment of bowl from Troja 63
24.--Haida totem post, Queen Charlotte’s Island 68
25.--Haida man, tattooed 69
26.--Haida woman, tattooed 69
27.--Haida woman, tattooed 70
28.--Haida man, tattooed 70
29.--Skulpin (right leg of Fig. 26) 71
30.--Frog (left leg of Fig. 26) 71
31.--Cod (breast of Fig. 25) 71
32.--Squid (Octopus), (thighs of Fig. 25) 71
33.--Wolf, enlarged (back of Fig. 28) 71
34.--Tattoo designs on bone, from New Zealand 74
35.--New Zealand tattooed head and chin mark 75
36.--New Zealand tattooed woman 75
37.--Australian grave and carved trees 76
38.--Osage chart 86
39.--Device denoting succession of time. Dakota 88
40.--Device denoting succession of time. Dakota 89
41.--Measles or Smallpox. Dakota 110
42.--Meteor. Dakota 111
43.--River freshet. Dakota 113
44.--Meteoric shower. Dakota 116
45.--The-Teal-broke-his-leg. Dakota 119
46.--Magic Arrow. Dakota 141
47.--Notice of hunt. Alaska 147
48.--Notice of departure. Alaska 148
49.--Notice of hunt. Alaska 149
50.--Notice of direction. Alaska 149
51.--Notice of direction. Alaska 150
52.--Notice of direction. Alaska 150
53.--Notice of distress. Alaska 152
54.--Notice of departure and refuge. Alaska 152
55.--Notice of departure to relieve distress. Alaska 153
56.--Ammunition wanted. Alaska 154
57.--Assistance wanted in hunt. Alaska 154
58.--Starving hunters. Alaska 154
59.--Starving hunters. Alaska 155
60.--Lean Wolf’s map. Hidatsa 158
61.--Letter to “Little-man” from his father. Cheyenne 160
62.--Drawing of smoke signal. Alaska 161
63.--Tesuque Diplomatic Packet 162
64.--Tesuque Diplomatic Packet 162
65.--Tesuque Diplomatic Packet 162
66.--Tesuque Diplomatic Packet 163
67.--Tesuque Diplomatic Packet 163
68.--Dakota pictograph: for Kaiowa 165
69.--Dakota pictograph: for Arikara 166
70.--Dakota pictograph: for Omaha 166
71.--Dakota pictograph: for Pawnee 166
72.--Dakota pictograph: for Assiniboine 166
73.--Dakota pictograph: for Gros Ventre 166
74.--Lean-Wolf as “Partisan” 168
75.--Two-Strike as “Partisan” 169
76.--Lean-Wolf (personal name) 172
77.--Pointer. Dakota 172
78.--Shadow. Dakota 173
79.--Loud-Talker. Dakota 173
80.--Boat Paddle. Arikara 182
81.--African property mark 182
82.--Hidatsa feather marks: First to strike enemy 184
83.--Hidatsa feather marks: Second to strike enemy 184
84.--Hidatsa feather marks: Third to strike enemy 184
85.--Hidatsa feather marks: Fourth to strike enemy 184
86.--Hidatsa feather marks: Wounded by an enemy 184
87.--Hidatsa feather marks: Killed a woman 184
88.--Dakota feather marks: Killed an enemy 185
89.--Dakota feather marks: Cut throat and scalped 185
90.--Dakota feather marks: Cut enemy’s throat 185
91.--Dakota feather marks: Third to strike 185
92.--Dakota feather marks: Fourth to strike 185
93.--Dakota feather marks: Fifth to strike 185
94.--Dakota feather marks: Many wounds 185
95.--Successful defense. Hidatsa, etc. 186
96.--Two successful defenses. Hidatsa, etc. 186
97.--Captured a horse. Hidatsa, etc. 186
98.--First to strike an enemy. Hidatsa 187
99.--Second to strike an enemy. Hidatsa 187
100.--Third to strike an enemy. Hidatsa 187
101.--Fourth to strike an enemy. Hidatsa 187
102.--Fifth to strike an enemy. Arikara 187
103.--Struck four enemies. Hidatsa 187
104.--Thunder bird. Dakota 188
105.--Thunder bird. Dakota 188
106.--Thunder bird (wingless). Dakota 189
107.--Thunder bird (in beads). Dakota 189
108.--Thunder bird. Haida 190
109.--Thunder bird. Twana 190
110.--Ivory record, Shaman exorcising demon. Alaska 191
111.--Ivory record, Supplication for success. Alaska 192
111_a_.--Shaman’s Lodge. Alaska 196
112.--Alaska votive offering 197
113.--Alaska grave-post 198
114.--Alaska grave-post 199
115.--Alaska village and burial grounds 199
116.--New Zealand grave effigy 200
117.--New Zealand grave-post 201
118.--New Zealand house posts 201
119.--Mdewakantawan fetich 202
120.--Ottawa pipe-stem 204
121.--Walrus hunter. Alaska 205
122.--Alaska carving with records 205
123.--Origin of Brulé. Dakota 207
124.--Running Antelope: Killed one Arikara 208
125.--Running Antelope: Shot and scalped an Arikara 209
126.--Running Antelope: Shot an Arikara 209
127.--Running Antelope: Killed two warriors 210
128.--Running Antelope: Killed ten men and three women 210
129.--Running Antelope: Killed two chiefs 211
130.--Running Antelope: Killed one Arikara 211
131.--Running Antelope: Killed one Arikara 212
132.--Running Antelope: Killed two Arikara hunters 212
133.--Running Antelope: Killed five Arikara 213
134.--Running Antelope: Killed an Arikara 213
135.--Record of hunt. Alaska 214
136.--Shoshoni horse raid 215
137.--Drawing on buffalo shoulder-blade. Camanche 216
138.--Cross-Bear’s death 217
139.--Bark record from Red Lake, Minnesota 218
140.--Sign for pipe. Dakota 219
141.--Plenty buffalo meat. Dakota 219
142.--Plenty buffalo meat. Dakota 220
143.--Pictograph for Trade. Dakota 220
144.--Starvation. Dakota 220
145.--Starvation. Ottawa and Pottawatomi 221
146.--Pain. Died of “Whistle.” Dakota 221
147.--Example of Algonkian petroglyphs, from Millsborough,
Pennsylvania 224
148.--Example of Algonkian petroglyphs, from Hamilton Farm,
West Virginia 225
149.--Example of Algonkian petroglyphs, from Safe Harbor,
Pennsylvania 226
150.--Example of Western Algonkian petroglyphs, from Wyoming 227
151.--Example of Shoshonian petroglyphs, from Idaho 228
152.--Example of Shoshonian petroglyphs, from Idaho 229
153.--Example of Shoshonian petroglyphs, from Utah 230
154.--Example of Shoshonian rock painting, from Utah 230
155.--Rock painting, from Tule River, California 235
156.--Sacred inclosure from Arizona. Moki 237
157.--Ceremonial head-dress. Moki 237
158.--Houses. Moki 237
159.--Burden-sticks. Moki 238
160.--Arrows. Moki 238
161.--Blossoms. Moki 238
162.--Lightning. Moki 238
163.--Clouds. Moki 238
164.--Clouds with rain. Moki 238
165.--Stars, Moki 238
166.--Sun. Moki 239
167.--Sunrise. Moki, 239
168.--Drawing of Dakota lodges, by Hidatsa 240
169.--Drawing of earth lodges, by Hidatsa 240
170.--Drawing of white man’s house, by Hidatsa 240
171.--Hidatsati, the home of the Hidatsa 240
172.--Horses and man. Arikara 240
173.--Dead man. Arikara 240
174.--Second to strike enemy. Hidatsa 240
175.--Third to strike enemy. Hidatsa 240
176.--Scalp taken. Hidatsa 240
177.--Enemy struck and gun captured. Hidatsa 240
178.--Mendota drawing. Dakota 241
179.--Symbol of war. Dakota 241
180.--Captives. Dakota 242
181.--Circle of men. Dakota 242
182.--Shooting from river banks. Dakota 242
183.--Panther. Haida 242
184.--Wolf head. Haida 243
185.--Drawings on an African knife 243
186.--Conventional characters: Men. Arikara 244
187.--Conventional characters: Man. Innuit 244
188.--Conventional characters: Dead man. Satsika 244
189.--Conventional characters: Man addressed. Innuit 244
190.--Conventional characters: Man. Innuit 244
191.--Conventional characters: Man. From Tule River, California 244
192.--Conventional characters: Man. From Tule River, California 244
193.--Conventional characters: Disabled man. Ojibwa 244
194.--Conventional characters: Shaman. Innuit 245
195.--Conventional characters: Supplication. Innuit 245
196.--Conventional characters: Man. Ojibwa 245
197.--Conventional characters: Spiritually enlightened man. Ojibwa 245
198.--Conventional characters: A wabeno. Ojibwa 245
199.--Conventional characters: An evil Meda. Ojibwa 245
200.--Conventional characters: A Meda. Ojibwa 245
201.--Conventional characters: Man. Hidatsa 245
202.--Conventional characters: Headless body. Ojibwa 245
203.--Conventional characters: Headless body. Ojibwa 245
204.--Conventional characters: Man. Moki 245
205.--Conventional characters: Man. From Siberia 245
206.--Conventional characters: Superior knowledge. Ojibwa 246
207.--Conventional characters: An American. Ojibwa 246
208.--Specimen of imitated pictograph 249
209.--Symbols of cross 252

ON THE PICTOGRAPHS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.

BY GARRICK MALLERY.

INTRODUCTORY.

A pictograph is a writing by picture. It conveys and records an idea or
occurrence by graphic means without the use of words or letters. The
execution of the pictures of which it is composed often exhibits the
first crude efforts of graphic art, and their study in that relation
is of value. When pictures are employed as writing the conception
intended to be presented is generally analyzed, and only its most
essential points are indicated, with the result that the characters
when frequently repeated become conventional, and in their later forms
cease to be recognizable as objective portraitures. This exhibition of
conventionalizing also has its own import in the history of art.

Pictographs are considered in the present paper chiefly in reference to
their significance as one form of thought-writing directly addressed
to the sight, gesture-language being the other and probably earlier
form. So far as they are true ideographs they are the permanent,
direct, visible expression of ideas of which gesture-language gives the
transient expression. When adopted for syllabaries or alphabets, which
is known to be the historical course of evolution in that regard, they
have ceased to be the direct and have become the indirect expression
of the ideas framed in oral speech. The writing common in civilization
records sounds directly, not primarily thoughts, the latter having
first been translated into sounds. The trace of pictographs in the
latter use shows the earlier and predominant conceptions.

The importance of the study of pictographs depends upon their
examination as a phase in the evolution of human culture, or as
containing valuable information to be ascertained by interpretation.

The invention of alphabetic writing being by general admission the
great step marking the change from barbarism into civilization, the
history of its earlier development must be valuable. It is inferred
from internal evidence that picture-writing preceded and originated
the graphic systems of Egypt, Nineveh, and China, but in North America
its use is still modern and current. It can be studied there, without
any requirement of inference or hypothesis, in actual existence as
applied to records and communications. Furthermore, its transition
into signs of sound is apparent in the Aztec and the Maya characters,
in which stage it was only arrested by foreign conquest. The earliest
lessons of the birth and growth of culture in this most important
branch of investigation can therefore be best learned from the Western
Hemisphere. In this connection it may be noticed that picture-writing
is found in sustained vigor on the same continent where sign-language
has prevailed or continued in active operation to an extent unknown in
other parts of the world. These modes of expression, _i. e._, transient
and permanent idea-writing, are so correlated in their origin and
development that neither can be studied with advantage to the exclusion
of the other.

The limits assigned to this paper allow only of its comprehending the
Indians north of Mexico, except as the pictographs of other peoples
are introduced for comparison. Among these no discovery has yet
been made of any of the several devices, such as the rebus, or the
initial, adopted elsewhere, by which the element of sound apart from
significance has been introduced.

The first stage of picture-writing as recognized among the Egyptians
was the representation of a material object in such style or connection
as determined it not to be a mere portraiture of that object, but
figurative of some other object or person. This stage is abundantly
exhibited among the Indians. Indeed, their personal and tribal names
thus objectively represented constitute the largest part of their
picture-writing so far thoroughly understood.

The second step gained by the Egyptians was when the picture became
used as a symbol of some quality or characteristic. It can be readily
seen how a hawk with bright eye and lofty flight might be selected as
a symbol of divinity and royalty, and that the crocodile should denote
darkness, while a slightly further step in metaphysical symbolism made
the ostrich feather, from the equality of its filaments, typical of
truth. It is evident from examples given in the present paper that
the North American tribes at the time of the Columbian discovery had
entered upon this second step of picture-writing, though with marked
inequality between tribes and regions in advance therein. None of them
appear to have reached such proficiency in the expression of connected
ideas by picture as is shown in the sign-language existing among some
of them, in which even conjunctions and prepositions are indicated.
Still many truly ideographic pictures are known.

A consideration relative to the antiquity of mystic symbolism, and its
position in the several culture-periods, arises in this connection.
It appears to have been an outgrowth of human thought, perhaps in the
nature of an excrescence, useful for a time, but abandoned after a
certain stage of advancement.

A criticism has been made on the whole subject of pictography by Dr.
Richard Andree, who, in his work, Ethnographische Parallelen und
Vergleiche, Stuttgart, 1878, has described and figured a large number
of examples of petroglyphs, a name given by him to rock-drawings
and adopted by the present writer. His view appears to be that these
figures are frequently the idle marks which, among civilized people,
boys or ignorant persons cut with their pen-knives on the desks and
walls of school-rooms, or scrawl on the walls of lanes and retired
places. From this criticism, however, Dr. Andree carefully excludes the
pictographs of the North American Indians, his conclusion being that
those found in other parts of the world generally occupy a transition
stage lower than that conceded for the Indians. It is possible that
significance may yet be ascertained in many of the characters found in
other regions, and perhaps this may be aided by the study of those in
North America; but no doubt should exist that the latter have purpose
and meaning. Any attempt at the relegation of such pictographs as are
described in the present paper, and have been the subject of the study
of the present writer, to any trivial origin can be met by a thorough
knowledge of the labor and pains which were necessary in the production
of some of the petroglyphs described.

All criticism in question with regard to the actual significance of
North American pictographs is still better met by their practical use
by historic Indians for important purposes, as important to them as
the art of writing, of which the present paper presents a large number
of conclusive examples. It is also known that when they now make
pictographs it is generally done with intention and significance.

Even when this work is undertaken to supply the demand for painted
robes as articles of trade it is a serious manufacture, though
sometimes imitative in character and not intrinsically significant.
All other instances known in which pictures are made without original
design, as indicated under the several classifications of this paper,
are when they are purely ornamental; but in such cases they are often
elaborate and artistic, never the idle scrawls above mentioned. A main
object of this paper is to call attention to the subject in other parts
of the world, and to ascertain whether the practice of pictography
does not still exist in some corresponding manner beyond what is now
published.

A general deduction made after several years of study of pictographs of
all kinds found among the North American Indians is that they exhibit
very little trace of mysticism or of esotericism in any form. They
are objective representations, and cannot be treated as ciphers or
cryptographs in any attempt at their interpretation. A knowledge of
the customs, costumes, including arrangement of hair, paint, and all
tribal designations, and of their histories and traditions is essential
to the understanding of their drawings, for which reason some of those
particulars known to have influenced pictography are set forth in this
paper, and others are suggested which possibly had a similar influence.

Comparatively few of their picture signs have become merely
conventional. A still smaller proportion are either symbolical or
emblematic, but some of these are noted. By far the larger part of them
are merely mnemonic records and are treated of in connection with
material objects formerly and, perhaps, still used mnemonically.

It is believed that the interpretation of the ancient forms is to be
obtained, if at all, not by the discovery of any hermeneutic key, but
by an understanding of the modern forms, some of which fortunately
can be interpreted by living men; and when this is not the case
the more recent forms can be made intelligible at least in part by
thorough knowledge of the historic tribes, including their sociology,
philosophy, and arts, such as is now becoming acquired, and of their
sign-language.

It is not believed that any considerable information of value in
an historical point of view will be obtained directly from the
interpretation of the pictographs in North America. The only pictures
which can be of great antiquity are rock-carvings and those in shell or
similar substances resisting the action of time, which have been or may
be found in mounds. The greater part of those already known are simply
peckings, etchings, or paintings delineating natural objects, very
often animals, and illustrate the beginning of pictorial art. It is,
however, probable that others were intended to commemorate events or to
represent ideas entertained by their authors, but the events which to
them were of moment are of little importance as history. They referred
generally to some insignificant fight or some season of plenty or of
famine, or to other circumstances the evident consequence of which has
long ceased.

While, however, it is not supposed that old inscriptions exist directly
recording substantively important events, it is hoped that some
materials for history can be gathered from the characters in a manner
similar to the triumph of comparative philology in resurrecting the
life-history and culture of the ancient Aryans. The significance of the
characters being granted, they exhibit what chiefly interested their
authors, and those particulars may be of anthropologic consequence.
The study has so far advanced that, independent of the significance
of individual characters, several distinct types of execution are
noted which may be expected to disclose data regarding priscan habitat
and migration. In this connection it may be mentioned that recent
discoveries render it probable that some of the pictographs were
intended as guide-marks to point out trails, springs, and fords, and
some others are supposed to indicate at least the locality of mounds
and graves, and possibly to record specific statements concerning
them. A comparison of typical forms may also usefully be made with the
objects of art now exhumed in large numbers from the mounds.

Ample evidence exists that many of the pictographs, both ancient and
modern, are connected with the mythology and religious practices of
their makers. The interpretations obtained during the present year of
some of those among the Moki, Zuñi, and Navajo, throw new and strong
light on this subject. It is regretted that the most valuable and novel
part of this information cannot be included in the present paper, as
it is in the possession of the Bureau of Ethnology in a shape not yet
arranged for publication, or forms part of the forthcoming volume of
the Transactions of the Anthropological Society of Washington, which
may not be anticipated.

The following general remarks of Schoolcraft, Vol. I, p. 351, are of
some value, though they apply with any accuracy only to the Ojibwa and
are tinctured with a fondness for the mysterious:

For their pictographic devices the North American Indians have two
terms, namely, _Kekeewin_, or such things as are generally understood
by the tribe; and _Kekeenowin_, or teachings of the _medas_ or
priests, _jossakeeds_ or prophets. The knowledge of the latter is
chiefly confined to persons who are versed in their system of magic
medicine, or their religion, and may be deemed hieratic. The former
consists of the common figurative signs, such as are employed at
places of sepulture, or by hunting or traveling parties. It is also
employed in the _muzzinábiks_, or rock-writings. Many of the figures
are common to both, and are seen in the drawings generally; but it
is to be understood that this results from the figure-alphabet being
precisely the same in both, while the devices of the nugamoons, or
medicine, wabino, hunting, and war songs, are known solely to the
initiates who have learned them, and who always pay high to the
native professors for this knowledge.

It must, however, be admitted, as above suggested, that many of the
pictographs found are not of the historic or mythologic significance
once supposed. For instance, the examination of the rock carvings in
several parts of the country has shown that some of them were mere
records of the visits of individuals to important springs or to fords
on regularly established trails. In this respect there seems to have
been, in the intention of the Indians, very much the same spirit as
induces the civilized man to record his initials upon objects in the
neighborhood of places of general resort. At Oakley Springs, Arizona
Territory, totemic marks have been found, evidently made by the
same individual at successive visits, showing that on the number of
occasions indicated he had passed by those springs, probably camping
there, and such record was the habit of the neighboring Indians at that
time. The same repetition of totemic names has been found in great
numbers in the pipestone quarries of Dakota, and also at some old
fords in West Virginia. But these totemic marks are so designed and
executed as to have intrinsic significance and value, wholly different
in this respect from vulgar names in alphabetic form. It should also
be remembered that mere _graffiti_ are recognized as of value by the
historian, the anthropologist, and the artist.

One very marked peculiarity of the drawings of the Indians is that
within each particular system, such as may be called a tribal system,
of pictography, every Indian draws in precisely the same manner. The
figures of a man, of a horse, and of every other object delineated, are
made by every one who attempts to make any such figure with all the
identity of which their mechanical skill is capable, thus showing their
conception and motive to be the same.

The intention of the present work is not to present at this time a
view of the whole subject of pictography, though the writer has been
preparing materials with a reference to that more ambitious project.
The paper is limited to the presentation of the most important known
pictographs of the North American Indians, with such classification
as has been found convenient to the writer, and, for that reason, may
be so to collaborators. The scheme of the paper has been to give very
simply one or more examples, with illustrations, in connection with
each one of the headings or titles of the classifications designated.
This plan has involved a considerable amount of cross reference,
because, in many cases, a character, or a group of characters, could be
considered with reference to a number of noticeable characteristics,
and it was a question of choice under which one of the headings
it should be presented, involving reference to it from the other
divisions of the paper. An amount of space disproportionate to the
mere subdivision of Time under the class of Mnemonics, is occupied by
the Dakota Winter Counts, but it is not believed that any apology is
necessary for their full presentation, as they not only exhibit the
device mentioned in reference to their use as calendars, but furnish a
repertory for all points connected with the graphic portrayal of ideas.

Attention is invited to the employment of the heraldic scheme of
designating colors by lines, dots, etc., in those instances in the
illustrations where color appeared to have significance, while it was
not practicable to produce the coloration of the originals. In many
cases, however, the figures are too minute to permit the successful use
of that scheme, and the text must be referred to for explanation.

Thanks are due and rendered for valuable assistance to correspondents
and especially to officers of the Bureau of Ethnology and the United
States Geological Survey, whose names are generally mentioned in
connection with their several contributions. Acknowledgment is
also made now and throughout the paper to Dr. W. J. Hoffman who
has officially assisted the present writer during several years by
researches in the field, and by drawing nearly all the illustrations
presented.

DISTRIBUTION OF PETROGLYPHS IN NORTH AMERICA.

Etchings or paintings on rocks in North America are distributed
generally.

They are found throughout the extent of the continent, on bowlders
formed by the sea waves or polished by ice of the glacial epoch; on the
faces of rock ledges adjoining streams; on the high walls of cañons
and cliffs; on the sides and roofs of caves; in short, wherever smooth
surfaces of rock appear. Drawings have also been discovered on stones
deposited in mounds and caves. Yet while these records are so frequent,
there are localities to be distinguished in which they are especially
abundant and noticeable. Also they differ markedly in character of
execution and apparent subject-matter.

An obvious division can be made between characters etched or pecked and
those painted without incision. This division in execution coincides to
a certain extent with geographic areas. So far as ascertained, painted
characters prevail perhaps exclusively throughout Southern California,
west and southwest of the Sierra Nevada. Pictures, either painted or
incised, are found in perhaps equal frequency in the area extending
eastward from the Colorado River to Georgia, northward into West
Virginia, and in general along the course of the Mississippi River. In
some cases the glyphs are both incised and painted. The remaining parts
of the United States show rock-etchings almost exclusive of paintings.

It is proposed with the accumulation of information to portray the
localities of these records upon a chart accompanied by a full
descriptive text. In such chart will be designated their relative
frequency, size, height, position, color, age, and other particulars
regarded as important. With such chart and list the classification and
determination now merely indicated may become thorough.

In the present paper a few only of the more important localities will
be mentioned; generally those which are referred to under several
appropriate heads in various parts of the paper. Notices of some of
these have been published; but many of them are publicly mentioned for
the first time in this paper, knowledge respecting them having been
obtained by the personal researches of the officers of the Bureau of
Ethnology, or by their correspondents.

NORTHEASTERN ROCK CARVINGS.

A large number of known and described pictographs on rocks occur
in that portion of the United States and Canada at one time in the
possession of the several tribes constituting the Algonkian linguistic
stock. This is particularly noticeable throughout the country of the
great lakes, and the Northern, Middle, and New England States.

The voluminous discussion upon the Dighton Rock, Massachusetts,
inscription, renders it impossible wholly to neglect it.

The following description, taken from Schoolcraft’s History, Condition,
and Prospect of the Indian Tribes of the United States, Vol. IV, p.
119, which is accompanied with a plate, is, however, sufficient. It
is merely a type of Algonkin rock-carving, not so interesting as many
others:

The ancient inscription on a bowlder of greenstone rock lying in
the margin of the Assonet, or Taunton River, in the area of ancient
Vinland, was noticed by the New England colonists so early as 1680,
when Dr. Danforth made a drawing of it. This outline, together with
several subsequent copies of it, at different eras, reaching to 1830,
all differing considerably in their details, but preserving a certain
general resemblance, is presented in the Antiquatés Americanes
[_sic_] (Tab. XI, XII) and referred to the same era of Scandinavian
discovery. The imperfections of the drawings (including that executed
under the auspices of the Rhode Island Historical Society, in 1830,
Tab. XII) and the recognition of some characters bearing more or less
resemblance to antique Roman letters and figures, may be considered
to have misled Mr. Magnusen in his interpretation of it. From
whatever cause, nothing could, it would seem, have been wider from
the purport and true interpretation of it. It is of purely Indian
origin, and is executed in the peculiar symbolic character of the
Kekeewin.

ROCK CARVINGS IN PENNSYLVANIA.

Many of the rocks along the river courses in Northern and Western
Pennsylvania bear traces of carvings, though, on account of the
character of the geological formations, some of these records are
almost, if not entirely, obliterated.

Mr. P. W. Shafer published in a historical map of Pennsylvania, in
1875, several groups of pictographs. (They had before appeared in
a rude and crowded form in the Transactions of the Anthropological
Institute of New York, N. Y., 1871-’72, p. 66, Figs. 25, 26, where
the localities are mentioned as “Big” and “Little” Indian Rocks,
respectively.) One of these is situated on the Susquehanna River,
below the dam at Safe Harbor, and clearly shows its Algonkin origin.
The characters are nearly all either animals or various forms of the
human body. Birds, bird-tracks, and serpents also occur. A part of this
pictograph is presented below, Figure 149, page 226.

On the same chart a group of pictures is also given, copied from the
originals on the Allegheny River, in Venango County, 5 miles south of
Franklin. There are but six characters furnished in this instance,
three of which are variations of the human form, while the others are
undetermined.

Mr. J. Sutton Wall, of Monongahela City, describes in correspondence a
rock bearing pictographs opposite the town of Millsborough, in Fayette
County, Pennsylvania. This rock is about 390 feet above the level of
Monongahela River, and belongs to the Waynesburg stratum of sandstone.
It is detached, and rests somewhat below its true horizon. It is about
6 feet in thickness, and has vertical sides; only two figures are
carved on the sides, the inscriptions being on the top, and are now
considerably worn. Mr. Wall mentions the outlines of animals and some
other figures, formed by grooves or channels cut from an inch to a mere
trace in depth. No indications of tool marks were discovered. It is
presented below as Figure 147, page 224.

The resemblance between this record and the drawings on Dighton Rock is
to be noted, as well as that between both of them and some in Ohio.

Mr. J. Sutton Wall also contributes a group of etchings on what is
known as the “Geneva Picture Rock,” in the Monongahela Valley, near
Geneva. These are foot-prints and other characters similar to those
mentioned from Hamilton Farm, West Virginia, which are shown in Figure
148, page 225.

Schoolcraft (Vol. IV, pp. 172, 173, Pll. 17, 18), describes also,
presenting plates, a pictograph on the Allegheny River as follows:

One of the most often noticed of these inscriptions exists on the
left bank of this river [the Allegheny], about six miles below
Franklin (the ancient Venango), Pennsylvania. It is a prominent
point of rocks, around which the river deflects, rendering this
point a very conspicuous object. * The rock, which has been lodged
here in some geological convulsion, is a species of hard sandstone,
about twenty-two feet in length by fourteen in breadth. It has an
inclination to the horizon of about fifty degrees. During freshets
it is nearly overflown. The inscription is made upon the inclined
face of the rock. The present inhabitants in the country call it
the ‘Indian God.’ It is only in low stages of water that it can be
examined. Captain Eastman has succeeded, by wading into the water,
in making a perfect copy of this ancient record, rejecting from its
borders the interpolations of modern names put there by boatmen,
to whom it is known as a point of landing. The inscription itself
appears distinctly to record, in symbols, the triumphs in hunting and
war.

ROCK CARVINGS IN OHIO.

In the Final Report of the Ohio State Board of Centennial Managers,
Columbus, 1877, many localities showing rock carvings are noted. The
most important (besides those mentioned below) are as follows: Newark,
Licking County, where human hands, many varieties of bird tracks, and a
cross are noticed. Independence, Cuyahoga County, showing human hands
and feet and serpents. Amherst, Lorain County, presenting similar
objects. Wellsville, Columbiana County, where the characters are more
elaborate and varied.

Mr. James W. Ward describes in the Journal of the Anthropological
Institute of New York, Vol. I, 1871-’72, pp. 57-64, Figs. 14-22, some
sculptured rocks. They are reported as occurring near Barnesville,
Belmont County, and consist chiefly of the tracks of birds and animals.
Serpentine forms also occur, together with concentric rings. The
author also quotes Mr. William A. Adams as describing, in a letter to
Professor Silliman in 1842, some figures on the surface of a sandstone
rock, lying on the bank of the Muskingum River. These figures are
mentioned as being engraved in the rock and consist of tracks of the
turkey, and of man.

ROCK CARVINGS IN WEST VIRGINIA.

Mr. P. W. Norris, of the Bureau of Ethnology, reports that he found
numerous localities along the Kanawha River, West Virginia, bearing
pictographs. Rock etchings are numerous upon smooth rocks, covered
during high water, at the prominent fords of the river, as well as
in the niches or long shallow caves high in the rocky cliffs of this
region. Although rude representations of men, animals, and some deemed
symbolic characters were found, none were observed superior to, or
essentially differing from, those of modern Indians.

Mr. John Haywood mentions (The Natural and Aboriginal History of
Tennessee, Nashville, 1823, pp. 332, 333) rock etchings four miles
below the Burning Spring, near the mouth of Campbell’s Creek, Kanawha
County, West Virginia. These consist of forms of various animals,
as the deer, buffalo, fox, hare; of fish of various kinds; “infants
scalped and scalps alone,” and men of natural size. The rock is said to
be in the Kanawha River, near its northern shore, accessible only at
low water, and then only by boat.

On the rocky walls of Little Coal River, near the mouth of Big Horse
Creek, are cliffs upon which are many carvings. One of these measures
8 feet in length and 5 feet in height, and consists of a dense mass of
characters.

About 2 miles above Mount Pleasant, Mason County, West Virginia, on the
north side of the Kanawha River, are numbers of characters, apparently
totemic. These are at the foot of the hills flanking the river.

On the cliffs near the mouth of the Kanawha River, opposite Mount
Carbon, Nicholas County, West Virginia, are numerous pictographs. These
appear to be cut into the sandstone rock.

See also page 167 _infra_.

Rev. M. Eells says (Bull. U. S. Geol. and Geog. Survey, III, p. 75) of
the Twana Indians: A little of this tattooing is done, but much less
than formerly, and chiefly now among the children.

Blue marks tattooed upon a Mojave woman’s chin denotes that she is
married. See Pacific R. R. Exped., III, 1856, p. 33.

The only remarkable instance of tattooing now among the Hidatsa is that
of Lean-Wolf, the present second chief of the tribe. The ornamentation
consists of horizontal stripes, from one-third to one-half an inch
broad, running from the middle of the breast around the right side of
the body to the spinal column. The right arm and the right leg are
encircled by similar bands, between which there are spaces of equal
width. Lean-Wolf professed not to be able to give the origin and
history of this ornamentation, although, he represents himself with it
upon pictographs relating to personal events of warfare and the chase.

Bancroft (Native Races, Vol. I, p. 48) says of the Eskimo, that the
females tattoo lines on their chins; the plebeian female of certain
bands has one vertical line in the center and one parallel to it on
either side. The higher classes mark two vertical lines from each
corner of the mouth. On page 72 he says that young Kadiak wives tattoo
the breast and adorn the face with black lines. The Kuskoquim women
sew into their chin two parallel blue lines. This color is applied by
drawing a thread under the skin or pricking it with a needle. On page
117 he says that the Chippewyans have tattooed cheeks and foreheads.
Both sexes have blue or black bars or from one to four straight lines
to distinguish the tribe to which they belong; they tattoo by entering
an awl or needle under the skin and on drawing it out, immediately
rubbing powdered charcoal into the wounds. On page 127 he states that
on the Yukon River among the Kutchins, the men draw a black stripe down
the forehead and the nose, frequently crossing the forehead and cheeks
with red lines and streaking the chin, alternately with red and black,
and the women tattoo the chin with a black pigment.

It will be observed that these statements by Bancroft, about tattooing
among the Hyperboreans, seem to be confined to the face, except as is
mentioned among the Kadiak, where the women tattoo the breast, and that
these tattoo marks seem to be simple straight lines, either vertical or
horizontal.

* * * * *

In this place is properly inserted the following report of original
research among the Haidas on this subject, by Mr. James G. Swan, of
Port Townsend, Washington, for which the thanks of this Bureau are
tendered to him.

TATTOO MARKS OF THE HAIDA INDIANS OF QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS, B. C.,
AND THE PRINCE OF WALES ARCHIPELAGO, ALASKA.

By JAMES G. SWAN.

H. H. Bancroft, in his “Native Races, Pacific States,” Vol. I, p.
155, includes in the Haida family the nations occupying the coast and
islands from the southern extremity of Prince of Wales Archipelago to
the Bentinck Arms in about 52° N.

Their territory is bounded on the north and east by the Thlinkeet and
Carrier nations of the Hyperboreans, and on the south by the Nootka
family of the Columbians.

Its chief nations, or, more correctly speaking, bands, whose
boundaries, however, can rarely be fixed with precision, are the
Massets, Skiddegates, Cumshawas, Laskeets, and the Skringwai, of Queen
Charlotte Islands: the Kaigani, Howkan, Klemakoan, and Kazan, of Prince
of Wales Archipelago; the Chimsyans, about Fort Simpson and on Chatham
Sound; the Nass and the Skenas, on the rivers of the same name; the
Sebasses, on Pitt Archipelago and the shores of Gardiner Channel, and
the Millbank Sound Indians, including the Hailtzas, Bella Bella, Bella
Coola, etc.

Among all the tribes or bands belonging to the Haida family, the
practice of tattooing the person in some manner is common; but the
most marked are the Haidas proper, or those living on Queen Charlotte
Islands, and the Kaiganis, of Prince of Wales Archipelago, Alaska.
Of the Haida tribe, H. H. Bancroft says (Works 1882, Vol. I, p.
159), “Besides the regular lip piece, ornaments various in shape and
material, of shell, bone, wood, or metal, are worn, stuck in the lips,
nose, and ears, apparently according to the caprice or taste of the
wearer, the skin being sometimes, though more rarely, tattooed to
correspond.” The authors quoted by Bancroft for this information are
Mayne’s British Columbia, p. 282; Barrett-Lennard’s Travels, pp. 45,
46; Poole’s Queen Charlotte Islands, pp. 75-311; Dunn’s Oregon, pp.
279, 285, and Reed, who says, “The men habitually go naked, but when
they go off on a journey they wear a blanket.”

How this latter writer, presuming he speaks from personal experience,
could have seen naked Haida men without noticing tattoo marks, I cannot
understand. On page 182 of the same volume of Bancroft, footnote, is
the following: “‘The habit of tattooing the legs and arms is common to
all the women of Vancouver’s Island; the men do not adopt it.’ Grant,
in Lond. Geog. Soc. Jour., Vol. XXVII, p. 307. ‘No such practice as
tattooing exists among these natives.’ Sproat’s Scenes, p. 27.”

What Grant says applies not to the women of Vancouver’s Island, but to
those of Queen Charlotte Islands. Sproat seems to have given more of
his attention to some fancied terminal in their language, upon which
he builds his theory of the “Aht” nation, than to the observance of
their personal peculiarities. I am of the opinion, judging from my own
observation of over twenty years among the coast tribes, that but few
females can be found among the Indians, not only on Vancouver’s Island,
but all along the coast to the Columbia River, and perhaps even to
California, that are _not_ marked with some device tattooed on their
hands, arms, or ankles, either dots or straight lines; but of all the
tribes mentioned, the Haidas stand pre-eminent for tattooing, and seem
to be excelled only by the natives of the Fiji Islands or the King’s
Mills Group in the South Seas. The tattoo marks of the Haidas are
heraldic designs or the family totem, or crests of the wearers, and are
similar to the carvings depicted on the pillars and monuments around
the homes of the chiefs, which casual observers have thought were idols.

In a memoir written by me on the Haida Indians, for the Smithsonian
Institution, and published as No. 267 of Contributions to Knowledge,
I have given illustrations of various tattoo designs and heraldic
carvings in wood and stone, but did not attempt to delineate the
position or appearance of those designs upon their bodies or limbs,
although all the tattoo marks represented in that memoir were copied
by me directly from the persons of the Haidas, as stated in the
illustrations.

The publication of this memoir, with its illustrations, which I showed
to the Haidas and Kaiganis in 1875, during my cruise to Alaska in the
United States revenue steamer Wolcott, gave them confidence in me that
I had not made the drawings from idle curiosity, and in February, 1879,
I was fortunate enough to meet a party of Haida men and women in Port
Townsend, Washington, who permitted me to copy their tattoo marks again.

These designs are invariably placed on the men between the shoulders,
just below the back of the neck, on the breast, on the front part of
both thighs, and on the legs below the knee. On the women they are
marked on the breast, on both shoulders, on both fore-arms, from the
elbow, down over the back of the hands, to the knuckles, and on both
legs below the knee to the ankle.

When the Haidas visit Victoria or the towns on Puget Sound they
are dressed in the garb of white people and present a respectable
appearance, in marked contrast with the Indians from the west coast
of Vancouver’s Island, or the vicinity of Cape Flattery, who dress in
a more primitive manner, and attract notice by their more picturesque
costumes than do the Haidas, about whom there is nothing outwardly of
unusual appearance, except the tattoo marks on the hands of the women,
which show their nationality at a glance of the most careless observer.

As I before remarked, almost all of the Indian women of the northwest
coast have tattoo marks on their hands and arms, and some on the face;
but as a general thing these marks are mere dots or straight lines,
having no particular significance. With the Haidas, however, every mark
has its meaning; those on the hands and arms of the women indicate
the family name, whether they belong to the bear, beaver, wolf, or
eagle totems, or any of the family of fishes. As one of them quaintly
remarked to me, “If you were tattooed with the design of a swan, the
Indians would know your family name.”

Although it is very easy to distinguish the Haida women from those of
other tribes by seeing the tattoo marks on the backs of their hands,
yet very few white persons have cared to know the meaning of these
designs, or are aware of the extent of the tattoo marks on the persons
of both sexes.

In order to illustrate this tattooing as correctly as possible, I
inclose herewith a view (Figure 24) taken at Massett, Queen Charlotte
Island, of the carved columns in front of the chief’s residence; and
also sketches of the tattoo marks on two women and their husbands taken
by me at Port Townsend.

[Illustration: FIG. 24.--Haida Totem Post.]

It should be borne in mind that during their festivals and masquerade
performances the men are entirely naked and the women have only a
short skirt reaching from the waist to the knee; the rest of their
persons are exposed, and it is at such times that the tattoo marks show
with the best effect, and the rank and family connection known by the
variety of designs.

Like all the other coast tribes, the Haidas are careful not to permit
the intrusion of white persons or strangers to their Tomanawos
ceremonies, and as a consequence but few white people, and certainly
none of those who have ever written about those Indians, have been
present at their opening ceremonies when the tattoo marks are shown.

My information was derived from the Haidas themselves, who explained
to me while I was making the drawings, and illustrated some of the
positions assumed in their dances by both sexes.

Fig. 25 represents a man. On his breast is the cod (kahatta) split from
the head to the tail and laid open; on each thigh is the octopus (noo),
and below each knee is the frog (flkamkostan).

[Illustration: FIG. 25.--Haida man, tattooed.

FIG. 26.--Haida woman, tattooed.]

Figure 26 represents a woman. On her breast is the head with forepaws
of the beaver (tsching); on each shoulder is the head of the eagle
or thunder-bird (skamskwin); on each arm, extending to and covering
the back of the hand, is the halibut (hargo); on the right leg is the
sculpin (kull); on the left leg is the frog (flkamkostan).

Figure 27 is a woman with the bear’s head (hoorts) on her breast. On
each shoulder is the eagle’s head, and on her arms and legs are figures
of the bear.

[Illustration: FIG. 27.--Haida woman, tattooed.

FIG. 28.--Haida man, tattooed.]

Figure 28 shows the back of a man with the wolf (wasko) split in halves
and tattooed between his shoulders, which is shown enlarged in Figure
33. Wasko is a mythological being of the wolf species similar to the
chu-chu-hmexl of the Makah Indians, an antediluvian demon supposed to
live in the mountains.

[Illustration: FIG. 33.--Wolf.]

The skulpin on the right leg of the woman in Figure 26 is shown
enlarged in Figure 29; the frog on the left leg in Figure 30.

[Illustration: FIG. 29.--Skulpin.]

[Illustration: FIG. 30.--Frog.]

The codfish on the man in Figure 25 is shown enlarged in Figure 31, the
octopus or squid in Figure 32.

[Illustration: FIG. 31.--Cod.]

[Illustration: FIG 32.--Squid or octopus.]

As the Haidas, both men and women, are very light colored, some of
the latter, full blooded Indians too, having their skins as fair
as Europeans, the tattoo marks show very distinct. These sketches
are not intended as portraits of persons, but simply to illustrate
the positions of the various tattoo marks. To enter into a detailed
description would require more space and study than is convenient at
this time. Enough is given, it is hoped, to convey to you an idea of
this interesting subject, which will require much study to properly
elaborate, or understand.

This tattooing is not all done at one time nor is it every one who can
tattoo. Certain ones, almost always men, have a natural gift which
enables them to excel in this kind of work. One of the young chiefs,
named Geneskelos, was the best designer I knew, and ranked among his
tribe as a tattooer. He belonged to Laskeek village on the east side of
Moresby’s Island, one of the Queen Charlotte group. I employed him to
decorate the great canoe which I sent to the Centennial Exposition at
Philadelphia in 1876, for the National Museum. I was with him a great
deal of the time both at Victoria and Port Townsend. He had a little
sketch book in which he had traced designs for tattooing, which he gave
to me. He subsequently died in Victoria of small-pox, soon after he had
finished decorating the canoe.

He told me the plan he adopted was first to draw the design carefully
on the person with some dark pigment, then prick it in with needles and
then rub over the wound with some more coloring matter till it acquired
the proper hue. He had a variety of instruments composed of needles
tied neatly to sticks. His favorite one was a flat strip of ivory or
bone, to which he had firmly tied five or six needles, with their
points projecting beyond the end just far enough to raise the skin
without inflicting a dangerous wound, but these needle points stuck out
quite sufficiently to make the operation very painful, and although he
applied some substance to deaden the sensation of the skin, yet the
effect was on some to make them quite sick for a few days; consequently
the whole process of tattooing was not done at one time. As this
tattooing is a mark of honor, it is generally done at or just prior to
a Tomanawos performance and at the time of raising the heraldic columns
in front of the chief’s houses. The tattooing is done in open lodge and
is witnessed by the company assembled. Sometimes it takes several years
before all the tattooing is done, but when completed and the person
well ornamented, then they are happy and can take their seats among the
elders.

It is an interesting question, and one worthy of careful and patient
investigation, Why is it that the Haida Nation alone of all the coast
tribes tattoo their persons to such an extent, and how they acquire the
art of carving columns which bear such striking similarity to carving
in wood and stone by the ancient inhabitants of Central America, as
shown by drawings in Bancroft’s fourth volume of Native Races and in
Habel’s investigation in Central and South America?

Some of these idols in design, particularly on pages 40 to 58, and
notably on pages 49-50 (Bancroft, _op. cit._), are very like some small
carvings I have in Port Townsend which I received from Alaska, showing
a similarity of idea which could not be the result of an accident.

The tattoo marks, the carvings, and heraldic designs of the Haida are
an exceedingly interesting study, and I hope what I have thus hastily
and imperfectly written may be the means of awakening an interest to
have those questions scientifically discussed, for they seem to me to
point to a key which may unlock the mystery which for so many ages has
kept us from the knowledge of the origin of the Pacific tribes.

* * * * *

TATTOOING IN THE PACIFIC ISLANDS.

The following quotations and illustrations of tattooing in the islands
of the Pacific Ocean are presented for comparison, and in hopes that
the discussion of the subject may afford further information upon the
significance of tattoo marks. It is by no means probable that they were
originally altogether or chiefly for ornamentation.

The accompanying illustration, Figure 34, is taken from a bone obtained
from a mound in New Zealand, by Mr. I. C. Russell, of the United States
Geological Survey, several years ago. Mr. Russell says that the Maori
formerly tattooed the bones of enemies, though the custom now seems to
have been abandoned. The work consists of sharp, shallow lines, as if
made with a sharp-pointed steel instrument, into which some blackish
pigment has been rubbed, filling up some of the markings, while in
others scarcely a trace remains.

[Illustration: FIG. 34.--Tattoo designs on bone, New Zealand.]

In connection with the use of the tattoo marks as reproduced on
artificial objects see also, Figure 37, page 76, and Figure 116, page
200.

The following is extracted from Te Ika a Maui, or New Zealand and its
inhabitants, by Rev. Richard Taylor, London, 1870, p. 320, etc.

Before they went to fight, the youth were accustomed to mark their
countenance with charcoal in different lines, and their traditions
state that this was the beginning of the tattoo, for their wars
became so continuous, that to save the trouble of thus constantly
painting the face, they made the lines permanent by the moko; it is
however a question whether it did not arise from a different cause;
formerly the grand mass of men who went to fight were the black
slaves, and when they fought side by side with their lighter colored
masters, the latter on those occasions used charcoal to make it
appear they were all one.

Whilst the males had every part of the face tattooed, and the
thighs as well, the females had chiefly the chin and the lips,
although occasionally they also had their thighs and breasts,
with a few smaller marks on different parts of the body as well.
There were regular rules for tattooing, and the artist always
went systematically to work, beginning at one spot and gradually
proceeding to another, each particular part having its distinguishing
name. Thus,

1. _Te kawe_, which are four lines on each side of the chin.
2. _Te pukawae_, six lines on the chin.
3. _Nga rere hupe_, the lines below the nostrils, six in number.
4. _Nga kohiri_, a curved line on the cheek-bone.
5. _Nga koroaha_, lines between the cheek-bone and ear.
6. _Nga wakarakau_, lines below the former.
7. _Nga pongiangia_, the lines on each side of the lower extremity
of the nose.
8. _Nga pae tarewa_, the lines on the cheek-bone.
9. _Nga rerepi_, and _Nga ngatarewa_, lines on the bridge of the nose.
10. _Nga tiwana_, four lines on the forehead.
11. _Nga rewha_, three lines below the eyebrows.
12. _Nga titi_, lines on the center of the forehead.
13. _Ipu rangi_, lines above the former.
14. _Te tonokai_, the general names for the lines on the forehead.
15. _He ngutu pu rua_, both lips tattooed.
16. _Te rape_, the higher part of the thighs.
17. _Te paki paki_, the tattooing on the seat.
18. _Te paki turi_, the lower thigh.
19. _Nga tata_, the adjoining part.

The following are female tattoos:--

1. _Taki taki_, lines from the breast to the navel.
2. _Hope hope_, the lines on the thighs.
3. _Waka te he_, the lines on the chin.

Figure 35 is a copy of a tattooed head carved by Hongi, and also of the
tattooing on a woman’s chin, taken from the work last quoted.

[Illustration: FIG. 35.--New Zealand tattooed head and chin mark.]

Figure 36 is a copy of a photograph obtained in New Zealand by Mr.
Russell. It shows tattooing upon the chin.

[Illustration: FIG. 36.--New Zealand tattooed woman.]

Two beautifully tattooed heads are in the collection of the Army
Medical Museum at Washington, D. C., of which illustrations are
presented in the accompanying Plate, III. No history of these heads
can be obtained. The skin is almost perfect, and has become much
brighter in tint than the original color. The tattooing is a blue
black, and in certain lights becomes almost bright indigo. In many of
the markings there appear slight grooves, which add greatly to the
general ornamentation, breaking the monotony of usually plain surfaces.
Whether any mechanical work was performed upon the heads after death
is not positively known, though from the general appearance of the
work it would be suggested that the sharp creases or grooves was
done subsequent to the death of the individual. The tattooing shows
sub-cutaneous coloring, which indicates that at least part of the
ornamentation was done in life.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. III

NEW ZEALAND TATTOOED HEADS.]

Figure 37 is an illustration from Te Ika a Maui, etc., _op. cit._,
facing page 378. It shows the “grave of an Australian native, with his
name, rank, tribe, etc., cut in hieroglyphics on the trees,” which
“hieroglyphics” are supposed to be connected with his tattoo marks.

[Illustration: FIG. 37.--Australian grave and carved trees.]

Mr. I. C. Russell, in his sketch of New Zealand, published in the
American Naturalist, Volume XIII, p. 72, February, 1879, remarks, that
the desire of the Maori for ornament is so great that they covered
their features with tattooing, transferring indelibly to their faces
complicated patterns of curved and spiral lines, similar to the designs
with which they decorated their canoes and their houses.

In Mangaia, of the Hervey Group, the tattoo is said to be in imitation
of the stripes on the two kinds of fish, avini and paoro, the color
of which is blue. The legend of this is kept in the song of Ina´. See
Myths and songs from the South Pacific, London, 1876, p. 94.

Mr. Everard F. im Thurn, in his work previously cited, pages 195-’96
among the Indians of Guiana, says:

Painting the body is the simplest mode of adornment. Tattooing or any
other permanent interference with the surface of the skin by way of
ornament is practiced only to a very limited extent by the Indians;
is used, in fact, only to produce the small distinctive tribal mark
which many of them bear at the corners of their mouths or on their
arms. It is true that an adult Indian is hardly to be found on whose
thighs and arms, or on other parts of whose body, are not a greater
or less number of indelibly incised straight lines; but these are
scars originally made for surgical, not ornamental purposes.

The following extracts are taken from Samoa, by George Turner, LL.D.,
London, 1884:

Page 55. Taema and Tilafainga, or Tila the _sportive_, were the
goddesses of the tattooers. They swam from Fiji to introduce the
craft to Samoa, and on leaving Fiji were commissioned to sing all the
way, “Tattoo the women, but not the men.” They got muddled over it in
the long journey, and arrived at Samoa singing, “Tattoo the _men_ and
not the women.” And hence the universal exercise of the blackening
art on the men rather than the women.

Page 88. “Herodotus found among the Thracians that the barbarians
could be exceedingly foppish after their fashion. The man who was not
tattooed among them was not respected.” It was the same in Samoa.
Until a young man was tattooed, he was considered in his minority.
He could not think of marriage, and he was constantly exposed to
taunts and ridicule, as being poor and of low birth, and as having no
right to speak in the society of men. But as soon as he was tattooed
he passed into his majority, and considered himself entitled to the
respect and privileges of mature years. When a youth, therefore,
reached the age of sixteen, he and his friends were all anxiety that
he should be tattooed. He was then on the outlook for the tattooing
of some young chief with whom he might unite. On these occasions, six
or a dozen young men would be tattooed at one time; and for these
there might be four or five tattooers employed.

Tattooing is still kept up to some extent, and is a regular
profession, just as house-building, and well paid. The custom is
traced to Taēmā and Tilafainga; and they were worshipped by the
tattooers as the presiding deities of their craft.

The instrument used in the operation is an oblong piece of human bone
(_os ilium_), about an inch and a half broad and two inches long.
A time of war and slaughter was a harvest for the tattooers to get
a supply of instruments. The one end is cut like a small-toothed
comb, and the other is fastened to a piece of cane, and looks like
a little serrated adze. They dip it into a mixture of candle-nut
ashes and water, and, tapping it with a little mallet, it sinks
into the skin, and in this way they puncture the whole surface over
which the tattooing extends. The greater part of the body, from the
waist down to the knee is covered with it, variegated here and there
with neat regular stripes of the untattooed skin, which when they
are well oiled, make them appear in the distance as if they had on
black silk knee-breeches. Behrens, in describing these natives in his
narrative of Roggewein’s voyage of 1772, says: “They were clothed
from the waist downwards with fringes and a kind of silken stuff
artificially wrought.” A nearer inspection would have shown that
the fringes were a bunch of red _ti_ leaves (_Dracæna terminalis_)
glistening with cocoa-nut oil, and the “kind of silken stuff,” the
tattooing just described. As it extends over such a large surface
the operation is a tedious and painful affair. After smarting and
bleeding for awhile under the hands of the tattooers, the patience of
the youth is exhausted. They then let him rest and heal for a time,
and, before returning to him again, do a little piece on each of the
party. In two or three months the whole is completed. The friends of
the young men are all the while in attendance with food. They also
bring quantities of fine mats and native cloth, as the hire of the
tattooers; connected with them, too, are many waiting on for a share
in the food and property.

Among the fellahs, as well as among the laboring people of the cities,
the women tattoo their chin, their forehead, the middle of the breast,
a portion of their hands and arms, as well as feet, with indelible
marks of blue and green. In Upper Egypt most females puncture their
lips to give them a dark bluish hue. See Featherman, Social Hist. of
the Races of Mankind, V, 1881, p. 545.

* * * * *

Professor Brauns, of Halle, reports (Science, III, No. 50, p. 69) that
among the Ainos of Yazo the women tattoo their chins to imitate the
beards of the men.

* * * * *

The antiquity of tattooing in the eastern hemisphere is well
established. With reference to the Hebrews, and the tribes surrounding
them, the following Biblical texts may be in point:

“Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print
any marks upon you.” Lev., XIX, 28.

* * * “Though thou rentest thy face with painting, in vain shalt thou
make thyself fair.” Jer., IV. 30.

ARTIFICIAL OBJECTS.

The objects of this character, on which pictographs are found, may be
mentioned as follows:

1. Lances.
2. Arrows.
3. Shields.
4. Canoes.
5. Paddles.
6. Habitations.
7. Utensils.
8. Pottery.
9. Sinews or thread.
10. Artificial beads.

It is believed that examples showing the use of each of these objects
are presented in various parts of the present paper, but the following
do not appear under other headings:

Many of the California tribes are expert workers in grass and roots in
the manufacture of baskets, upon which designs are frequently worked,
other than mere ornamentation, in geometric forms. The Yokuts, at
Tule River Agency, in the southeastern part of the State, frequently
incorporate various forms of the human body, in which the arms are
suspended at the sides of the body with the hands directed outward
to either side. Above the head is a heavy horizontal line. In the
manufacture of these vessels grass is taken, carefully cleaned, and
soaked, so as to become smooth and uniform in size.

Among the Thlinkit, boats as well as paddles are ornamented with
painted figures, and the family coat of arms. See Bancroft’s Native
Races, etc., I, 106.

There is no need to give evidence concerning the designs upon pottery,
after the numerous illustrations in the Second Annual Report of this
Bureau, from Zuñi, etc.

MNEMONIC.

This has been the most apparent, and probably the most ancient,
purpose for which pictographs have been made. It commenced by the use
of material objects which afterwards were reproduced graphically in
paintings, etchings, 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 possibly
to interpret some of the latter which are not yet understood.

The quipu of the Peruvians is one of the most instructive devices
for the general aid of memory, and as applicable to a variety of
subjects, also having value for comparison with and reference to all
other objects of this character. A good account of the quipu, quoted
from Travels in Peru, during the years 1838-1842, * * by Dr. J. J. von
Tschudi [Wiley and Putnam’s Library, Vols. XCIII-XCIV.], New York,
1847, Pt. II, pp. 344, 345, is as follows:

THE QUIPU OF THE PERUVIANS.

The ancient Peruvians had no manuscript characters for single sounds;
but they had a method by which they composed words and incorporated
ideas. This method consisted in the dexterous intertwining of knots
on strings, so as to render them auxiliaries to the memory. The
instrument consisting of these strings and knots was called the
QUIPU. It 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, if I may apply the term to these 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 used in making the quipu were various. The transverse or
top string often measures several yards, and sometimes only a foot
long; the branches are seldom more than two 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, &c. This writing by knots
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, &c.; two single knots standing
together made twenty; and two double knots, two hundred.

This method of calculation is still practiced by the shepherds of the
Puna. They explained it to me, and I could, with very little trouble,
construe their quipus. On the first branch or string they usually
place the numbers 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,
&c. Each list was distinguished by a particular color, or by some
peculiarity in the twisting of the string.

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, &c. 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). Imperfect as was this method, yet in the
flourishing period of the Inca government the appointed officers had
acquired 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, &c. Through
long-continued practice, the officers who had charge of the quipus
became so perfect in their duties that they could with facility
communicate the laws and ordinances, and all the most important
events of the kingdom, by their knots.

All attempts made in modern times to decipher Peruvian quipus have
proved unsatisfactory in their results. The principal obstacle to
deciphering those found in graves consists in the want of the oral
communication requisite for pointing out the subjects to which they
refer. Such communication was necessary, even in former times, to
the most learned quipucamayocuna. Most of the quipus here alluded
to seems to be accounts of the population of particular towns or
provinces, tax-lists, and information relating to the property of
the deceased. Some Indians in the southern provinces of Peru are
understood to possess a perfect knowledge of some of the ancient
quipus, from information transmitted to them from their ancestors.
But they keep that knowledge profoundly secret, particularly from the
whites.

That the general idea or invention for mnemonic purposes appearing in
the quipus, was used pictorially is indicated in the illustrations
given by Dr. S. Habel in The Sculptures of Santa Lucia Cosumalwhuapa
in Guatemala, etc., Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, [No. 269],
1878, Vol. XXII, page 85. 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.

In connection with the quipu, Dr. Hoffman reports a corresponding
device among the Indians formerly inhabiting the mountain valleys north
of Los Angeles, California, who frequently came to the settlements to
dispose of native blankets, skins, and robes. The man delegated by the
tribe to carry away and sell these 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 contributing
articles mentioned the prices to be asked therefor, and when the
salesman disposed of a blanket the proper cord was taken, and a single
knot was tied for each _real_ received, or a double knot for each
_peso_. Thus any particular string indicated the kind of goods disposed
of, as well as the whole sum realized, which was finally distributed
among the original contributors.

NOTCHED STICKS.

The use of these mnemonically was very frequent. A few instances only
of this obvious expedient need be given.

The Dakotas formerly residing at Grand River Agency, the Hidatsa, and
the Shoshoni from Idaho were observed to note the number of days during
which they journeyed from one place to another, by cutting lines or
notches upon a stick of wood.

The coup sticks carried by Dakota warriors are often found bearing a
number of small notches, which refer to the number of individuals the
owners may have hit after they had been shot or wounded.

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.

Dr. Hoffman states that he found in the collection of the Hon. A.
F. Coronel, of Los Angeles, California, a number of notched sticks,
which had been invented and used by the Indians at the Mission of San
Gabriel. The history of them is as follows: Immediately after the
establishment of the mission the Franciscan father appointed major
domos, who had under their charge corporals or overseers of the several
classes of laborers, herders, etc. The chief herder was supplied with
a stick of hard wood, measuring about one inch in thickness each way,
and from twenty to twenty-four inches long. The corners were beveled at
the handle. Upon each of these facets were marks to indicate the kinds
of cattle herded, thus: one cut or notch, a bull; two cuts, a cow; one
cross, a heifer; and a >-shaped character, an ox. Similar characters
were also used for horses, respectively, for stallion, mare, colt, and
gelding. Where only cattle were owned no difference was made in the
upper end of the stick; but when both kinds of animals were owned near
the same localities, or by the same settler, the stick referring to
cattle was notched v-shaped at the head end, and reversed or pointed
to denote horses. Sticks were also marked to denote the several kinds
of stock, and to record those which had been branded. In all of these
sticks numbers were indicated by cutting notches into the corners,
each tenth cut extending across the face of the stick. For instance,
if the herder had thirteen oxen in charge, he selected that edge of
the stick which bore upon the handle the >-shape, and cut nine short
notches, one long one, and three short ones.

Labor sticks were also used by the Indians. On one side was a circle
intersected with cross lines to denote _money_, and on the opposite
side, which was reserved for time, either nothing or some character,
according to the fancy of the owner. Short notches on the money side
indicated _reals_, long cuts _pesos_. On the opposite side short cuts
indicated days, and long cuts weeks.

For further reference to this subject, see Reliquiæ Aquitanicæ; etc.,
by Edouard Lartet and Henry Christy, * * London, 1875, p. 183 _et seq._

ORDER OF SONGS.

Many instances have been published in regard to the use of mnemonic
characters to preserve the remembrance of songs. The words of these
are invariable as well as the notes to which they are chanted. Both
words and notes must have been previously memorized by the singers.
Ideographic characters might give the general interpretation, but would
not suggest the exact words.

Schoolcraft, I, 361, remarks: Sounds are no further preserved by these
mnemonic signs, than is incident, more or less, to all pure figurative
or representative pictures. The simple figure of a quadruped, a man,
or a bird, recalls the _name_ of a quadruped, a man or a bird. * * We
may thus recall something of the living language from the oblivion of
the past, by the pictorial method. Mnemonic symbols are thus at the
threshold of the hieroglyphic.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. IV

OJIBWA MEDA SONG.]

One of the best examples of this mnemonic device is one of the Ojibwas,
found in Schoolcraft, _op. cit._, I, page 362 _et seq._, and called by
him Songs of the Meda. His illustration is reproduced as Plate IV, and
his explanation, much condensed, is as follows:

No. 1. A medicine lodge filled with the presence of the Great Spirit,
who, it is affirmed, came down with wings to instruct the Indians in
these ceremonies. The meda, or priest, sings, “The Great Spirit’s
lodge--you have heard of it. I will enter it.” While this is sung, and
repeated, the priest shakes his shi-shi-gwun, and each member of the
society holds up one hand in a beseeching manner. All stand, without
dancing. The drum is not struck during this introductory chant.

No. 2. A candidate for admission crowned with feathers, and holding,
suspended to his arm, an otter-skin pouch, with the wind represented
as gushing out of one end. He sings, repeating after the priest, all
dancing, with the accompaniment of the drum and rattle: * * “I have
always loved that that I seek. I go into the new green leaf lodge.”

No. 3 marks a pause, during which the victuals prepared for the feast
are introduced.

No. 4. A man holding a dish in his hand, and decorated with magic
feathers on his wrists, indicating his character as master of the
feast. All sing, “I shall give you a share, my friend.”

No. 5. A lodge apart from that in which the meda-men are assembled,
having a vapor-bath within it. The elder men go into this lodge, and
during the time of their taking the bath, or immediately preceding
it, tell each other certain secrets relative to the arts they employ
in the Medá-win. The six heavy marks at the top of the lodge indicate
the steam escaping from the bath. There are three orders of men in
this society, called 1. meda; 2. sangemau; and 3. ogemau. And it is in
these secret exchanges of arts, or rather the communication of unknown
secrets from the higher to the lower orders, that they are exalted from
one to another degree. The priest sings, “I go into the bath--I blow my
brother strong.”

No. 6. The arm of the priest, or master of ceremonies, who conducts the
candidate, represented in connection with the next figure.

No. 7. The goods, or presents given, as a fee of admission, by the
novitiate. “I wish to wear this, my father, my friend.”

No. 8. A meda-tree. The recurved projection from the trunk denotes the
root that supplies the medicine. “What! my life, my single tree!--we
dance around you.”

No. 9. A stuffed crane-skin, employed as a medicine-bag. By shaking
this in the dance, plovers and other small birds are made, by a
sleight-of-hand trickery, to jump out of it. These, the novitiates are
taught, spring from the bag by the strong power of the operator. This
is one of the prime acts of the dance. “I wish them to appear--that
that has grown--I wish them to appear.”

No. 10. An arrow in the supposed circle of the sky. Represents a
charmed arrow, which, by the power of the meda of the person owning
it, is capable of penetrating the entire circle of the sky, and
accomplishing the object for which it is shot out of the bow. “What are
you saying, you mee dá man? This--this is the meda bone.”

No. 11. The Ka Kaik, a species of small hawk, swift of wing, and
capable of flying high into the sky. The skin of this bird is worn
round the necks of warriors going into battle. “My kite’s skin is
fluttering.”

No. 12. The sky, or celestial hemisphere, with the symbol of the Great
Spirit looking over it. A Manito’s arm is raised up from the earth in a
supplicating posture. Birds of good omen are believed to be in the sky.
“All round the circle of the sky I hear the Spirit’s voice.”

No. 13. The next figure denotes a pause in the ceremonies.

No. 14. A meda-tree. The idea represented is a tree animated by magic
or spiritual power. “The Wabeno tree--it dances.”

No. 15. A stick used to beat the Ta-wa-e-gun or drum. “How rings aloud
the drum-stick’s sound.”

No. 16. Half of the celestial hemisphere--an Indian walking upon it.
The idea symbolized is the sun pursuing his diurnal course till noon.
“I walk upon half the sky.”

No. 17. The Great Spirit filling all space with his beams, and
enlightening the world by the halo of his head. He is here depicted as
the god of thunder and lightning. “I sound all around the sky, that
they can hear me.”

No. 18. The Ta-wa-e-gun, or single-headed drum. “You shall hear the
sound of my Ta-wa-e-gun.”

No. 19. The Ta-wa-e-gonse, or tambourine, ornamented with feathers,
and a wing, indicative of its being prepared for a sacred use. “Do you
understand my drum?”

No. 20. A raven. The skin and feathers of this bird are worn as head
ornaments. “I sing the raven that has brave feathers.”

No. 21. A crow, the wings and head of which are worn as a head-dress.
“I am the crow--I am the crow--his skin is my body.”

No. 22. A medicine lodge. A leader or master of the Meda society,
standing with his drum stick raised, and holding in his hands the
clouds and the celestial hemisphere. “I wish to go into your lodge--I
go into your lodge.”

In connection with this topic reference may be made to the Lenâpé and
their Legends: with the complete text and symbols of The Walam Olum,
by Daniel G. Brinton, A. M., M. D., Phila., 1885. 8vo. pp. 262, with
numerous illustrations.

TRADITIONS.

[Illustration: FIG. 38--Osage chart.]

As an example of a chart used to assist in the exact repetition of
traditions, Figure 38 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, Ha[p]a
[c]ü[t][s]e, Red Corn, who was adopted in childhood by a white man
named Matthews; hence he is also known as Wm. P. Matthews, or “Bill
Nix.” He is one of the tribal lawyers. He obtained his version of
the tradition from a member of his gens, Sa[p]eki¢ĕ. Another version
of the same tradition was obtained by him from Pahü-skă, White Hair,
the chief of the Bald Eagle sub-gens of the Tsi[c]u gens. [K]ahi[k]e
wa[t]ayiñ[k]e, Saucy Chief, gave me other parts of the tradition, which
Ha[p]a [c]ü[t][s]e had forgotten.

He also chanted a few lines of the tradition of the Wa[c]a[c]e gens.
Wayüts`a[k]a[c]ĭ, of the Black Bear gens, told me a little of his
tradition; and I obtained part of the Wa[c]a[c]e tradition from
Hu¢ak¢i^n, Good Voice, of the Mi^nk’i^n gens.

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 the tribal circle, her chief begins on
the left side of her head, making three passes, and pronouncing the
sacred name of Deity 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 [t]u[k]a, 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 Tsi[c]u 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, according
to Sa[p]eki¢ĕ, 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.

The tree on which the Tsi[c]u was called pü-sü-hü, jack oak, or a
sort of a red oak. 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
Tsi[c]u, whose chart this is.

Then the Tsi[c]u met the black bear, called Káxe-wáhü-sa^n´ 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; but,
according to the chant related, they were as follows: Watse [t]u[k]a
(morning star); Watse mi^n[k]a (female animal that slays another
star); Ha^n-pa[t]a^n-Wakan[t]a (Wakanda or Deity during the day,
the sun); Wakan[t]aha^n ¢iñkce (Deity of the night, moon); Mikak’e
pe¢ŭ^n[p]a, Seven Stars; Ta a[p]¢i^n, Three Deer; Mikak’e tañ[k]a, Big
Star; Mikak’e [c]iñ[k]a, Little Star. Then the Black bear went to the
Wa[c]iñ[k]a-[c]ü[t][s]e, 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
Hañ[k]a uta¢a^n[t][s]i, 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 Hañ[k]a uta¢a^n[t][s]i
made a treaty of peace with the Wa[c]ace and Tsi[c]u gentes, and from
the union of the three resulted the present nation of the Osages.

The Bald Eagle account of the tradition begins very abruptly. The
stars were approached thus: Ha^n[p]a[t]a^n-Wakan[t]a (sun), Watse
[t]u[k]a (morning star), Wa[p]aha (Great Dipper), Tapa (Pleiades),
Mikak’e-ha^n-[p]a[t]a^n (Day Star). This version gives what is wanting
in the other, the meeting of other gentes, Hañkā [c]iñ[k]a, Wa[c]a[c]e,
Hañ[k]a-uta¢a^n[t][s]i, etc., and the decisions of the chief of the
Hañ[k]a-uta¢a^n[t][s]i.

The people on the war side had similar adventures, but the accurate
account has not yet been obtained.

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.”

TREATIES.

The most familiar example of the recording of treaties is the
employment of wampum belts for that purpose. An authority on the
subject says: “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.” See Voyages and Travels of an
Indian interpreter and trader, etc., by J. Long, London, 1791, p. 47.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. V

PENN WAMPUM BELT.]

More minute statements regarding wampum is made superfluous after
its full discussion by Mr. W. H. Holmes in his work, “Art in Shell
of the ancient Americans,” in the Second Annual Report of the Bureau
of Ethnology, pages 253 _et seq._ One of his illustrations specially
in point for the present purpose is here reproduced in Plate V. His
remarks upon it are as follows:

The remarkable belt shown has an extremely interesting, although a
somewhat incomplete, history attached to it. 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 Shackamaxon in
1682. Although there is no documentary evidence to show that this
identical belt was delivered on that occasion, it is conceded on
all hands that it came into the possession of the great founder
of Pennsylvania at some one of his treaties with the tribes that
occupied the province ceded to him. 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 eighteen 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. Then the fact of its
having been preserved in the family of the founder from that period
to the present time, having descended through three generations,
gives an authenticity to the document which leaves no doubt of its
genuineness; and as the chain and medal which were presented by the
parliament to his father the admiral, for his naval services, have
descended among the family archives unaccompanied by any written
document, but is recorded on the journals of the House of Commons,
equal authenticity may be claimed for the wampum belt confirmatory of
the treaty made by his son with the Indians; which event is recorded
on the page of history, though, like the older relic, it has been
unaccompanied in its descent by any document in writing.”

WAR.

Material objects were often employed in challenge to and declaration of
war, some of which may assist in the interpretation of pictographs. A
few instances are mentioned:

Arrows, to which long hairs are attached, were stuck up along the
trail or road, by the Florida Indians, to signify a declaration of war.
See Captain Laudonnière in Hakluyt, III, 415.

Challenging by heralds obtained. Thus the Shumeias challenged the
Ponios [in central California] by placing three little sticks, notched
in the middle and at both ends, on a mound, which marked the boundary
between the two tribes. If the Ponios accept, they tie a string round
the middle notch. Heralds then meet and arrange time and place, and the
battle comes off as appointed. See Bancroft, Native Races, I, p. 379.

* * * * *

A few notices of the foreign use of material objects in connection with
this branch of the subject may be given.

It appears in the Bible: Ezek., XXXVII, 16-20, and Numbers, XVII, 2.

Lieutenant-Colonel Woodthorp says (Jour. Anth. Inst. Gr. Brit., Vol.
XLI, 1882, p. 211): “On the road to Niao we saw on the ground a curious
mud figure of a man in slight relief presenting a gong in the direction
of Senna; this was supposed to show that the Fiao men were willing
to come to terms with Senna, then at war with Niao. Another mode of
evincing a desire to turn away the wrath of an approaching enemy, and
induce him to open negotiations, is to tie up in his path a couple of
goats, sometimes also a gong, with the universal symbol of peace, a
palm leaf planted in the ground hard by.”

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 to which the notches referred. See Te Ika
a Maui.--Rev. Richard Taylor, London, 1870, p. 379.

TIME.

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

[Illustration: FIG. 39.--Device denoting succession of time. Dakota.]

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 70
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
Figure 39, 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 Figure 40.

[Illustration: FIG. 40.--Device denoting succession of time. Dakota.]

The large amount of space taken up by the Dakota Winter Counts, now
following, renders it impracticable to devote more to the graphic
devices regarding time. While these Winter Counts are properly under
the present head, their value is not limited to it, as they suggest,
if they do not explain, points relating to many other divisions of the
present paper.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.

The existence among the Dakota Indians of continuous designations of
years, in the form of charts corresponding in part with the orderly
arrangement of divisions of time termed calendars, 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.
1, of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey. Later
consideration of the actual use of such charts by the Indians has
induced the change of their title to that adopted by themselves, viz.,
Winter Counts, in the original, waníyetu wówapi.

The lithographed chart published with that paper, substantially the
same as Plate VI, now presented, was ascertained to be 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.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. VI

WINTER COUNT ON BUFFALO ROBE.]

The copy from which the lithograph was taken, is traced on a strip of
cotton cloth, in size one yard square, which the characters almost
entirely fill, and was made by Lieut. H. T. Reed, First United States
Infantry, an accomplished officer of the present writer’s former
company and regiment, in two colors, black and red, used in the
original, of which it is a _fac simile_.

The general design of the chart and the meaning of most of its
characters were ascertained by Lieutenant Reed, at Fort Sully, Dakota,
and afterwards at Fort Rice, Dakota, in November, 1876, by the present
writer; while further investigation of records and authorities at
Washington elicited additional details used in the publication
mentioned and many more since its issue.

After exhibition of the copy to a number of military and civil officers
connected with the Departments of War and of the Interior, it appeared
that those who, from service on expeditions and surveys or from special
study of American ethnology, were most familiar with the Indian tribes
west of the Mississippi, had never heard of this or any other similar
attempt among them to establish a chronological system. Bragging
biographies of chiefs and partisan histories of particular wars
delineated in picture writing on hides or bark are very common. Nearly
every traveler on the plains has obtained a painted robe, on which
some aboriginal artist has stained rude signs purporting to represent
tribal or personal occurrences, or often the family connections of the
first owner. Some of these in the possession of the present writer have
special significance and are mentioned under appropriate heads in the
present work.

It is believed that, in the pictographs of all of these peoples
discovered before the chart mentioned, the obvious intention was
either historical or biographical, or more generally was to chronicle
occurrences as such, and that there was not an apparent design to
portray events selected without exclusive reference to their intrinsic
interest or importance, but because they severally occurred within
regular successive intervals of time, and to arrange them in an orderly
form, specially convenient for use as a calendar and valuable for no
other purpose.

The copy made by Lieutenant Reed was traced over a duplicate of the
original, which latter was drawn on a buffalo robe by Lone-Dog, an
aged Indian, belonging to the Yanktonai tribe of the Dakotas, who in
the autumn of 1876 was near Fort Peck, Montana, and was reported to be
still in his possession. His Dakota name is given him by correspondents
who knew him, as in the ordinary English literation, Shunka-ishnala,
the words respectively corresponding very nearly with the vocables in
Riggs’s lexicon for dog-lone. Others have, however, identified him as
Chi-no-sa, translated as “a lone wanderer,” and asserted that he was at
the time mentioned with the hostile Dakotas under Sitting Bull. There
appear to have been several Dakotas of the present generation known to
the whites as Lone-Dog.

Plate VI is a representation of the chart as it would appear on the
buffalo robe, but it is photographed from the copy on linen cloth, not
directly from the robe.

The duplicate from which the copy was immediately taken was in the
possession of Basil Clément, a half-breed interpreter, living at
Little Bend, near Fort Sully, Dakota, who professed to have obtained
information concerning the chart from personal inquiries of many
Indians, and whose dictated translation of them, reduced to writing
in his own words, forms the basis of that given in the present paper.
The genuineness of the document was verified by separate examination,
through another interpreter, of the most intelligent Indians accessible
at Fort Rice, and at a considerable distance from Clément, who could
have had no recent communication with those so examined. One of the
latter, named Good-Wood, a Blackfoot Dakota and an enlisted scout
attached to the garrison at Fort Rice, immediately recognized the copy
now in possession of the writer as “the same thing Lone-Dog had,” and
also stated that he had seen another copy at Standing Rock Agency
in the hands of Blue-Thunder, a Blackfoot Dakota. He said it showed
“something put down for every year about their nation.” He knew how
to use it as a calendar, beginning from the center and counting from
right to left, and was familiar with the meaning of many of the later
characters and the events they commemorated, in which he corroborated
Clément’s translation, but explained that he had forgotten the
interpretation of some of the earlier signs, which were about those
things done before his birth.

All the investigations that could be made elicited the following
account, which, whether accurate or not, the Indians examined certainly
believed: Probably with the counsel of the old men and authorities
of his tribe, Lone-Dog ever since his youth has been in the habit of
deciding upon some event or circumstance which should distinguish each
year as it passed, and when such decision was made he 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 nation, who were thus taught the meaning and use
of the signs as designating the several years, in order that at the
death of the recorder the knowledge might not be lost. A similar motive
as to the preservation of the record led to its duplication in 1870 or
1871, so that Clément obtained it in a form ending at that time. It
was also reported by several Indians that other copies of the chart in
its various past stages of formation had been known to exist among the
several tribes, being probably kept for reference, Lone-Dog and his
robe being so frequently inaccessible.

Although Lone-Dog was described as a very old Indian, it was not
supposed that he was of sufficient age in the year 1800 to enter upon
the duty as explained. Either there was a predecessor from whom he
received the earlier records or obtained copies of them, or, his work
being first undertaken when he had reached manhood, he gathered the
traditions from his elders and worked back so far as he could do so
accurately, 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 particular band.

Present knowledge of the Winter Count systems renders it improbable
that Lone-Dog was their inventor or originator. They were evidently
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 is not probably a very old invention,
as it has not, so far as known, spread beyond a definite district
or been extensively adopted. If an invention of that character had
been of great antiquity it would probably have spread by inter-tribal
channels beyond the bands or tribes of the Dakotas, where alone the
copies of such charts have been found and are understood. Yet the
known existence of portable pictographs of this ascertained character
renders it proper to examine rock etchings and other native records
with reference to their possible interpretation as designating events
chronologically.

A query is naturally suggested, whether intercourse with missionaries
and other whites did not first give the Dakotas some idea of dates and
awaken a sense of want in that direction. 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 by our computation, 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 in numbers from an era, such as the birth of Christ, the
Hegira, the Ab Urbe Conditâ, the First Olympiad, and the like. But the
chart shows nothing of this nature. The earliest character (the one in
the center or beginning of the spiral) merely represents the killing
of a small number of Dakotas by their enemies, an event of frequent
occurrence, and 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--to individualize each year by
a specific recorded symbol, or totem, according to the decision of a
competent person, or by common consent acted upon by a person charged
with or undertaking the duty whereby confusion was prevented--should
not suffer denial of its originality merely because it was ingenious,
and showed more of scientific method than has often been attributed to
the northern tribes of America. The ideographic record, being preserved
and understood by many, could be used and referred to with sufficient
ease and accuracy for ordinary purposes. Definite signs for the first
appearance of the small-pox and for the first capture of wild horses
may be dates as satisfactory to the Dakotas as the corresponding
expressions A. D. 1802 and 1813 to the Christian world, and far more
certain than much of the chronological tables of Regiomontanus and
Archbishop Usher in terms of A. M. and B. C. The careful arrangement
of distinctly 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 that might be known;
and it seems unlikely that any such device, so different from that
common among the white visitors, should have been prompted by them.
The whole conception seems one strongly characteristic of the Indians,
who in other instances have shown such expertness in ideography. The
discovery of the other charts presented or referred to in this paper,
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.

Copies of the paper publishing and explaining Lone-Dog’s record were
widely circulated by the present writer among Army officers, Indian
agents, missionaries, and other persons favorably situated, in hopes
of obtaining other examples and further information. The result was a
gratifying verification of all the important statements and suggestions
in the publication, with the correction of some errors of detail and
the supply of much additional material. The following copies of the
chart, 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-í-de, The-Flame (otherwise translated
The-Blaze), who, in 1877, lived at Peoria Bottom, 18 miles south of
Fort Sully, Dakota. He was a Dakota and had generally dwelt with the
Sans Arcs, though it was reported that he was by birth one of the Two
Kettles. The interpretation was obtained (it is understood originally
at the instance of Lieutenant Maus, First United States Infantry)
directly from The-Flame by Alex. Laravey, official interpreter at Fort
Sully, in the month of April, 1877.

The fac-simile copy in the writer’s possession, also made by
Lieutenant Reed, is on a cotton cloth about a yard square and in
black and red--thus far similar to his copy of Lone-Dog’s chart,
but the arrangement is wholly 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; and ending
in the upper left-hand corner. The general effect is that of seven
straight lines of figures, but those lines are distinctly connected at
their extremities with others above and below, so that the continuous
figure is serpentine. 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-’7 to 1876-’7, thus
commencing earlier and ending later than that of Lone-Dog.

2. The-Swan’s chart was kindly furnished to the writer by Dr. Charles
Rau, of the Smithsonian Institution. It was sent to him in 1872 by
Dr. John R. Patrick, of Belleville, Saint Clair County, Illinois, who
received it from Dr. Washington West, of Belleville, Illinois, who
became an acting assistant surgeon, U. S. Army, November 2, 1868, and
was assigned to duty at Cheyenne Agency, Dakota, established by General
Harney, as one of a number of agencies to become useful as rendezvous
for Dakotas to keep them from disturbing the line of the Union Pacific
Railroad. He remained there from November, 1868, to May, 1870. The
agency was specially for the Two Kettles, Sans Arcs, and Minneconjous.
A Minneconjou chief, The-Swan, elsewhere called The-Little-Swan, kept
this record on the dressed skin of an antelope or deer, claiming that
it had been preserved in his family for seventy years. The title of
the written interpretation of this chart was called the History of the
Minneconjou Dakotas, its true use not being then understood. In return
for favors, Dr. West obtained permission to have some copies made on
common domestic cotton cloth and employed an Indian expert of the Two
Kettle band to do the work in fac-simile. From one of these he had a
photograph taken on a small plate, and then enlarged in printing to
about two-thirds of the original size and traced and touched up in
India ink and red paint to match the original, which was executed in
some black pigment and ruddle.

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. The interpretation of this chart
was made at Cheyenne Agency in 1868 for Dr. Washington West by Jean
Premeau, interpreter at that agency.

A useful note is given in connection with the interpretation, that in
it all the names are names given by the Minneconjous, and not the names
the parties bear themselves, _e. g._, in the interpretation for the
year 1829-’30, (see Plate XVIII, and page 114,) Bad Arrow Indian is a
translation of the Dakota name for a band of Blackfeet. The owner and
explainer of this copy of the chart was a Minneconjou, and therefore
his rendering of names might differ from that of another person equally
familiar with the chart.

3. Another chart examined was kindly loaned to the writer by Brevet
Maj. Joseph Bush, captain Twenty-second United States Infantry. It was
procured by him in 1870 at the Cheyenne Agency, from James C. Robb,
formerly Indian trader, and afterwards post trader. 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 size as those
in Lone-Dog’s chart, with which it coincides in time, except that it
ends at 1869-’70. 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 Fort Sully, Dakota, near the mouth of the
Cheyenne River. In order to please Lieut. O. D. Ladley, Twenty-second
United States Infantry, who was in charge of the reservation, he drew
or copied on a piece of cotton cloth what he called, through the
interpreter, the History of the Minneconjous, and also gave through
the same interpreter the key or translation to the figures. Lieutenant
Ladley loaned them to an ex-army friend in Washington, who brought them
to the notice of the present writer.

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 as does that of Lone-Dog,
ends with the years 1868-’69.

The present writer has had conversation and correspondence concerning
other copies and other translated interpretations of what may be
called for convenience and with some right, on account of priority in
publication, the Lone-Dog system of winter counts. But it also was
discovered that there were other systems in which the same pictographic
method was adopted by the Dakotas. An account of the most important of
these, viz.: the charts of Baptiste or Battiste Good, American-Horse,
Cloud-Shield, and White-cow-killer has been communicated by Dr. William
H. Corbusier, assistant surgeon, United States Army, and is presented
_infra_, page 127, under the title of The Corbusier Winter Counts.

The study of all the charts, with their several interpretations,
renders plain some points remaining in doubt while the Lone-Dog chart
was the only example known. In the first place, 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 to be equally acceptable. So a theory advanced that there was
some symbolism in the right to left circling of Lone-Dog’s chart was
aborted, 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 or rather one translation of the 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. To exhibit these points more clearly, the characters on the
charts of The-Flame, Lone-Dog, and The-Swan have been placed together
on Plates VII-XXXIII, and their interpretations, separately obtained
and translated, have also been collated, commencing on page 100. Where
any information was supplied by the charts of Mato Sapa or of Major
Bush and their interpretation, or by other authorities, it is given in
connection with the appropriate year. Reference is also made to some
coincidences or explanatory manner noticed in the Corbusier system.

With regard to the Lone-Dog system, with which the present writer is
more familiar, and upon which he has examined a large number of Indians
during the last eight years, an attempt was made to ascertain whether
the occurrences selected and represented were those peculiar to the
clan or tribe of the recorder or were either of general concern or of
notoriety throughout the Dakota tribes. This would tend to determine
whether the undertaking was of a merely individual nature, limited
by personal knowledge or special interests, or whether the scope was
general. All inquiries led to the latter supposition. The persons
examined were of different tribes, and far apart from each other, yet
all knew what the document was, _i. e._, that “some one thing was put
down for each year;” that it was the work of Lone-Dog, and that he
was the only one who “could do it,” or perhaps was authority for it.
The internal evidence is to the same effect. All the symbols indicate
what was done, experienced, or observed by the nation at large or by
its tribes without distinction--not by that of which Lone-Dog is a
member, no special feat of the Yanktonais, indeed, being mentioned--and
the chiefs whose deaths or deeds are noted appear to have belonged
indifferently to the several tribes, whose villages were generally at
great distance each from the other and from that of the recorder. It
is, however, true that the Minneconjous were more familiar than other
of the Dakotas with the interpretation of the characters on Lone-Dog’s
chart, and that a considerable proportion of the events selected relate
to that division of the confederacy.

In considering the extent to which Lone-Dog’s chart is understood and
used among his people, it may be mentioned that the writer has never
shown it to an intelligent Dakota of full years who has not known what
it was for, 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 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 character for the year in question. It had been pointed
out to him before, and he had remembered it, though not the remainder
of the chart.

With the interpretations of the several charts given below some
explanations are furnished, but it may be useful to set forth in
advance a few facts relating to the nomenclature and divisions of the
tribes frequently mentioned. In the literature on the subject the
great linguistic stock or family embracing not only the Sioux or
Dakotas proper, but the Missouris, Omahas, Ponkas, Osages, Kansas,
Otos, Assiniboines, Gros Ventres or Minnitaris, Crows, Iowas, Mandans,
and some others, has been frequently styled the Dakota Family. Major
Powell, the Director of the Bureau of Ethnology, from considerations
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. In this general
respect it is possible to conform in this paper to Major Powell’s
classification, but, specially in the details of the Winter Counts,
the form of the titles of the tribes is that which is generally used,
but with little consistency, in literature, and is not given with the
accurate philologic literation of special scholars, or with reference
to the synonomy determined by Major Powell, but not yet published. The
reason for this temporary abandonment of scientific accuracy is that
another course would require the correction or annotation of the whole
material contributed from many sources, and would be cumbrous as well
as confusing prior to the publication, by the Bureau of Ethnology, of
the synonomy mentioned.

The word “Dakota” is translated in Riggs’s Dictionary of that language
as “leagued, or allied.” Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull, the distinguished
ethnographer and glossologist, gives the meaning to be more precisely
“associated as comrades,” the root being found in other dialects of the
same group of languages for instance, in the Minitari, where _dáki_ is
the name for the clan or band, and _dakóe_ means friend or comrade. In
the Sioux (Dakota) dialect, _cota_, or _coda_ means friend, and Dakota
may, literally translated, signify “our friends.”

The title Sioux, which is indignantly repudiated by the nation, is
either the last syllable or the two last syllables, according to
pronunciation, of “Nadowesioux,” which is the French plural of the
Algonkin name for the Dakotas, “Nadowessi,” “enemy,” though the English
word is not so strong as the Indian, “hated foe” being nearer. The
Chippeways called an Iroquois “Nadowi,” which is also their name for
rattlesnake (or, as others translate, adder); in the plural, Nadowek. A
Sioux they called Nadowessi, which is the same word with a contemptuous
or diminutive termination; plural, Nadowessiwak or Nadawessyak. The
French gave the name their own form of the plural, and the voyageurs
and trappers cut it down to “Sioux.”

The more important of existing tribes and organized bands into which
the nation is now divided are given below, being the dislocated remains
of the “Seven Great Council Fires,” not only famed in tradition, but
known to early white pioneers:

Yankton and Yanktonai or Ihañkto^nwa^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 translation, Sans Arc, is, however,
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._, 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 tribe, 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.”

Ogallalla, Ogalala, or Oglala. The meaning and derivation of this name,
as well as the one next mentioned (Uncpapa), have been the subjects of
much controversy.

Uncpapa, Unkpapa, or Hunkpapa, the most warlike and probably the most
powerful of all the bands, though not the largest.

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 Sichangu, Itazipcho, Sihasapa,
Minneconjou, Oheno^npa, Ogallalla, and Huncpapa, seven of the tribes
specified above, which he calls bands. The fact probably is that
“Titon” (from the word _ti^ntan_, meaning, “at or on land without
trees, or prairie”) was the name of a tribe, but it is now only an
expression for all those tribes whose ranges are on the prairie,
and that it has become a territorial and accidental, not a tribular
distinction. One of the Dakotas at Fort Rice spoke to the 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.

It is proper here to remark that throughout the charts the totem of the
clan of the person indicated is not generally given, though it is often
used in other kinds of records, but instead, a pictorial representation
of his name, which their selection of proper names rendered
practicable. The clans are divisions relating to consanguinity, and
neither coincide with the political tribal organizations nor are
limited by them. The number of the clans, or distinctive totemic
groups, of the Dakota is less than that of their organized bands, if
not of their tribes, and considerably less than that of the totems
appearing on the charts. Although it has been contended that the
clan-totem alone was used by Indians, there are many other specimens of
picture-writings among the Dakota where the name-totem appears, notably
the set of fifty-five drawings in the library of the Army Medical
Museum narrating the deeds of Sitting-Bull. A pictured message lately
sent by a Dakota at Fort Rice to another at a distant agency, and
making the same use of name-signs, came to the writer’s notice. Captain
Carver, who spent a considerable time with these Indians (called by him
Nadowessies) in 1766-’77, explains that “besides the name of the animal
by which every nation or tribe [clan] is denominated, there are others
that are personal, which the children receive from their mother. * * *
The chiefs are distinguished by a name that has either some reference
to their abilities or to the hieroglyphic of their families, and these
are acquired after they have arrived at the age of manhood. Such as
have signalized themselves either in their war or hunting parties, or
are possessed of some eminent qualification, receive a name that serves
to perpetuate the fame of their actions or to make their abilities
conspicuous.” The common use of these name-signs appears in their being
affixed to old treaties, and also to some petitions in the office
of Indian Affairs. Their similarity in character, use, and actual
design, either with or without clan designation, affords an instructive
comparison with the origin of heraldry and of modern surnames. Further
remarks about the name system of Indians appear on page 169.

With reference to the Winter Counts, it is well known that the Dakotas
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 intended to be 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 does not appear to be clear whether the event
portrayed 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.

The next following pages give the translated interpretation of the
above-mentioned charts of The-Flame, designated as No. I; of Lone-Dog,
designated as No. II; and of The-Swan as No. III; and are explanations
of Plates VII to XXXIII. As The-Flame’s count began before the other
two and ended later than those, Plates VII, VIII, and XXXIII are
confined to that count, the others showing the three in connection. The
red color frequently mentioned appears in the corresponding figures in
Plate VI of Lone-Dog’s chart as reproduced, but black takes its place
in the series of plates now under consideration. Mention of the charts
of Mato Sapa and of Major Bush is made where there seems to be any
additional information or suggestion in them. When those charts are not
mentioned they agree with that of Lone-Dog. Reference is also made to
the counts in the Corbusier system when correspondence is to be noted.

* * * * *

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. VII

1786-’87.

1787-’88.

1788-’89.

1789-’90.

1790-’91.

1791-’92.

1792-’93.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1786-’87.--No. I represents an Uncpapa chief who wore an “iron” shield
over his head. It is stated that he was a great warrior, killed by
the Rees. This word is abbreviated from the word Arikaree, a corrupt
form of Arikara. This year in the Anno Domini style is ascertained by
counting back from several well-known historical events corresponding
with those on the charts.

Battiste Good’s count for the same year says:
“Iron-hand-band-went-on-war-path winter,” and adds, “They formerly
carried burdens on their backs hung from a band passed across their
forehead. This man had a band of iron which is shown on his head.”

1787-’88.--No. I. A clown, well known to the Indians; a mischief-maker.
A Minneconjou. The interpreter could not learn how he was connected
with this year. His accoutrements are fantastic. The character is
explained by Battiste Good’s winter count for the same year as follows:

“Left-the-heyoka-man-behind winter.” A certain man was heyoka, that
is, in a peculiar frame of mind, and 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,
but 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. The interpreter remarked if they had only
had sense enough to tell him to go on, he would then have run away, but
the idiots talked to him just as if he had been an ordinary mortal,
and, of course, were responsible for his death.

The figure by Battiste Good strongly resembles that in this chart,
giving indications of fantastic dress with the bow. The independent
explanations of this figure and of some on the next page referring to
dates so remote have been of interest to the present writer.

1788-’89.--No. I. Very severe winter and much suffering among the
Indians. Crows were frozen to death, which is a rare occurrence. Hence
the figure of the crow.

Battiste Good says: “Many-crows-died winter.”

Cloud Shield says: The winter was so cold that many crows froze to
death.

White-Cow-Killer calls the preceding year, 1787-’88,
“Many-black-crows-died winter.”

For the year 1789-’90, American-Horse says: “The cold was so intense
that crows froze in the air and dropped dead near the lodges.”

This is an instance of where three sets of accounts refer to the same
severe cold, apparently to three successive years; it may really not
have been three successive years, but that all charts referred to
the same season, the fractions of years not being regarded, as above
explained.

1789-’90.--No. I. Two Mandans killed by Minneconjous. The peculiar
arrangement of the hair distinguishes the tribe.

The Mandans were in the last century one of the most numerous and
civilized tribes of the Siouan stock. Lewis and Clarke, in 1804, say
that the Mandans settled forty years before, _i. e._, 1764, in nine
villages, 80 miles below their then site (north of Knife River), seven
villages on the west, and two on the east side of the Missouri. Two
villages, being destroyed by the small-pox and the Dakotas, united and
moved up opposite to the Arickaras, who probably occupied the same site
as exhibited in the counts for the year 1823-’24.

Battiste Good says: “Killed-two-Gros-Ventres-on-the ice winter.”

1790-’91.--No. I. The first United States flag in the country brought
by United States troops. So said the interpreter. No special occasion
or expedition is noted.

Battiste Good says: “Carried-flag-about-with-them winter,” and
explains; they went to all the surrounding tribes with the flag, but
for what purpose is unknown.

White-Cow-Killer says: “All-the-Indians-see-the-flag winter.”

1791-’92.--No. I. A Mandan and a Dakota met in the middle of the
Missouri; each swimming half way across, they shook hands, and made
peace.

Mulligan, post interpreter at Fort Buford, says that this was at Fort
Berthold, and is an historic fact; also that the same Mandan, long
afterwards, killed the same Dakota.

Cloud-Shield says: The Sioux and Omahas made peace.

1792-’93.--No. I. Dakotas and Rees meet in camp together, and are at
peace.

The two styles of dwellings, viz., the tipi of the Dakotas, and the
earth lodge of the Arickaras, are apparently depicted.

Battiste Good says: “Camp-near-the-Gros-Ventres winter,” and adds:
“They were engaged in a constant warfare during this time.” The Gros
Ventres’ dirt-lodge, with the entry in front, is depicted in Battiste
Good’s figure, and on its roof is the head of a Gros Ventre.

See Cloud-Shields’s explanations of his figure for this year, page 133.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. VIII

1793-’94.

1794-’95.

1795-’96.

1796-’97.

1797-’98.

1798-’99.

1799-1800.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1793-’94.--No. I. Thin-Face, a noted Dakota chief, was killed by Rees.

Battiste Good says: “Killed-a-long-haired-man-at-Raw-Hide-Butte
winter,” adding that the Dakotas attacked a village of fifty-eight
lodges, of a tribe [called by a correspondent the Cheyennes], 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 7 inches long.) The fight
was at Raw-Hide Butte, now so-called by the whites, which they 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.

White-Cow-Killer says: “Little-Face-kill winter.”

Battiste Good says in his count for the succeeding year, 1794-’95,
“Killed-little-face-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.

1794-’95--No. I. A Mandan chief killed a noted Dakota chief with
remarkably long hair, and took his scalp.

White-Cow-Killer says: “Long-Hair-killed winter.”

1795-’96--No. I. While surrounded by the enemy (Mandans) a Blackfeet
Dakota Indian goes at the risk of his life for water for the party.

The interpreter states that this was near the present Cheyenne Agency,
Dakota Territory. In the original character there is a bloody wound at
the shoulder showing that the heroic Indian was wounded. He is shown
bearing a water vessel.

Battiste Good gives a figure for this year recognizably the same
as that in The-Flame’s chart, but with a different explanation.
He calls it “The Rees-stood-the-frozen-man-up-with-the-buffalo
stomach-in-his-hand winter,” and adds: “The body of a Dakota who had
been killed in an encounter with the Rees, and had been left behind,
froze. 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.”

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Water-stomach-killed winter.”

1796-’97--No. I. A Mandan chief, “The-Man-with the-Hat,” becomes noted
as a warrior. The character is precisely the same as that often given
for white man. Some error in the interpretation is suggested in the
absence of knowledge whether there actually was a Mandan chief so
named, in which case the pictograph would be consistent.

Battiste Good says: “Wears-the-war-bonnet-died winter,” adding: He did
not die this winter, but received a wound in the abdomen from which the
arrow head could not be extracted, but he died of the belly-ache years
after.

White-Cow-Killer says: “War-Bonnet-killed winter.”

The translated expression, “killed,” has been noticed to refer often to
a fatal wound, though the death did not take place immediately.

1797-’98.--No. I. A Ree woman is killed by a Dakota while gathering
“pomme-blanche,” a root used for food. Pomme-blanche, or Navet de
prairie, is a white root somewhat similar in appearance to a white
turnip, botanically _Psoralea esculenta_ (Nuttal), sometimes _P.
argophylla_. It is a favorite food of the Indians, eaten boiled down
to a sort of mush or hominy. A forked stick is used in gathering these
roots.

It will be noticed that this simple statement about the death of the
Arikara woman is changed by other recorders or interpreters into one of
a mythical character.

Battiste Good says: “Took-the-god-woman-captive winter,” adding: a
Dakota war party captured a woman of a tribe unknown, who, in order to
gain their respect, cried out, “I am a ‘Waukan-Tanka’ woman,” meaning
that she feared or belonged to God, the Great Spirit, whereupon they
let her go unharmed.

A note is added: This is the origin of their name for God
[Waka^n-Tañka], the Great Holy, or Supernatural One, they having never
heard of a Supreme Being, but had offered their prayers to the sun,
earth, and many other objects, believing they were endowed with spirits.

White-Cow-Killer says: “Caught-a-medicine-god-woman winter.”

1798-’99.--No. I. Blackfeet Dakotas kill three Rees.

1799-1800.--No. I. Uncpapas kill two Rees. The figure over the heads
of the two Rees is a bow, showing the mode of death. The hair of the
Arickaras in this and the preceding character is represented in the
same manner.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. IX

1800-’01.

1801-’02.

1802-’03.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1800-’01.--No. I. Thirty-one Dakotas killed by Crows.

No. II. 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 classed by ethnographers as
belonging to the Siouan family, has nearly always been at war with the
Dakotas proper since the whites have had any knowledge of either. The
official tables of 1875 give the number of Crows then living as 4,200.
They are tall, well-made, bold, and noted for the extraordinary length
of their hair.

No. III. Thirty Dakotas killed by the Gros Ventres Indians between
Forts Berthold and Union, Dakota.

Mato Sapa’s record has nine inside strokes in three rows, the
interpretation being that thirty Dakotas were killed by Gros Ventres
between Forts Berthold and Union, Dakota.

Major Bush says the same, adding that it was near the present site of
Fort Buford.

1801-’02.--No. I. Many died of small-pox.

No. II. The small-pox broke out in the nation. The device is the head
and body of a man covered with red blotches.

No. III. All the Dakotas had the small-pox very bad; fatal.

Battiste Good’s record says: “Small-pox-used-them-up-again winter.”

White-Cow-Killer says: “All-sick winter.”

Major Bush adds “very badly” to “small-pox broke out.”

1802-’03.--No. I. First shod horses seen by Indians.

No. II. 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.

No. III. Blackfeet Dakotas stole some American horses having shoes on.
Horseshoes seen for the first time.

Mato Sapa says: Blackfeet Dakota stole American horses with shoes on,
then first seen by them.

Major Bush agrees with Mato Sapa.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Brought-in-horseshoes winter.”

Battiste Good says: “Brought-home-Pawnee-horses-with-iron shoes-on
winter.”

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. X

1803-’04.

1804-’05.

1805-’06.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1803-’04.--No. I. A Blackfeet steals many curly horses from the
Assinaboines.

No. II. They stole some “curly horses” from the Crows. Some of
these horses are still seen on the plains, the hair growing in
closely-curling tufts, resembling in texture the negro’s woolly pile.
The device is a horse with black marks for the tufts. The Crows are
known to have been early in the possession of horses.

No. III. Uncpapa Dakotas stole five woolly horses from the Ree Indians.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Plenty-woolly-horses winter.”

Mato Sapa says: Uncpapa stole from the Rees five horses having curly
hair.

Major Bush same as last, using “woolly” instead of “curly.”

Battiste Good says:
“Brought-home-Pawnee-horses-with-their-hair-rough-and-curly winter.”

1804-’05.--No. I. Calumet dance. Tall-Mandan born.

No. II. The Dakotas had a calumet dance and then went to war. The
device is a long pipe-stem, 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
all 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_, and the pipe among
all the Mississippi tribes was a symbol of peace. Captain Carver, in
his Three Years’ Travels Through the Interior Parts of North America,
Philadelphia, 1796, which travels began in 1766, after puzzling over
the etymology of the word calumet (that honest “captain of Provincial
troops” obviously not understanding French), reports it 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.” The
event commemorated in the figure was probably a council of some of
the various tribes of the nation for settlement of all internal
difficulties, so as to act unitedly against the common enemy. J. C.
Beltrami, who visited the Dakotas not long after this date, describes
them in his Pilgrimage, London, 1828, as divided into independent
tribes, managing their separate affairs each by its own council,
and sometimes coming into conflict with each other, but uniting in a
general council on occasions affecting the whole nation.

No. III. Danced calumet dance before going to war.

Battiste Good says: “Sung-over-each-other-while-on-the-war-path
winter.” He adds: “The war party while out made a large pipe and sang
each other’s praises.” A memorandum is also added that the pipe here
seems to indicate peace made with some other tribe assisting in the
war. But see pages 118 and 139.

1805-’06.--No. I. Eight Dakotas killed by Crows.

No. II. 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.

No. III. Eight Minneconjou Dakotas killed by Crow Indians at the mouth
of Powder River.

Battiste Good says: “They-came-and-killed-eight winter.” The enemy
killed eight Dakotas.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Eight-Dakotas-killed winter.”

Mato Sapa says: Eight Minneconjous killed by Crows at mouth of Powder
River.

Major Bush same as last.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XI

1806-’07.

1807-’08.

1808-’09.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1806-’07.--No. I. Many eagles caught. This is done by digging a hole
and baiting the eagles to the hole in which the Indian is concealed,
who then catches the eagle.

No. II. A Dakota killed an Arikara 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 Arickaras, a branch of the Pawnee (Pani) family, were at the
date given a powerful body, divided into ten large bands. They migrated
in recent times from southeast to northwest along the Missouri River.

No. III. A Ree Indian hunting eagles from a hole in the ground killed
by the Two Kettle Dakotas.

Battiste Good says: “Killed-them-while-hunting-eagles winter.” Some
Dakota eagle-hunters were killed by enemies.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Killed-while-hunting-eagles winter.”

Mato Sapa says: A Ree hunting eagles from a hole in the ground was
killed by Two Kettles.

Major Bush says the same without the words “hole in the ground.”

There is no doubt that the drawing represents an Indian in the act
of catching an eagle by the legs, as the Arickaras were accustomed
to catch eagles in their earth-traps. They rarely or never shot war
eagles. The enemies probably shot the Arikara in his trap just as he
put his hand up to grasp the bird.

1807-’08.--No. I. Red-Shirt killed by Rees.

No. II. Red-Coat, a chief, was killed. The figure shows the red coat
pierced by two arrows, with blood dropping from the wounds.

No. III. Uncpapa Dakota, named Red-Shirt, killed by Ree Indians.

Battiste Good says: “Came-and-killed-man-with-red-shirt-on winter.”

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Red-shirt-killed winter.”

Mato Sapa says: Red-shirt, an Uncpapa Dakota, was killed by Rees.

Major Bush same as last.

1808-’09.--No. I. Broken-Leg (Dakota) killed by Rees.

No. II. 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, taken
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. War then raging between the Dakotas and
several tribes, probably many on both sides were killed in each of the
years; but there was some incident about the one Ree who was shot as
in fancied security he was bringing down an eagle, and whose death was
avenged by his brethren the second year afterward. Hence the selection
of those occurrences. 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 calendar, the criterion being not that they were of national
moment, but that they were of general notoriety, or perhaps of special
interest to the recorders.

No. III. A Blackfeet Dakota, named Broken-Leg, killed by Ree Indians.

Mato Sapa says: Broken-Leg, a Blackfeet Dakota, was killed by Rees.

Major Bush same as last.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XII

1809-’10.

1810-’11.

1811-’12.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1809-’10.--No. I. Little-Beaver, a white trapper, is burnt to death by
accident in his house on the White River. He was liked by Indians.

No. II. A chief, Little-Beaver, set fire to a trading store, and
was killed. The character is simply his name-totem. The other
interpretations say that he was a white man, but he probably had gained
a new name among the Indians.

No. III. White French trader, called Little-Beaver, was blown up by
powder on the Little Missouri River.

Battiste Good says: “Little-Beaver’s-house-burned winter.”
Little-Beaver was an English trader, and his trading house was a log
one.

White-Cow-Killer says: Little-Beaver’s house was burned.

1810-’11.--No. I. Black-Rock, a Minneconjou chief, killed. See page 135.

No. II. Black-Stone made medicine. 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 they “put forth the charm,
of woven paces and of waving hands,” utter wild cries, and muddle in
blood and filth until they sometimes work themselves into an epileptic
condition. Their incantations are not only to drive away disease,
but for many other purposes, such as to obtain success in war, avert
calamity, and very frequently 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
that of an albino, 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; London, 1843; also see _infra_, pages
118, 122 and 195.

The device in the chart is the man-figure, with the head of an albino
buffalo held over his own.

No. III. A Minneconjou Dakota, named Little-Tail, first made “medicine”
with white buffalo cow-skin.

Mato Sapa says: A Minneconjou, named Little-Tail, first made medicine
with white buffalo cow-skin.

Major Bush same as last.

American-Horse gives for the preceding year, 1809-’10: Black-Rock was
killed by the Crows.

1811-’12.--No. I. Twenty-seven Mandans surrounded and killed by Dakotas.

No. II. The Dakotas 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 latter the copy
shows too minute in this device for suggestion of what they probably
represent; 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 Dakotas are always denoted by drawing a hand across the
throat, signifying that they cut the throats of their enemies. The
Dakotas 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 around 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 remove all symbolic character, leaving the circle
simply as the rude drawing of a dirt lodge, being an instance in which
the present writer, by no means devoted to symbolism, had supposed a
legitimate symbol to be indicated, which supposition full information
on the subject did not support.

There are two wholly distinct tribes called by the Canadians Gros
Ventres. One, known also as Hidatsa and Minnetari, is classed in the
Siouan family, and numbered, in 1804, according to Lewis and Clarke,
2,500 souls. The other “Big Bellies,” properly called Atsina, are the
northern division of the Arapahos, an Algonkin tribe, from which they
separated in the early part of this century, and, wandering eastward,
met the Dakotas, by whom they were driven off to the north. It is
probable that this is the conflict recorded, though the Dakotas have
also often been at feud with their linguistic cousins, the Minnetari.

No. III. Twenty of the Gros Ventres killed by Dakotas in a dirt lodge.
They were chased into a deserted Ree dirt lodge and killed there.

Mato Sapa says: Twenty Gros Ventres were killed by the Dakotas in a
dirt lodge. In this record there is a circle with only one head.

Major Bush’s interpretation is the same as the last.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XIII

1812-’13.

1813-’14.

1814-’15.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1812-’13.--No. I. Many wild horses caught.

No. II. The 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 have
been so revolutionized in their habits as to be utterly helpless, both
in war and the chase, when deprived of that animal.

No. III. Dakotas first used lariat (_sic_) for catching wild horses.

Battiste Good says for the preceding year, 1811-’12:
“First-hunted-horses winter.” He adds: “The Dakotas caught wild horses
in the sand-hills with braided lariats.”

American-Horse also, for 1811-’12, says: They caught many wild horses
south of the Platte River.

White-Cow-Killer calls 1811-’12 “Catching-wild-horses winter.”

Major Bush says: Dakotas first made use of lariat in catching wild
horses.

1813-’14--No. I. Many Indians died of cold (consumption).

No. II. The whooping-cough was very prevalent and fatal. The sign is
ludicrously suggestive of a blast of air coughed out by the man-figure.

No. III. Dakotas had whooping-cough, very fatal.

The interruption in the cough is curiously designed. An attempt at the
same thing is made in Chart 1, and a less marked attempt appears in No.
II.

1814-’15--No. I. Hunchback, a Brulé, killed by Utes.

No. II. A Dakota killed an Arapaho in his lodge. The device
represents a tomahawk or battle-ax, the red being blood from the
cleft skull.

The Arapahos long dwelt near the head-waters of the Arkansas and Platte
Rivers, and in 1822 numbered by report 10,000.

No. III. A Wetapahata (a stranger Indian, whose nationality was not
identified by the interpreter) Indian killed by a Brulé Dakota, while
on a visit to the Dakota.

Mato Sapa says: a Wetopahata Indian was killed by a Brulé Sioux while
on a visit to the Dakotas.

Major Bush says the same, but spells the word Watahpahata.

Riggs gives Wí-ta-pa-ha, the Kiowas, and Ma-qpí-ya-to, the Arapahos, in
the Dakota Dictionary.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XIV

1815-’16.

1816-’17.

1817-’18.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1815-’16.--No. I. Large dirt lodge made by Sans Arcs. The figure at the
top of the lodge is a bow.

No. II. The Sans Arcs made the first attempt at a dirt lodge. This
was at Peoria Bottom, Dakota Territory. 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.

No. III. Sans Arc Dakotas built dirt lodges at Peoria Bottom. A dirt
lodge is considered a permanent habitation. The mark on top of the
lodge is evidently a strung bow, not a feather.

Battiste Good says: “The-Sans-Arcs-made-large-house winter.”

White-Cow-Killer calls it: “Made-a-house winter.”

Major Bush’s copy also shows a clearly drawn figure of a bow, strung.

1816-’17.--No. I. Buffalo very plenty.

No. II. “Buffalo belly was plenty.” The device rudely portrays a side
or perhaps hide of buffalo.

No. III. Dakotas had unusual quantities of buffalo.

1817-’18.--No. I. Trading store built at Fort Pierre.

No. II. 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 Dakotas. He once established himself in the Minnesota
Valley. His name is mentioned by various travelers.

No. III. Trading post built on the Missouri River 10 miles above Fort
Thompson.

Battiste Good says: “Chozé-built-a-house-of-dead-logs winter.”

Mato Sapa says: A trading house was built on the Missouri River 10
miles above Fort Thompson.

Major Bush says the same as last, but that it was built by Louis La
Conte.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XV

1818-’19.

1819-’20.

1820-’21.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS]

1818-’19.--No. I. Many Indians died of cholera [_sic_].

No. II. The measles broke out and many died. The device in the copy is
the same as that for 1801-’02, relating to the small-pox, 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 small-pox epidemic preceded that of the measles; but
such care is generally taken to make some, however minute, distinction
between the characters, that possibly the figures on Lone-Dog’s robe
show a more marked difference between the spots indicating the two
eruptions than is reproduced in the copy. It is also to be noticed
that the Indian diagnosis makes little distinction between small-pox
and measles, so that no important pictographic variation could be
expected. The head of this figure is clearly distinguished from that in
1801-’02.

No. III. All the Dakotas had measles, very fatal.

Battiste Good says: “Small-pox-used-them-up-again winter.” They at this
time lived on the Little White River, about 20 miles above the Rosebud
Agency. The character in Battiste Good’s chart is presented here in
Figure 41, as a variant from those in the plates.

[Illustration: FIG. 41.--Measles or small-pox.]

Cloud-Shield says: Many died of the small-pox.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Little-small-pox winter.”

In Mato Sapa’s drawing the head of the figure is distinguished from
that of 1801-’02.

1819-’20.--No. I. Another trading store built.

No. II. Another trading store was built; this time by Louis La Conte,
at Fort Pierre, Dakota. His timber, as one of the Indians consulted
specially mentioned, was rotten.

No. III. Trading post built on the Missouri River above Farm Island
(near Fort Pierre).

Battiste Good says: “Chozé-built-a-house-of-rotten-wood winter.”

White-Cow-Killer calls it: “Made-a-house-of-old-wood winter.”

1820-’21.--No. I. Large dirt lodge made by Two-Arrow. The projection at
the top extends downward from the left, giving the impression of red
and black cloth streamers.

No. II. 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 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, as at first sight suggested, as
the red would in that case be nearest the roof, instead of farthest
from it.

No. III. A Minneconjou Dakota, named Two-Arrows, built himself a dirt
medicine-lodge. This the interpreter calls, rather inaccurately, a
headquarters for dispensing medicines, charms, and nostrums to the
different bands of Dakotas. The black and red lines above the roof are
not united and do not touch the roof.

White-Cow-Killer calls it: “Two-Arrows-made-a-war-bonnet winter.”

Battiste Good says: They made bands of strips of blankets in the winter.

Major Bush says: A Minneconjou, named Two-Arrow, made medicine in a
dirt-lodge.

It will be observed that the interpreters vary in the details.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XVI

1821-’22.

1822-’23.

1823-’24.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1821-’22.--No. I. Large ball of fire with hissing noise (aërolite).

No. II. The character represents the falling to earth of a very
brilliant meteor, and though no such appearance is on record, there
were in 1821 few educated observers near the Upper Mississippi and
Missouri who would take the trouble to notify scientific societies of
the phenomenon.

No. III. Dakota Indians saw an immense meteor passing from southeast to
northwest which exploded with great noise (in Dakota Territory).

Red-Cloud said he was born in that year.

Battiste Good says: “Star-passed-by-with-loud-noise winter.” His device
is shown in Figure 42, showing the meteor, its pathway, and the clouds
from which it came.

[Illustration: FIG. 42--Meteor.]

White-Cow-Killer calls it “One-star-made-a-great-noise winter.” See
also Cloud-Shield’s count, page 136.

1822-’23.--No. I. Trading store built at Little Missouri, near Fort
Pierre.

No. II.--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.

No. III. Trading post built at the mouth of Little Missouri River.

1823-’24--No. I. Whites and Dakotas fight Rees.

No. II. White soldiers made their first appearance in the region. So
said the interpreter, Clément, 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 as follows, abstracted from the annual report of J. C.
Calhoun, Secretary of War, November 29, 1823:

General William H. Ashley, lieutenant-governor of the State of
Missouri, a licensed trader, was treacherously attacked by the Arickara
Indians at their village on the west bank of the Missouri River, about
midway between the present Fort Sully and Fort Rice, on June 2, 1823.
Twenty-three of the trading party were killed and wounded, and the
remainder retreated in boats a considerable distance down the river,
whence they sent appealing for succor to the commanding officer at Fort
Atkinson, the present site of Council Bluffs. This officer was Col. H.
Leavenworth, Sixth United States Infantry, who marched June 22, with
220 men of that regiment, 80 men of trading companies, and two 6-pound
cannon, a 5-1/2-inch brass howitzer, and some small swivels, nearly
700 miles through a country filled with hostile or unreliable Indians
to the Ree villages, which, after much hardship and some losses, he
reached on the 9th of August. The Dakotas were at war with the Arickara
or Rees, and 700 to 800 of their warriors had joined the United States
forces on the way; of these Dakotas 500 are mentioned as Yanktons, but
the tribes of the remainder are not designated in the official reports.
The Rees were in two villages, the lower one containing seventy-one
dirt lodges and the upper seventy, both being inclosed with palisades
and a ditch, and the greater part of the lodges having a ditch
around the bottom on the inside. The enemy, having knowledge of the
expedition, had fortified and made every preparation for resistance.
Their force consisted of over 700 warriors, most of whom were armed
with rifles procured from British traders. On the 9th of August the
Dakotas commenced the attack, and were driven back until the regular
troops advanced, but nothing decisive resulted until the artillery was
employed on the 10th, when a large number of the Rees, including their
chief, Grey-Eyes, were killed, and early in the afternoon they begged
for peace. They were much terrified and humbled by the effect of the
cannon, which, though small, answered the purpose. During the main
engagement the Dakotas occupied themselves in gathering and carrying
off all the corn to be found, and before the treaty was concluded,
which, at the supplication of the Rees, Colonel Leavenworth agreed to,
the Dakotas all left in great disgust at not being allowed to kill and
scalp the surrendered warriors with their squaws and pappooses, take
possession of the villages, horses, etc., and in fact to exterminate
their hereditary foes. However, the Rees, having become panic-stricken
after the treaty and two days of peaceful intercourse with the
soldiers, deserted their homes, and the troops, embarking on the 15th
to descend the river, shortly saw the villages in flames, which was the
work either of the Dakotas or of inimical traders.

The device is believed to represent 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.

No. III. United States troops fought Ree Indians.

Battiste Good says: “General-----
-first-appeared-and-the-Dakotas-aided-him-in-an-attack-on-the-Rees
winter,” also “Much-corn winter.” For his character see Figure 69, page
166. The gun and the arrow in contact with the ear of corn show that
both whites and Indians fought the Rees.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Old-corn-plenty winter.”

Mato Sapa’s chart gives the human figure with a military cap, beard,
and goatee.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XVII

1824-’25.

1825-’26.

1826-’27.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1824-’25.--No. I. All the horses of Little-Swan’s father are killed by
Indians through spite.

No. II. 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.

No. III. Swan, a Minneconjou Indian, had twenty horses killed by a
jealous Indian.

Mato Sapa says: Swan, a Minneconjou chief, lost twenty horses killed by
a jealous Indian.

Major Bush says the same.

1825-’26.--No. I. River overflows the Indian camp; several drowned.
The-Flame, the recorder of this count, born. In the original drawing
the five objects above the line are obviously human heads.

No. II. 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, or it may simply be
the severed heads, several times used, to denote Indians other than
Dakotas, with the uniting black line of death.

No. III. Thirty lodges of Dakota Indians drowned by a sudden rise of
the Missouri River about Swan Lake Creek, which is in Horsehead Bottom,
15 miles below Fort Rice. The five heads are more clearly drawn than in
No. II.

Battiste Good says: “Many-Yanktonais-drowned winter;” adding: 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. This device is presented in Figure 43.

[Illustration: FIG. 43.--River freshet.]

All the winter counts refer to this flood.

1826-’27.--No. I. All of the Indians who ate of a buffalo killed on a
hunt died of it, a peculiar substance issuing from the mouth.

No. II. “An Indian died of the dropsy.” So Basil Clément was
understood, but it is not clear why this circumstance should have been
noted, unless the appearance of the disease was so unusual in 1826
as to excite remark. Baron de La Hontan, a good authority concerning
the Northwestern Indians before they had been greatly affected by
intercourse with whites, although showing a tendency to imitate another
baron--Munchausen--as to his personal adventures, in his Nouveaux
Voyages dans l’Amérique Septentrionale specially mentions dropsy as one
of the diseases unknown to them. Carver also states that this malady
was extremely rare. Whether or not the dropsy was very uncommon, the
swelling in this special case might have been so enormous as to render
the patient an object of general curiosity and gossip, whose affliction
thereby came within the plan of the count. The device merely shows a
man-figure, not much fatter than several others, but distinguished
by a line extending sidewise from the top of the head and inclining
downward. The other records cast doubt upon the interpretation of
dropsy.

No. III. Dakota war party killed a buffalo; having eaten of it they all
died.

Battiste Good says: “Ate-a-whistle-and-died winter,” and adds: “Six
Dakotas, on the war-path, 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, and they
died of a whistle, or from eating a whistle.” The sound of gas escaping
from, the mouth is illustrated in his figure which see in Figure 146,
page 221.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Long-whistle-sick winter.”

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XVIII

1827-’28.

1828-’29.

1829-’30.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1827-’28.--No. I. A Minneconjou is stabbed by a Gros Ventre, and his
arm shrivels up.

No. II. 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 the withered arm. Though the Mandans are also of the
great Siouan family, the Dakotas have pursued them with special hatred.
In 1823, their number, much diminished by wars, still exceeded 2,500.

No. III. A Minneconjou Dakota wounded with a large knife by a Gros
Ventre. The large knife was a sword, and the Indian who was wounded was
named, afterwards, Lame-Shoulder. This is an instance of a change of
name after a remarkable event in life.

1828-’29.--No. I. Chardran, a white man, builds a house at forks of
Cheyenne River. This name should probably be spelled Chadron, with whom
Catlin hunted in 1832, in the region mentioned.

No. II. A white man named Shardran, who lately (as reported in 1877)
was still living in the same neighborhood, built a dirt lodge. The
hatted head appears under the roof.

III. Trading post opened in a dirt lodge on the Missouri a little below
the mouth of the Little Missouri River.

1829-’30.--No. I. A Dakota found dead in a canoe.

No. II. Bad-Spike killed another Indian with an arrow.

No. III. A Yanktonai Dakota killed by Bad-Arrow Indians.

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

Mato Sapa says: a Yanktonai was killed by the Bad-Arrow Indians.

Major Bush says the same as Mato Sapa.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XIX

1830-’31.

1831-’32.

1832-’33.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1830-’31.--No. I. Mandans kill twenty Crows at Bear Butte.

No. II. 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.

No. III. Twenty Crow and one Cheyenne Indians killed by Dakotas at Bear
Butte.

Mato Sapa says: One Cheyenne and twenty Crows were killed by Dakotas at
Bear Butte.

Major Bush says the same as Mato Sapa.

1831-’32.--No. I. Two white men killed by a white man at Medicine
Creek, below Fort Sully.

No. II. Le Beau, a white man, killed another named Kermel. Another copy
reads Kennel. Le Beau was still alive at Little Bend, 30 miles above
Fort Sully, in 1877.

No. III. Trader named Le Beau killed one of his employés on Big
Cheyenne River, below Cherry Creek.

1832-’33.--No. I. Lone-Horn’s father broke his leg.

No. II. 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.

No. III. A Minneconjou Dakota, Lone-Horn’s father, had his leg broken
while running buffalo.

Mato Sapa and Major Bush also say Lone-Horn’s father.

Battiste Good says: “Stiff-leg-With-war-bonnet-on-died winter.” He was
killed in an engagement with the Pawnees on the Platte River.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “One-Horn’s-leg-broken winter.”

In Catlin’s “North American Indians,” New York, 1844, Vol. I, page 211,
the author, writing from the mouth of Teton River, Upper Missouri, site
of Fort Pierre, described Ha-won-je-tah, The One-Horn, head chief of
all the bands of the Dakotas, which were about twenty. He was a bold,
middle-aged man of medium stature, noble countenance, and figure almost
equalling an Apollo. His portrait was painted by Catlin in 1832. He
took the name of One-Horn, or One-Shell, from a simple small shell that
was hanging on his neck, which descended to him from his father, and
which he valued more than anything else which he possessed, and he kept
that name in preference to many others more honorable which he had a
right to have taken, from his many exploits.

On page 221, the same author states, that after being the accidental
cause of the death of his only son, Lone-Horn became at times partially
insane. One day he mounted his war-horse, vowing to kill the first
living thing he should meet, and rode to the prairies. The horse came
back in two hours afterwards, with two arrows in him covered with
blood. His tracks were followed back, and the chief was found mangled
and gored by a buffalo bull, the carcass of which was stretched beside
him. He had driven away the horse with his arrows and killed the bull
with his knife.

Another account in the catalogue of Catlin’s cartoons gives the
portrait of The One-Horn as number 354, with the statement that having
killed his only son accidentally, he became deranged, wandered into the
prairies, and got himself killed by an infuriated buffalo bull’s horns.
This was at the mouth of Little Missouri River, in 1834.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XX

1833-’34.

1834-’35.

1835-’36.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1833-’34.--No. I. Many stars fell (meteors). The character shows six
black stars above the concavity of the moon.

No. II. “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 12th of that year. In this chart the moon is black and the
stars are red.

No. III. Dakotas witnessed magnificent meteoric-showers; much terrified.

Battiste Good calls it “Storm-of-stars winter,” and gives as the device
a tipi, with stars falling around it. This is presented in Figure 44.
The tipi is colored yellow in the original, and so represented in the
figure according to the heraldic scheme.

[Illustration: FIG. 44.--Meteoric shower.]

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Plenty-stars winter.”

All the winter counts refer to this meteoric display. See page 138.

1834-’35.--No. I. A Ree killed by a Dakota.

No. II. 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.

No. III. An Uncpapa Dakota Medicine-man killed by the Ree Indians.

Mato Sapa says: An Uncpapa medicine-man was killed by Rees. There is no
red on the figure.

1835-’36.--No. I. Lame-Deer killed by a Dakota. The Dakota had only one
arrow. He pulled it out and shot Lame-Deer many times.

No. II. 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.

No. III. Minneconjou chief named Lame-Deer shot an Assiniboine three
times with the same arrow. He kept so close to his enemy that he never
let the arrow slip away from the bow, but pulled it out and shot it in
again.

Mato Sapa says a Minneconjou named Lame-Deer shot an Assiniboine three
times running with the same arrow.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXI

1836-’37.

1837-’38.

1838-’39.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

Lame-Deer was a distinguished chief among the hostiles in 1876. His
camp of five hundred and ten lodges was surprised and destroyed
by General Miles, and four hundred and fifty horses, mules, and ponies
were captured.

1836-’37.--No. I. Father-of-the-Mandans died.

No. II. 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;
and the question might be raised, what the buffalo belly had to do with
the demise of the lamented chieftain, unless he suffered from a fatal
indigestion after eating too much of that delicacy.

Interpreter Fielder, however, 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 name-totem.

No. III. Two Kettle, Dakota, named The-Breast, died.

Mato Sapa says: A Two Kettle, named The-Breast, died.

Major Bush same as Mato Sapa.

1837-’38.--No. I. Many elk and deer killed. The figure does not show
the split hoof.

No. II. Commemorates a remarkably successful hunt, in which it is said
one hundred elk were killed. The drawing of the elk is good enough to
distinguish it from the other quadrupeds in this chart.

No. III. The Dakotas killed one hundred elk at the Black Hills.

Mato Sapa says: The Dakotas killed one hundred elk at the Black Hills.
His figure does not show the split hoof.

1838-’39.--No. I. Indians built a lodge on White Wood Creek, in the
Black Hills, and wintered there.

No. II. A dirt lodge was built for Iron-Horn. The other dirt lodge
(1815-’16) has a mark of ownership, which this has not. Perhaps it was
not so easy to draw an iron horn as a crow feather, and the distinction
was accomplished by omission. A chief of the Minneconjous is mentioned
in General Harney’s report in 1856, under the name of The-One-Iron-Horn.

No. III. A Minneconjou chief, named Iron-Horn, built dirt lodge
(medicine lodge) on Moreau River (same as Owl River).

This Minneconjou chief, Iron-Horn, died a few years ago and was buried
near Fort Sully. He was father-in-law of Dupuis, a French Canadian.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXII

1839-’40.

1840-’41.

1841-’42.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1839-’40.--No. I. Dakotas killed twenty lodges of Arapahos.

No. II. The Dakotas killed an entire village of Snake Indians.
The character is the ordinary tipi pierced by arrows. The Snakes,
or Shoshoni, were a numerous and wide-spread people, inhabiting
Southeastern Oregon, Idaho, Western Montana, and portions of Utah and
Nevada, extending into Arizona and California.

No. III. A Minneconjou Dakota, named The-Hard (with band), killed seven
lodges of the Blue Cloud Indians.

The Blue Clouds are the Arapahos, so styled by the Dakotas, original
_Maqpíyato_.

Mato Sapa says: A Minneconjou Dakota named The-Hard killed seven lodges
of the Blue Cloud Indians.

Major Bush same as Mato Sapa.

1840-’41.--No. I. Red-Arm, a Cheyenne, and Lone-Horn, a Dakota, make
peace.

No. II. The Dakotas made peace with the Cheyennes, a well-known tribe
belonging to the Algonkin family. The symbol of peace is the common one
of the approaching palms of two persons. The different coloration of
the two arms distinguishes them from the approximation of the palms of
one person.

No. III. Dakotas made peace with Cheyenne Indians.

1841-’42.--No. I. Feather-in-the-Ear steals horses from the Crows.

No. II. Feather-in-the-Ear stole thirty spotted ponies. The spots are
shown red, distinguishing them from those of the curly horse in the
character for 1803-’04.

No. III. A Minneconjou Dakota, named Feather-in-his-Ear, stole nineteen
spotted horses from the Crow Indians.

Mato Sapa says: A Minneconjou named Feather-in-the-Ear stole nineteen
spotted horses from the Crows.

Major Bush, says the same, except that he gives the number as nine
instead of nineteen.

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.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXIII

1842-’43.

1842-’44.

1844-’45.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1842-’43.--No. I. A Minneconjou chief tries to make war. The tip of the
feather is black. No red in it.

No. II. 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 war path. For further information on this
subject see page 139. The Red-War-Eagle-Feather was at this time a
chief of the Sans Arcs.

No. III. Feather-in-the-Ear made a feast, to which he invited all the
young Dakota braves, wanting them to go with him. A memorandum is added
that he failed to persuade them. See Corbusier Winter Counts for same
year, page 141.

Mato Sapa says: The same man (referring to last year),
Feather-in-the-Ear, made a feast inviting all Dakota young men to go to
war.

Major Bush says same as Mato Sapa.

1843-’44.--No. I. Buffalo is scarce; an Indian makes medicine and
brings them to the suffering.

No. II. The Sans Arcs made medicine to bring the buffalo. The medicine
tent is denoted by a buffalo’s head drawn on it.

No. III. No buffalo; Indians made medicine to the Great Spirit by
painting a buffalo’s head on lodge; plenty came.

Mato Sapa says: Dakotas were starving; made medicine to Great Spirit by
painting buffalo head on their lodges; plenty came.

Major Bush substantially same as Mato Sapa.

1844-’45.--No. I. Mandans wintered in Black Hills.

No. II. The Minneconjous built a pine fort. Device: A pine tree
connected with a tipi.

No. III. Unusually heavy snow; had to build corrals for ponies.

Major Bush says: Heavy snow, in which many of their ponies perished.

Probably the Indians went into the woods and erected their tipis there
as protection from the snow, thus accounting for the figure of the tree.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXIV

1845-’46.

1846-’47.

1847-’48.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1845-’46--No. I. Dakotas have much feasting at Ash Point, 20 miles
above Fort Sully.

No. II. Plenty of buffalo meat, which is represented as hung upon
poles and trees to dry.

No. III. Immense quantities of buffalo meat.

1846-’47.--No. I. Broken-Leg dies.

No. II. 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.

No. III. A Minneconjou Dakota named Broken-Leg died.

Battiste Good calls this: “The-Teal-broke-his-leg winter.” The arm in
his character, given in Figure 45, is lengthened so as nearly to touch
the broken leg, which is shown distorted, instead of indicating the
injury by the mere distortion of the leg itself as in the charts on
Plate XXIV. The bird over the head and connected by a line with it,
probably represents the teal as a name-totem. He was perhaps called
Broken-Leg after the injury, or perhaps the other interpreters did not
remember his name, only the circumstance.

[Illustration: FIG. 45.--The-Teal-broke-his-leg.]

Mato Sapa says: A Minneconjou named Broken-Leg died.

The Corbusier records for 1847-’48 refer to a number of accidents by
which legs were broken. See page 142.

1847-’48--No. I. Mandans kill two Minneconjous.

No. II. Two-Man was killed. His totem is drawn--two small man-figures
side by side.

No. III. Two Minneconjou Dakotas killed by the Assiniboine Indians.

Major Bush says: the wife of an Assiniboine chief named Big-Thunder had
twins.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXV

1848-’49.

1849-’50.

1850-’51.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1848-’49.--No. I. Humpback, a Minneconjou, killed.

No. II. Humpback was killed. An ornamented lance pierces the distorted
back.

No. III. A Minneconjou Dakota named Broken-Back was killed by the Crow
Indians at Black Hills.

Major Bush says: A Minneconjou, Broken-Back, was killed by Crows.

1849-’50.--No. I. Crows steal all the Dakotas’ horses.

No. II. The Crows stole a large drove of horses (it is said eight
hundred) from the Brulés. The circle may denote multitude, at least
one hundred, but probably is a simple design for a camp or corral from
which a number of horse-tracks are departing.

No. III. Crow Indians stole two hundred horses from the Minneconjou
Dakotas near Black Hills.

Interpreter A. Lavary says: Brulés were at the headwaters of White
River, about 75 miles from Fort Laramie, Wyoming. The Dakotas surprised
the Crows in 1849, killed ten, and took one prisoner, because he was
a man dressed in woman’s clothes, and next winter the Crows stole six
hundred horses from the Brulés. See page 142.

1850-’51.--No. I. Cow with old woman in her belly. Cloven hoof not
shown.

No. II. 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.” At first the writer suspected that the medicine men
had manufactured some pretended portent out of a fœtus taken from
a real cow, but 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.
The medicine men, perhaps, announced, in 1850, that a squaw who had
disappeared was swallowed by the mammoth, which was then on its
periodical visit, and must be propitiated.

No. III. A Minneconjou Dakota, having killed a buffalo cow, found an
old woman inside of her.

Memorandum from interpreter: A small party of Dakotas, two or three
young men, returning unsuccessful from a buffalo hunt, told this story,
and it is implicitly believed by the Dakotas.

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 that to
occur.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXVI

1851-’52.

1852-’53.

1853-’54.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1851-’52.--No. I. Peace made with the Crows.

No. II. Peace with the Crows. Two Indians, with differing arrangement
of hair, showing two tribes, are exchanging pipes for a peace-smoke.

No. III. Dakotas made peace with the Crow Indians. It was, as usual,
broken immediately.

The treaty of Fort Laramie was in 1851.

1852-’53.--No. I. A Crow chief, Flat-Head, comes into the tipi of a
Dakota chief, where a council was assembled, and forces them to smoke
the pipe of peace. This was a daring act, for he was in danger of
immediate death if he failed.

No. II. 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. The Nez Percés are so styled by a
blunder of the early travelers, as they never have been known to pierce
their noses, although others of their family, the Sahaptin, do so. The
tribe was large, dwelling chiefly in Idaho.

No. III. An enemy came into Lone-Horn’s lodge during a medicine feast
and was not killed. (The enemy numbered about fourteen and had lost
their way in a snow-storm.) The pipe is not in the man’s hand, and the
head only is drawn with the pipe between it and the tipi.

Mato Sapa says: Several strange Indians came into the Dakota camp, were
saved from being killed by running into Lone-Horn’s lodge.

Major Bush says: An enemy came into Lone-Horn’s lodge during a feast
and was not killed.

Touch-the-Clouds, a Minneconjou, son of Lone-Horn, on being shown
Chart No. II by the present writer, designated this character as being
particularly known to him from the fact of its being his father’s
lodge. He remembers all about it from talk in his family, and said it
was the Nez Percés who came.

1853-’54.--No. I. Spanish blankets introduced by traders. The blanket
is represented without the human figure.

No. II. Spanish blankets were first brought to the country. A fair
drawing of one of those striped blankets, held out by a white trader.

No. III. Dakotas first saw the Spanish blankets.

See Corbusier records for 1851-’52, page 142.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXVII

1854-’55.

1855-’56.

1856-’57.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1854-’55.--No. I. Brave-Bear killed by Blackfeet.

No. II. Brave-Bear was killed. It does not appear certain whether
he had already invested in the new style of blanket or whether the
extended arms are ornamented with pendent stripes. The latter is more
probable.

No. III. A Minneconjou Dakota named Brave-Bear was killed by the Upper
Blackfeet. [Satsika?]

See Corbusier winter-counts for the same year, page 143.

1855-’56.--No. I. General Harney (Putin ska) makes a treaty.

No. II. General Harney made peace with a number of the tribes or bands
of the Dakotas. This was at Fort Pierre, Dakota. 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, Oncpapas, Blackfeet Sioux, Minneconjous, Sans
Arcs, Yanctonnais (two bands), Brulés of the Platte.”

No. III. Dakotas made peace with General Harney (called by them
Putinska, white beard or moustache) at Fort Pierre, Dakota.

1856-’57.--No. I. Four-Horns, a great warrior.

No. II. Four-Horn was made a calumet or medicine-man. This was probably
the result of an important political struggle, as there is much rivalry
and electioneering for the office, which, with its triple character
of doctor, priest, and magician, is one of far greater power than
the chieftainship. A man with four horns holds out the same kind of
ornamented pipe-stem 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 General Harney at the council of 1856 by
Bear-Rib, head chief of that tribe.

No. III. A Minneconjou Dakota, named Red-Fish’s-Son, danced calumet
dance.

Mato Sapa says the same as last.

Major Bush says, “A Minneconjou, Red-Fish’s-Son, The-Ass, danced the
Four-Horn calumet.”

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.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXVIII

1857-’58.

1858-’59.

1859-’60.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1857-’58.--No. I. White-Robe kills a Crow woman. There is but one arrow
and one blood spot in the character.

No. II. The Dakotas killed a Crow squaw. The stripes on the blanket are
shown horizontally, Brave-Bear’s, 1854-’55, and Swan’s, 1866-’67, being
vertical. She is pierced by four arrows, and the peace made with the
Crows in 1851-’52 seems to have been short lived.

No. III. A party of Crow Indians, while on a visit to the Dakotas, had
one of their number killed by a young Dakota. The figure has blood from
the four arrows running down each side of the body.

Mato-Sapa says: A Crow was killed by a Dakota while on a visit to the
latter.

Major Bush says substantially the same as Mato Sapa.

1858-’59.--No. I. Lone-Horn makes medicine. “At such times Indians
sacrifice ponies, etc., and fast.” In this character the buffalo-head
is black.

No. II. Lone-Horn, whose solitary horn appears, made buffalo medicine,
probably on account of the scarcity of that animal. Again the
head of an albino bison. One-Horn, doubtless the same individual, is
recorded as the head chief of the Minneconjous at this date.

No. III. A Minneconjou chief, named Lone-Horn, made medicine with white
buffalo-cow skin.

Lone-Horn, chief of Minneconjous, died in 1874, in his camp on the Big
Cheyenne.

1859-’60.--No. I. Big-Crow killed.

No. II. Big-Crow, a Dakota chief, was killed by the Crows. The crow,
transfixed by an arrow, is drawn so as to give quite the appearance of
an heraldic crest.

No. III. A Minneconjou Dakota, named Big-Crow, was killed by the Crow
Indians. He had received his name from killing a Crow Indian of unusual
size.

Mato Sapa says: Big-Crow, a Minneconjou, was killed by Crows.

Major Bush says same as Mato Sapa.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXIX

1860-’61.

1861-’62.

1862-’63.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1860-’61.--No. I. The-Elk-who-shows himself-when-he-walks makes
medicine.

No. II. Device, the head and neck of an elk, like that part of the
animal in 1837-’38, with a line extending from its mouth, at the
extremity of which is the albino buffalo-head. “The elk made you
understand his voice while he was walking.” The interpreter persisted
in this oracular rendering, probably not being able to fully catch the
Indian explanation from want of thorough knowledge of the language.
The ignorance of professed interpreters, who easily get beyond their
philological depth, but are ashamed to acknowledge it, has occasioned
many official blunders. This device and its interpretation were
unintelligible to the writer until examination of General Harney’s
report above referred to showed the name of a prominent chief of the
Minneconjous, set forth as “The-Elk-that-Hollows-Walking.” It then
became probable that the device simply meant that the aforesaid chief
made buffalo medicine, which conjecture, published in 1877, the other
records subsequently discovered verified.

No. III. A Minneconjou Dakota, named Red-Fish’s-Son, made medicine with
white buffalo-cow skin.

Mato Sapa’s record agrees with No. III.

Major Bush says the same, adding, after the words “Red-Fish’s-Son,”
“The-Ass.”

Interpreter A. Lavary said, in 1867, that The-Elk-that-Hollows-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.

1861-’62.--No. I. Buffalo very plenty.

No. II. Buffalo were so plenty 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.

No. III. Dakotas had unusual abundance of buffalo.

1862-’63.--No. I. Red-Plume kills an enemy.

No. II. Red-Feather, a Minneconjou, was killed. His feather is shown
entirely red, while the “one-feather” in 1842-’43 has a black tip.

No. III. A Minneconjou Dakota killed an Assiniboine named Red-Feather.

Mato Sapa says: Minneconjous kill an Assiniboine named Red-Feather.

Major Bush agrees with Mato Sapa.

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, beginning with the rout by Colonel
Sibley, on September 23, 1862. The Indian captives amounted in all
to about eighteen hundred. A military commission sentenced three
hundred and three to be hanged and eighteen to imprisonment for life.
Thirty-eight were actually hanged, December 26, 1862, at Camp Lincoln.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXX

1863-’64.

1864-’65.

1865-’66.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1863-’64.--No. I. Crows kill eight Dakotas on the Yellowstone.

No. II. 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.

Interpreter Lavary says General Sully killed seven or eight Crows at
The-Place-They-Shot-The-Deer, Ta-cha-con-té, about 90 miles southwest
of Fort Rice, Dakota. Mulligan says that General Sully fought the
Yanktonnais and the Santees at that place.

No. III. Eight Minneconjou Dakotas killed by Crow Indians.

See Corbusier Winter Counts for same year, page 144.

1864-’65.--No. I. Four Crows caught stealing horses from the Dakotas
were tortured to death. Shoulders shown.

No. II. The Dakotas killed four Crows. Four of the same rounded
objects, like several heads, shown in 1825-’26, but these are bloody,
thus distinguishing them from the cases of drowning.

No. III. Four Crow Indians killed by the Minneconjou Dakotas. Necks
shown.

1865-’66.--No. I. Many horses died.

No. II. Many horses died for want of grass. The horse here drawn is
sufficiently distinct from all others in the chart.

No. III. Dakotas lost many horses in the snow.

See Corbusier’s Winter Counts, No. II for same year, page 144.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXXI

1866-’67.

1867-’68.

1868-’69.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1866-’67.--No. I. Little Swan, a great warrior.

No. II. 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.

No. III. Minneconjou Dakota chief, named Swan, died.

Mato Sapa’s record has a better representation of a swan.

Interpreter Lavary says: Little-Swan died in this year on Cherry Creek,
75 miles northwest of Fort Sully.

Major Bush says this is historically correct.

1867-’68.--No. I. Much medicine made.

No. II. 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 great Dakota treaty of 1868.

No. III. Made peace with General Sherman and others at Fort Laramie.

Mato Sapa says: Made peace with General Sherman and others at Fort
Laramie.

Major Bush agrees with Mato Sapa.

See Corbusier’s Winter Counts, No. II, page 144.

1868-’69.--No. I. First issue of beef by Government to Indians.

No. II. 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.

No. III. Dakotas had plenty of white men’s cattle (the result of the
peace).

Mato Sapa agrees with No. III.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXXII

1869-’70.

1870-’71.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1869-’70.--No. I. Eclipse of the moon.

No. II. 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 the Indians 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. In addition, it is learned that Prof. Cleveland Abbé, who
was famed as an astronomer before he became so as a meteorologist,
was at Sioux Falls, with a corps of assistants, to observe this very
eclipse, and explained the subject to a large number of Indians there
at that time, so that their attention was not only directed specially
to that eclipse, but also to the white men as interested in it, and to
its real appearance as apart from their old superstition.

In addition to this fact, Dr. Washington Matthews, assistant surgeon
United States Army, communicates the statement that the Indians had
numberless other opportunities all over their country of receiving the
same information. He was at Fort Rice during the eclipse and remembers
that long before the eclipse 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^m 48^{s}.)

No. III. Dakotas witnessed eclipse of the sun; frightened terribly.

It is remarkable that the Corbusier Winter Counts do not mention this
eclipse.

1870-’71.--No. I. The-Flame’s son killed by Rees. The recorder,
The-Flame, evidently considered his family misfortune to be of more
importance than the battle referred to by the other recorders.

No. II. 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 in the symbol is not
a circle denoting multitude, but an irregularly rounded object, clearly
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 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 fire arms. 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 them was the lance
used in 1848-’49, and those arms might well have been employed in all
the cases selected for the calendar, although rifles and muskets were
common. There is also 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 in the chart
shown projecting from the wounds made by them. Pictographs in the
possession of the Bureau of Ethnology show battles in which bullets
are denoted by continuous dotted lines, the spots at which they take
effect being sometimes indicated. 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.

No. III. A Crow war party of 30 were surprised and surrounded in the
Black Hills by the Dakotas and killed. Fourteen of the Dakotas were
killed in the engagement.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXXIII

1871-’72.

1872-’73.

1873-’74.

1874-’75.

1875-’76.

1876-’77.

THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS.]

1871-’72.--No. I. The-Flame’s second son killed by Rees.

1872-’73.--No. I. Sans-Arc-John killed by Rees.

1873-’74.--No. I. Brulés kill a number of Pawnees.

Cloud-Shield says they killed many Pawnees on the Republican River.

1874-’75.--No. I. A Dakota kills one Ree.

1875-’76.--No. I. Council at Spotted Tail Agency.

1876-’77.--No. I. Horses taken by United States Government.

White-Cow-Killer calls it
“General-Mackenzie-took-the-Red-Cloud-Indians’-horses-away-from-them
winter.”

In the account of Lone-Dog’s chart, published in 1877, as above
mentioned, the present writer, on the subject of the recorder’s
selection of events, remarked as follows:

“The year 1876 has furnished good store of events for his 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 have selected the event of the
seizure of the ponies, and none of them yet seen make any allusion to
the defeat of Custer.

After examination of the three charts it will be conceded that, as
above stated, the design is not narrative, the noting of events being
subordinated to the marking of the years by them, and the pictographic
serial arrangements of sometimes trivial, though generally notorious,
incidents, being with special adaptation for use as a calendar. That in
a few instances small personal events, such as the birth or death of
the recorder or members of his family, are set forth, may be regarded
as in the line of 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 the more interesting to
ethnologists because they show an attempt, before unsuspected among the
tribes of American Indians, to form a system of chronology.

THE CORBUSIER WINTER COUNTS.

While the present paper was in preparation, a valuable and elaborate
communication was received from Dr. William H. Corbusier, assistant
surgeon, United State Army, styled by him the Dakota Winter Counts,
which title was adopted for the whole subject-matter, including the
charts with their interpretations which had before been known to
the present writer, and those from Dr. Corbusier, which furnish a
different system, are distinguished by his name. It is necessary to
explain that all references in the text to colors, other than black,
must be understood as applicable to the originals. Other colors could
not be reproduced in the plates without an expense disproportionate to
the importance of the colors for significance and comprehension.

A more important explanation is due on account of the necessity to
omit from Dr. Corbusier’s contribution the figures of Battiste Good’s
count and their interpretation. This count is in some respects the most
important of all those yet made known. As set down by Battiste Good, it
begins in a peculiar cyclic computation with the year A. D. 900, and
in thirteen figures includes the time to A.D. 1700, all these figures
being connected with legends and myths, some of which indicate European
influence. From 1700-’01 to 1879-’80 a separate character for each
year is given, with its interpretation, in a manner generally similar
to those in the other charts. Unfortunately all of these figures are
colored, either in whole or in large part, five colors being used
besides black, and the drawing is so rude that without the colors it is
in many cases unintelligible. The presentation at this time of so large
a number of colored figures--in all one hundred and ninety-three--in
addition to the other illustrations of the present paper, involved
too great expense. It is hoped that this count can be so far revised,
with the elimination of unessential coloration and with more precision
in the outlines, as to allow of its publication. Several of its
characters, with references also to its interpretation when compared
with that of other counts, are given in various parts of the present
paper. Where it was important to specify their coloration the heraldic
scheme has been used.

The pages immediately following contain the contribution of Dr.
Corbusier, diminished by the extraction of the parts comprising
Battiste Good’s count. Its necessary omission, as above explained,
is much regretted, not only on account of its intrinsic value, but
because without it the work of Dr. Corbusier does not appear to all the
advantage merited by his zeal and industry.

* * * * *

The Dakotas reckon time by winters, and apply names to them instead of
numbering them from an era. Each name refers to some notable occurrence
of the winter or year to which it belongs, and has been agreed upon
in council on the expiration of the winter. Separate bands have often
fixed upon different events, and it thus happens that the names are
not uniform throughout the nation. Ideographic records of these
occurrences have been kept in several bands for many years, and they
constitute the Dakota Winter-Counts (waníyetu wówapi) or Counts Back
(hékta yawapi). They are used in computing time, and to aid the memory
in recalling the names and events of the different years, their places
in the count, and their order of succession. The enumeration of the
winters is begun at the one last recorded and carried backward. Notches
on sticks, war-shirts, pipes, arrows, and other devices also serve a
mnemonic purpose. The Counts were formerly executed in colors on the
hides of animals, but the present recorders make use of paper, books,
pens, pencils, and paints obtained from the whites. The alignment of
the ideographs depends to some extent upon the material on which they
are depicted. On robes it is spiral from right to left and from the
center outward, each year being added to the coil as the snail adds to
its whorl. The spiral line, frequently seen in etchings on rocks, has
been explained to me as indicating a snail shell. On paper they are
sometimes carried from right to left, sometimes from left to right, and
again the two methods are combined as in Battiste Good’s winter-count,
which begins at the back of the book and is carried forward, _i. e._,
from right to left, but in which the alignment on each page is from
left to right. The direction from right to left is that followed in
many of their ceremonies, as when tobacco is smoked as incense to the
sun and the pipe is passed around, and when the devotees in the dance
to the sun enter and leave the consecrated lodge in which they fulfill
their vows.

Among the Oglálas and the Brulés there are at least five of these
counts kept by as many different men, each man seeming to be the
recorder for his branch of the tribe. I obtained copies of three of
them in 1879 and 1880, while stationed at Camp Sheridan, Nebraska, near
the Pine Ridge Agency, Dakota. One winter count was made for me by
Battiste Good, a Brulé Dakota, at the Rosebud Agency, Dakota, being a
copy of the one of which he is the recorder. He explained the meaning
of the pictographs to the Rev. William J. Cleveland, of the Rosebud
Agency, to whom I am indebted for rendering his explanations into
English. Several Indians and half-breeds had informed me that his count
formerly embraced about the same number of years as the other two, 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 is a copy of the one in the possession of
American-Horse, an Oglála Dakota, at the Pine Ridge Agency, who asserts
that his grandfather began it, and that it is the production of his
grandfather, his father, and himself. I received the explanations from
American-Horse through an interpreter.

A third winter count is a copy of one kept by Cloud-Shield. He is
also an Oglála Dakota at the Pine Ridge Agency, but of a different
band from American-Horse. I also received his explanations through an
interpreter. The last two counts embrace nearly the same number of
years. I have added the dates to both of them, beginning at the last
year, the date of which was known, and carrying them back. Two dates
belong to each figure, as a Dakota year covers a portion of two of our
calendar years.

I have seen copies of a fourth winter count which is kept by
White-Cow-Killer at the Pine Ridge Agency. I did not obtain a copy of
it, but learned most of the names given to the winters.

On comparing the winter counts, it is found that they often correspond,
but more frequently differ. In a few instances the differences are in
the succession of the events, but in most instances they are 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. Differences in the succession may be due to the loss of
a record and the depiction of another from memory, or to errors in
copying an old one.

The explanations of the counts are far from complete, as the recorders
who furnished them could in many instances recall nothing except the
name of the year, and in others were loth to speak of the events or
else their explanations were vague and unsatisfactory, and, again,
the interpreters were sometimes at fault. 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 it is called.
Declarations of this kind partake of the nature of affirmations made in
the presence of God. War-shirts on which scores of the enemies killed
are kept, and which are carefully transmitted from one generation
to another, help to refresh their memories in regard to some of the
events. By testing many Indians I learned that but few could interpret
the significance of the figures; some of them could point out the year
of their birth and that of some members of their families; others could
not do so, or pretended that they could not, but named the year and
asked me to point it out and tell their age.

In the following explanation of the winter counts, [figured on Plates
XXXIV-LI,] No. I refers to that of American-Horse and No. II to that of
Cloud-Shield.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXXIV

1775-’76.

1776-’77.

1777-’78.

1778-’79.

1779-’80.

1780-’81.

THE CORBUSIER WINTER COUNTS.]

1775-’76.--No. I. Standing-Bull, the great-grandfather of the present
Standing-Bull, discovered the Black Hills. He carried home with him a
pine tree of a species he had never seen before. (In this count the
Dakotas are usually distinguished by the braided scalp-lock and the
feather they wear at the crown of the head, or by the manner in which
they brush back and tie the hair. It will be noticed that the profile
of most of the faces is given, whereas Battiste Good gives the full
face. The Dakotas have of late years claimed the Black Hills, probably
by right of discovery in 1775-’76; but the Crows were the former
possessors.)

This is also the first winter of White-Cow-Killer’s count and is called
“Two-warriors-killed winter.”

1776-’77.--No. I. Many of their horses were killed by some of their own
people, who were jealous because they were fatter than their own.

1777-’78.--No. I. It was an intensely cold winter, and the
Man-who-has-no-skin-on-his-penis froze to death. The sign for snow or
winter, i. e., a cloud with snow falling from it, is above his head.
A haka-stick, which, in playing that game, they cast after a ring, is
represented in front of him.

Battiste Good’s record is that a Dakota named Skinned-Penis 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.

No. II. A war party brought in the lone pine tree from the enemy’s
country. They met no enemies while out. This event is also the first in
No. I, in which it marks the winter of 1775-’76.

1778-’79.--No. I. The Ponkas came and attacked a village,
notwithstanding peace had just been made with them. The people repulsed
and followed them, killing sixty. Some elk-hair and a feather represent
Ponka. Horse tracks are used for horses. Attack is indicated by signs
which were said to represent bullet marks, and which convey the
idea that the bullet struck. The sign seems to be derived from the
gesture-sign for “it struck.”

No. II. Many of their horses were killed, but by whom is not known. The
same event is recorded in No. I, 1776-’77.

1779-’80.--No. I. Long-Pine was killed in a fight with the Crows. The
absence of his scalp denotes that he was killed by an enemy. The wound
was made with the bow and arrow.

No. II. Skinned-his-penis was used in the ring-and-pole game.

1780-’81.--No. I. Many died of small-pox.

No. II. “The policeman” was killed by the enemy.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXXV

1781-’82.

1782-’83.

1783-’84.

1784-’85.

1785-’86.

1786-’87.

THE CORBUSIER WINTER COUNTS.]

1781-’82--No. I. Many died of small-pox.

No. II. Many people died of small-pox. They all record two successive
winters of small-pox, but No. I makes the first year of the epidemic
one year later than that of Battiste Good, and No. II makes it two
years later.

1782-’83.--No. I. A Dakota named Stabber froze to death. The sign for
winter is the same as before.

No. II. Many people died of small-pox again.

1783-’84--No. I. The Mandans and Rees made a charge on a Dakota
village. The Dakotas drove them back, killed twenty five of them, and
captured a boy. An eagle’s tail, which is worn on the head, stands for
Mandan and Ree.

No. II. The-Stabber froze to death. The man’s name is suggested by the
spear in the body over his head, which is connected with his mouth by
a line.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Big-fire winter,” possibly because big fires
were required to keep them warm.

1784-’85.--No. I. A young man who was afflicted with the small-pox,
and was in his tipi, off by himself, sang his death-song and shot
himself. Suicide is more common among Indians than is generally
suspected, and even boys sometimes take their own lives. A Dakota boy
at one of the agencies shot himself rather than face his companions
after his mother had whipped him, and a Pai-Ute boy at Camp McDermit,
Nevada, tried to poison himself with the wild parsnip because he was
not well and strong like the other boys. The Pai-Utes usually eat the
wild parsnip when bent on suicide.

No. II. An Omaha woman who was living with the Oglálas attempted to run
away from them, and they killed her. A war between the two tribes was
the result.

1785-’86.--No. I. Bear’s-Ears, a Brulé, was killed in an Oglála village
by the Crows.

No. II. The Oglálas killed three lodges of Omahas.

1786-’87.--No. I. Broken-Leg-Duck, an Oglála, went to a Crow village to
steal horses and was killed. A line connects the name with the mouth.

No. II. Long-Hair was killed. To what tribe he belonged is not known.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXXVI

1787-’88.

1788-’89.

1789-’90.

1790-’91.

1791-’92.

1792-’93.

THE CORBUSIER WINTER COUNTS.]

1787-’88.--No. I. They went out in search of the Crows in order to
avenge the death of Broken-Leg-Duck. They did not find any Crows, but,
chancing on a Mandan village, captured it and killed all the people in
it.

No. II. A year of famine. They lived on roots, which are represented in
front of the tipi.

1788-’89.--No. I. Last-Badger, an Oglála, was killed by the Rees.

No. II. The winter was so cold that many crows froze to death.

White-Cow-Killer calls 1787-’88 “Many-black-crows-died winter.”

1789-’90.--No. I. The cold was so intense that crows froze in the air
and dropped dead near the lodges.

No. II. White-Goose was killed in an attack made by some enemies.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Goose-Feather-killed winter.”

1790-’91.--No. I. They could not hunt on account of the deep snow, and
were compelled to subsist on anything they could get, as herbs (pézi)
and roots.

No. II. Picket-Pin went against the Cheyennes. A picket-pin is
represented in front of him and is connected with his mouth by the
usual line. The black band across his face denotes that he was brave
and had killed enemies. The cross is the symbol for Cheyenne. The
mark used for Cheyenne stands for the scars on their arms, or stripes
on their sleeves, which also gave rise to the gesture sign for this
tribe, given in Sign Language among the North American Indians, etc.,
First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 465, viz.: Draw the
extended right index, or the inner edge of the open right hand, several
times across the base of the extended left index or across the left
forearm at different heights.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “All-the-Indians-see-the-flag winter.”

1791-’92.--No. I. Glue, an Oglála, froze to death on his way to a Brulé
village. A glue-stick is represented back of his head. Glue, made from
the hoofs of buffalo, is used to fasten arrow-heads on, and is carried
about on sticks.

No. II. The Dakotas and Omahas made peace.

1792-’93.--No. I. Many women died in child-birth.

No. II. The Dakotas camped on the Missouri River near the Gros Ventres
and fought with them a long time. The Dakota tipi and the Gros Ventre
lodge are shown in the figure.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Rees-house-winter.”

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXXVII

1793-’94.

1794-’95.

1795-’96.

1796-’97.

1797-’98.

1798-’99.

THE CORBUSIER WINTER COUNTS.]

1793-’94.--No. I. A Ponka who was captured when a boy by the Oglálas
was killed while outside the village by a war party of Ponkas.

No. II. Bear’s-Ears was killed in a fight with the Rees.

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

1794-’95.--No. I. The-Good-White-Man came with two other white men. He
promised that if they would let him and his companions go undisturbed
he would return and bring with him weapons with which they could kill
game with but little labor. They gave them buffalo robes and dogs to
pack them on and sent the party off. The sign for white man is a hat,
either by itself or on a head, and the gesture-sign indicates one who
wears a hat. Draw the open right hand horizontally from left to right
across the forehead a little above the eyebrows, the back of the hand
to be upward and the fingers pointing toward the left, or draw the
index across the forehead in the same manner.

No. II. Bad-Face, a Dakota, was shot in the face.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Long-Hair-killed winter.”

1795-’96.--No. I. The-Man-Who-Owns-the-Flute was killed by the
Cheyennes. His flute is represented in front of him with sounds coming
from it. A bullet mark is on his neck.

No. II. The Dakotas camped near the Rees and fought with them.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Water-Stomach-killed winter.”

1796-’97.--No. I. They killed the long-haired man in a fight
with the Cheyennes while on an expedition to avenge the death of
The-Man-Who-Owns-the-Flute, who was killed by the Cheyennes the year
before.

No. II. Badger, a Dakota, was killed by enemies, as shown by the
absence of his scalp.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “War-Bonnet-killed winter.”

1797-’98.--No. I. Little-Beaver and three other white men came to
trade, having been sent by the Good-White-Man. Their goods were loaded
on three sleds, each drawn by six dogs.

No. II. The-Wise-Man was killed by enemies.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Caught-the-medicine-god-woman winter.”

1798-’99.--No. I. Owns-the-Pole, the leader of an Oglála war party,
brought home many Cheyenne scalps. The cross stands for Cheyenne.

No. II. Many women died in child-birth.

White-Cow-Killer says, “Many-squaws-died winter.”

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXXVIII

1799-1800.

1800-’01.

1801-’02.

1802-’03.

1803-’04.

1804-’05.

THE CORBUSIER WINTER COUNTS.]

1799-1800.--No. I. The-Good-White-Man returned and gave guns to the
Dakotas. The circle of marks represents the people sitting around him,
the flint-lock musket the guns.

No. II. A woman who had been given to a white man by the Dakotas was
killed because she ran away from him. [See No. I, 1804-’05.]

White-Cow-Killer says, “The-Good-White-Man-came winter.”

1800-’01.--No. I. Nine white men came to trade with them. The covered
head with short hair stands for a white man and also intimates that the
eight dots over it are for white men. According to this count the first
whites came in 1794-’95.

No. II. The Good-White-Man came. He was the first white man to trade
and live with the Dakotas.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Don’t-Eat-Heart-makes-a-god-house winter.”

1801-’02.--No. I. The Oglálas, Brulés, Minneconjous, Sans Arcs, and
Cheyennes united in an expedition against the Crows. They surprised and
captured a village of thirty lodges, killed all the men, and took the
women and children prisoners. The three tipis stand for thirty; the red
spots are for blood.

No. II. A trader brought them their first guns.

White-Cow-Killer says, “All-sick-winter.”

1802-’03.--No. I. The Ponkas attacked two lodges of Oglálas, killed
some of the people, and made the rest prisoners. The Oglálas went to
the Ponka village a short time afterward and took their people from the
Ponkas. In the figure an Oglála has a prisoner by the arm leading him
away. The arrow indicates that they were ready to fight.

No. II. The Omahas made an assault on a Dakota village. Arrows and
bullets are flying back and forth.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Brought-in-horse-shoes winter.”

1803-’04--No. I. They made peace with the Gros Ventres.

No. II. Little-Beaver, a white trader, came.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Plenty-of-woolly-horses winter.”

1804-’05.--No. I. An Indian woman who had been unfaithful to a white
man to whom she was married was killed by an Indian named Ponka. The
symbol for Ponka indicates the name.

No. II. The Omahas came and made peace to get their people, whom the
Dakotas held as prisoners.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXXIX

1805-’06.

1806-’07.

1807-’08.

1808-’09.

1809-’10.

1810-’11.

THE CORBUSIER WINTER COUNTS.]

1805-’06.--No. I. The Dakotas had a council with the whites on the
Missouri River, below the Cheyenne Agency, near the mouth of Bad Creek
(the Lewis and Clarke Expedition?). They had many flags, which the
Good-White-Man gave them with their guns, and they erected them on
poles to show their friendly feelings. The curved line is to represent
the council lodge, which they made by opening several tipis and uniting
them at their sides to form a semicircle. The marks are for the people.
American-Horse’s father was born this year.

No. II. Nine white men came to trade. The three covered heads represent
the white men.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Eight-Dakotas-killed winter.”

1806-’07.--No. I. Black-Rock, a Dakota, was killed by the Crows. A rock
is represented above his head. He was killed with a bow and arrow and
was scalped.

No. II. The Dakotas killed an Omaha in the night.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Killed-while-hunting-eagles winter.”

1807-’08.--No. I. Broken-Leg was killed by the Pawnees. His leg had
been broken by a bullet in a previous fight with the Pawnees.

No. II. Many people camped together and had many flags flying.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Red-shirt-killed Winter.”

1808-’09.--No. I. Little-Beaver’s trading house was burned down.

No. II. A Brulé was found dead under a tree which had fallen on him.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Blue-Blanket’s-father-dead winter.”

1809-’10.--No. I. Black-Rock was killed by the Crows. His brother,
whose name he had taken, was killed by the Crows three years before.

No. II. Little-Beaver’s house was burned.

White-Cow-Killer says, “Little-Beaver’s (the white man)
house-burned-down winter.”

1810-’11.--No. I. Red-Shirt, a Dakota, was killed by the Crows while
looking for his ponies near Old Woman’s Fork.

No. II. They brought in a fine horse with feathers tied to his tail.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Came-with-medicine-on-horse’s-tail winter.”

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XL

1811-’12.

1812-’13.

1813-’14.

1814-’15.

1815-’16.

1816-’17.

THE CORBUSIER WINTER COUNTS.]

1811-’12.--No. I. They caught many wild horses south of the Platte
River.

No. II. They had very little buffalo meat, as the empty drying pole
indicates, but plenty of ducks in the fall.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Catching-wild-horses winter.”

1812-’13.--No. I. Big-Waist’s father killed.

No. II. Big-Owl killed.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Big-Belly’s-father-killed winter.”

1813-’14.--No. I. Many had the whooping-cough. The cough is represented
by the lines issuing from the man’s mouth.

No. II. Food was very scarce and they had to live on acorns. The tree
is intended for an oak and the marks beneath it for acorns.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Six-Rees-killed winter.”

1814-’15.--No. I. The Dakotas went to a Kaiowa village, about 6 miles
from Scott’s Bluff, and near the mouth of Horse Creek, to treat for
peace; but their intentions were frustrated by one of their number, who
drove his hatchet into a Kaiowa’s head.

No. II. They made peace with the Pawnees. The man with the blue
forehead is a Pawnee, the other is a Dakota, whose body is smeared with
clay. The four arrows show that they had been at war, and the clasped
hands denote peace.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Kaiowa-hit-on-head-with-axe winter.”

Young-Man’s-Horses-Afraid, _i. e._, whose horses are afraid, was
born this year. He is now called “Old-Man-afraid-of-his-Horses” by
the whites, and his son, the present chief of the Oglálas, is known
as “Young-Man-afraid-of-his-Horses.” [The present writer has heard
another interpretation about “afraid-of-his-horses,” _i. e._, that the
man valued his horses so much that he was afraid of losing them. The
present representative of the name, however, stated to the writer that
the true meaning was “The-young-man-whose-horses-they-fear.”]

1815-’16.--No. I. The figure is intended to represent a white man’s
house.

No. II. Some of the Dakotas built a large house and lived in it during
the winter.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Made-a-house winter.”

1816-’17.--No. I. They made peace with the Crows at Pine Bluff. The
arrow shows they had been at war.

No. II. They lived in the same house that they did last winter.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Made-a-house winter.”

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XLI

1817-’18.

1818-’19.

1819-’20.

1820-’21.

1821-’22.

1822-’23.

THE CORBUSIER WINTER COUNTS.]

1817-’18.--No. I. The Oglálas had an abundance of buffalo meat and
shared it with the Brulés, who were short of food. The buffalo hide
hung on the drying pole, with the buffalo head above it, indicates an
abundance of meat.

No. II. The-Brave-Man was killed in a great fight. The fight is shown
by the arrows flying to and from him. Having been killed by an enemy,
he is scalped.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Plenty-of-meat winter.”

1818-’19.--No. I. A large house was built.

No. II. Many died of the small-pox.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Little-small-pox winter.”

1819-’20.--No. I. Another house was built. The Dakotas made medicine in
it.

No. II. In an engagement with the Crows, both sides expended all of
their arrows, and then threw dirt at each other. A Crow is represented
on the right, and is distinguished by the manner in which the hair is
worn.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Made-a-house-of-old-wood winter.”

1820-’21.--No. I. The Dakotas assaulted and took a Crow village of a
hundred lodges. They killed many and took many prisoners.

No. II. A Dakota, named Glue, froze to death.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Two-arrows-made-a-war-bonnet winter.”

1821-’22.--No. I. They had all the _mini wakan_ (spirit water or
whisky) they could drink. They never had any before. A barrel with a
waved or spiral line running from it represents the whisky, the waved
line signifying spirit.

No. II. A large roaring star fell. It came from the east, and shot out
sparks of fire along its course. Its track and the sparks are shown in
the figure. See also page 111.

White-Cow-Killer says, “One-star-made-a-great-noise winter.”

Battiste Good, alias Wa-po-ctan-qi (Brown-Hat), historian and chief,
designated this year as that of his birth. Omaha bullets were whizzing
through the village and striking and piercing his mother’s lodge as she
brought him forth. Red-Cloud also was born.

1822-’23.--No. I. Dog, an Oglála, stole seventy horses from the Crows.
Each of the seven tracks stands for ten horses. A lariat, which serves
the purpose of a long whip, and is usually allowed to trail on the
ground, is shown in the man’s hand.

No. II. A Brulé, who had left the village the night before, was found
dead in the morning outside the village, and the dogs were eating his
body. The black spot on the upper part of the thigh shows he was a
Brulé.

White-Cow-Killer says,
“White-man-peels-the-stick-in-his-hand-broke-his-leg winter.”

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XLII

1823-’24.

1824-’25.

1825-’26.

1826-’27.

1827-’28.

1828-’29.

THE CORBUSIER WINTER COUNTS.]

1823-’24.--No. I. They had an abundance of corn, which they got at the
Ree villages.

No. II. They joined the whites in an expedition up the Missouri River
against the Rees.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Old-corn-plenty winter.” For further
explanation of the record of this year, see page 111.

1824-’25.--No. I. Cloud-Bear, a Dakota, killed a Dakota, who was a long
distance off, by throwing a bullet from his hand and striking him in
the heart. The spiral line is again used for _wakan_. The gesture-sign
for _wakan_ (holy, supernatural) is: With its index-finger extended and
pointing upward, or all the fingers extended, back of hand outward,
move the right hand from just in front of the forehead spirally upward
nearly to arm’s length from left to right. [See “Sign Language N. A.
Indians,” p. 380, by the present writer, in the First Annual Report of
the Bureau of Ethnology.]

No. II. Cat-Owner was killed with a spider-web thrown at him by a
Dakota. The spider-web is shown reaching to his heart from the hand
of the man who threw it. The blood issuing from his mouth and nose
indicates that he bled to death. It is a common belief among them that
certain medicine men possess the power of taking life by shooting
needles, straws, spider-webs, bullets, and other objects, however
distant the person may be against whom they are directed.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Killed-the-women-picking-cherries winter.”

1825-’26.--No. I. Some of the Dakotas were living on the bottom-lands
of the Missouri River, below the Whetstone, when the river, which was
filled with broken ice, unexpectedly rose and flooded their village.
Many were drowned or else killed by the floating ice. Many of those
that escaped climbed on cakes of ice or into trees.

No. II. Many of the Dakotas were drowned in a flood caused by a rise of
the Missouri River, in a bend of which they were camped. The curved
line is the bend in the river; the waved line is the water, above which
the tops of the tipis are shown.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Great-flood-and-many-Indians-drowned
winter.” [See page 113.]

1826-’27.--No. I. The brother of the Good-White-Man came.

No. II. Held a commemoration of the dead. The pipe-stem and the skull
indicate this.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Long-Whistle-sick winter.”

1827-’28.--No. I. The snow was very deep.

No. II. In a fight with the Mandans, Crier was shot in the head with a
gun.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Snow-shoe-making winter.”

1828-’29.--No. I. They provided themselves with a large supply of
antelope meat by driving antelope into a corral, in which they were
easily killed.

No. II. They drove many antelope into a corral and then killed them.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Many-Rees-killed winter.”

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XLIII

1829-’30.

1830-’31.

1831-’32.

1832-’33.

1833-’34.

1834-’35.

THE CORBUSIER WINTER COUNTS.]

1829-’30.--No. I. Striped-Face stabbed and killed his son-in-law for
whipping his wife.

No. II. Spotted-Face stabs his son-in-law for whipping his wife.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Spotted-Face-held-on-long winter.”

1830-’31.--No. I. They saw wagons for the first time. Red-Lake, a white
trader, brought his goods in them.

No. II. The Crows were approaching a village at a time when there was a
great deal of snow on the ground and intended to surprise it, but some
herders discovering them the Dakotas went out, laid in wait for the
Crows, surprised them, and killed many. A Crow’s head is represented in
the figure.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Killed-many-white-buffalo winter.”

1831-’32.--No. I. Red-Lake’s house, which he had recently built, was
destroyed by fire, and he was killed by the accidental explosion of
some powder.

No. II. A white man, whom they called Gray-Eyes, shot and killed a man
who was working for him.

1832-’33.--No. I. They killed many Gros Ventres in a village which they
assaulted.

No. II. All of Standing-Bull’s horses were killed, but by whom is
unknown. Hoof-prints, blood-stains, and arrows are shown under the
horse.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “One-Horn’s-leg-broken winter.”

1833-’34.--No. I. The stars moved around.

No. II. It rained stars.

White Cow-Killer calls it “Plenty-stars winter.”

The records [see page 116] all undoubtedly refer to the magnificent
meteoric display of the morning of November 13th, 1833, which was
witnessed throughout North America, and which they have correctly
assigned to the winter corresponding with that of 1833-’34. All of
them represent stars as having four points.

1834-’35.--No. I. They were at war with the Cheyennes. The Cheyenne is
the one with the stripes on his arm.

No. II. They fought with the Cheyennes. The stripes on the arm are for
Cheyenne as before.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Cheyennes-came-and-one-killed winter.”

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XLIV

1835-’36.

1836-’37.

1837-’38.

1838-’39.

1839-’40.

1840-’41.

THE CORBUSIER WINTER COUNTS.]

1835-’36.--No. I. They killed a very fat buffalo bull.

No. II. They killed a very fat buffalo bull.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Two warriors-killed winter.”

1836-’37.--No. I. The Dakotas and the Pawnees fought on the ice on the
North Platte River. The former were on the north side, the right-hand
side in the figure, the latter on the south side, the left in the
figure. Horsemen and footmen on the right are opposed to footmen on the
left. Both sides have guns and bows, as shown by the bullet-marks and
the arrows. The red marks are for blood-stains on the ice.

No. II. They fought the Pawnees across the ice on the North Platte. The
man on the left is a Pawnee.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Fight-on-ice winter.”

1837-’38.--No. I. Paints-His-Cheeks-Red and his family, who were
camping by themselves, were killed by Pawnees.

No. II. Paints-His-Face-Red, a Dakota, was killed in his tipi by the
Pawnees.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Five-Fingers-died winter.”

1838-’39.--No. I. Spotted-Horse carried the pipe around and took
the war path against the Pawnees, to avenge the death of his uncle,
Paints-His-Cheeks-Red.

No. II. Crazy-Dog, a Dakota, carried the pipe around and took the war
path. The waved or spiral lines denote crazy.

White-Cow-Killer says, “Paints-his-Chin’s-lodge-all-killed winter.”

When a warrior desires to make up a war party he visits his friends and
offers them a filled pipe, as an invitation to follow him, and those
who are willing to go accept the invitation by lighting and smoking
it. Any man whose courage has been proved may become the leader of a
war party. Among the Arapahos the would-be leader does not invite any
one to accompany him, but publicly announces his intention of going to
war. He fixes the day for his departure and states where he will camp
the first night, naming some place not far off. The morning on which
he starts, and before leaving the village, he invokes the aid of the
sun, his guardian by day, and often, to propitiate him, secretly vows
to undergo penance, or offer a sacrifice on his return. He rides off
alone, carrying his bare pipe in his hand, with the bowl carefully tied
to the stem to prevent it from slipping off. If the bowl should at any
time accidentally fall to the ground, he considers it an evil omen,
and immediately returns to the village, and nothing could induce him
to proceed, as he thinks that only misfortune would attend him if he
did. Sometimes he ties eagle or hawk plumes to the stem of his pipe,
and, after quitting the village, repairs to the top of some hill and
makes an offering of them to the sun, taking them from his pipe and
tying them to a pole, which he erects in a pile of stones. (Some of the
stone-heaps seen on the hills in the Arapaho country originated in this
way, but most of them were made by dreamers, who withdraw from their
people to devote themselves in solitude to contemplation, fasting, and
prayer, in order to work themselves into a state of rapture, hoping
to have visions and receive messages from spirits.) Those who intend
to follow him usually join him at the first camp, equipped for the
expedition; but often there are some who do not join him until he has
gone further on. He eats nothing before leaving the village, nor as
long as the sun is up; but breaks his fast at his first camp, after
the sun sets. The next morning he begins another fast, to be continued
until sunset. He counts his party, saddles his horse, names some place
six or seven miles ahead, where he says he will halt for awhile, and
again rides off alone with his pipe in his hand. After awhile the party
follow him in single file. When they have reached his halting place
he tells them to dismount and let their horses graze. They all then
seat themselves on the ground on the left of the leader, forming a
semicircle, facing the sun. The leader fills his pipe, all bow their
heads, and, pointing the stem of the pipe upward, he prays to the sun,
asking that they may find an abundance of game, that dead-shots may be
made, so that their ammunition will not be wasted, but reserved for
their enemies; that they may easily find their enemies and kill them;
that they may be preserved from wounds and death. He makes his petition
four times, then lights his pipe, and after sending a few whiffs of
smoke skyward as incense to the sun, hands the pipe to his neighbor,
who smokes and passes it on to the next. It is passed from one to
another, toward the left, until all have smoked, the leader refilling
it as often as necessary. They then proceed to their next camp, where
probably others join them. The same programme is carried out for three
or four days before the party is prepared for action.

1839-’40.--No. I. Left-Handed-Big-Nose was killed by the Shoshoni. His
left arm is represented extended, and his nose is very conspicuous.
American-Horse was born in the spring of 1840.

No. II. They killed a Crow and his squaw, who were found on a trail.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Large-war-party-hungry-eat-Pawnee-horses
winter.”

1840-’41.--No. I. Sitting-Bear, American-Horse’s father, and others,
stole two hundred horses from the Flat Heads. A trailing lariat is in
the man’s hand.

No. II. They stole one hundred (many) horses from the Snakes.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Little-Thunder’s-brothers-killed winter.”

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XLV

1841-’42.

1842-’43.

1843-’44.

1844-’45.

1845-’46.

1846-’47.

THE CORBUSIER WINTER COUNTS.]

1841-’42.--No. I. The Oglálas engaged in a drunken brawl, which
resulted in a division of the tribe, the Kiyuksas (Cut-Offs)
separating from the others.

No. II. The Oglálas got drunk on Chug Creek, and engaged in a quarrel
among themselves, in which Red-Cloud’s brother was killed, and
Red-Cloud killed three men. Cloud-Shield (Mahpiya-Wahacanka) was born.

1842-’43.--No. I. Feather-Ear-Rings was killed by the Shoshoni. The
four lodges and the many blood-stains intimate that he was killed at
the time the four lodges of Shoshoni were killed.

No. II. Lone-Feather said his prayers, and took the war path to avenge
the death of some relatives.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Crane’s-son-killed winter.”

1843-’44.--No. I. The great medicine arrow was taken from the Pawnees
by the Oglálas and Brulés, and returned to the Cheyennes, to whom it
rightly belonged.

No. II. In a great fight with the Pawnees they captured the great
medicine arrow which had been taken from the Cheyennes, who made it, by
the Pawnees. The head of the arrow projects from the bag which contains
it. The delicate waved lines (intended probably for spiral lines) show
that it is sacred.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “The Great-medicine-arrow-comes-in winter.”

Battiste Good’s record gives the following for the same year:

“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.” His sign for the year is somewhat different,
as shown in Figure 46. As before mentioned, an attempt is made to
distinguish colors by the heraldic scheme, which in this instance may
require explanation. The upper part of the body is sable or black, the
feathers on the arrow are azure or blue, and the shaft, gules or red.
The remainder of the figure is of an undecided color not requiring
specification.

[Illustration: FIG. 46.--Magic arrow.]

1844-’45.--No. I. Male-Crow, an Oglála, was killed by the Shoshoni.

No. II. Crazy-Horse says his prayers and goes on the war path. The
waved lines are used again for crazy.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “White-Buffalo-Bull-killed by-the-Crows
winter.”

1845-’46.--No. I. White-Bull and thirty other Oglálas were killed by
the Crows and Shoshoni.

No. II. White-Bull and many others were killed in a fight with the
Shoshoni.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Many-sick winter.”

1846-’47.--No. I. Big-Crow and Conquering-Bear had a great feast and
gave many presents.

No. II. Long-Pine, a Dakota, was killed by Dakotas. He was not killed
by an enemy, as he has not lost his scalp.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Diver’s-neck-broken winter.”

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XLVI

1847-’48.

1848-’49.

1849-’50.

1850-’51.

1851-’52.

1852-’53.

THE CORBUSIER WINTER COUNTS.]

1847-’48.--No. I. There were a great many accidents and some legs were
broken, the ground being covered with ice.

No. II. Many were thrown from their horses while surrounding buffalo in
the deep snow, and some had their legs-broken.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Many-legs-broken winter.”

1848-’49.--No. I. American-Horse’s father captured a Crow who was
dressed as a woman, but who was found to be an hermaphrodite and was
killed.

No. II. American-Horse’s father captured a Crow woman and gave her to
the young men, who discovered that she was an hermaphrodite and killed
her.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Half-man-and-half-woman-killed winter.”

It is probable that this was one of those men, not uncommon among the
Indian tribes, who adopt the dress and occupation of women. [This is
sometimes compulsory, _e. g._, on account of failure to pass an ordeal.]

1849-’50.--No. I. Many died of the cramps. The cramps were those of
Asiatic cholera, which was epidemic in the United States at that time,
and was carried to the plains by the California and Oregon emigrants.
The position of the man is very suggestive of cholera.

No. II. Making-the-Hole stole many horses from a Crow tipi. The index
points to the hole, which is suggestive of the man’s name.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “The-people-had-the-cramps winter.”

1850-’51.--No. I. Wolf-Robe was killed by the Pawnees.

No. II. Many died of the small-pox.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “All-the-time-sick-with-the-big-small-pox
winter.”

1851-’52.--No. I. They received their first annuities at the mouth of
Horse Creek. A one-point blanket is depicted and denotes dry-goods. It
is surrounded by a circle of marks which represent the people.

No. II. Many goods were issued to them at Fort Laramie. They were the
first they received. The blanket which is represented stands for the
goods.

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

1852-’53.--No. I. The Cheyennes carry the pipe around to invite all the
tribes to unite with them in a war against the Pawnees.

No. II. A white man made medicine over the skull of Crazy-Horse’s
brother. He holds a pipe-stem in his hand. This probably refers to the
custom of gathering the bones of the dead that have been placed on
scaffolds and burying them.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Great-snow winter.”

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XLVII

1853-’54.

1854-’55.

1855-’56.

1856-’57.

1857-’58.

1858-’59.

THE CORBUSIER WINTER COUNTS.]

1853-’54.--No. I. Antelope-Dung broke his neck while surrounding
buffalo.

No. II. Antelope-Dung broke his neck while running antelope. His
severed head is the only part of his body that is shown.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Oak-wood-house winter.”

1854-’55.--No. I. Conquering-Bear was killed by white soldiers, and
thirty white soldiers were killed by the Dakotas 9 miles below Fort
Laramie. The thirty black dots in three lines stand for the soldiers,
and the red stains for killed. The head covered with a fatigue-cap
further shows they were white soldiers. Indian soldiers are usually
represented in a circle or semicircle. The gesture-sign for soldier
means all in line, and is made by placing the nearly closed hands with
palms forward, and thumbs near together, in front of the body and then
separating them laterally about two feet.

No. II. Brave-Bear was killed in a quarrel over a calf. He was killed
by enemies; hence his scalp is gone.

White-Cow-Killer says, “Mato-wayuhi (or Conquering-Bear)
killed-by-white-soldiers winter.”

1855-’56.--No. I. A war party of Oglálas killed one Pawnee--his scalp
is on the pole--and on their way home froze their feet.

No. II. Torn-Belly and his wife were killed by some of their own people
in a quarrel.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “A-medicine-man-made-buffalo-medicine winter.”

1856-’57.--No. I. They received annuities at Raw-Hide Butte. The house
and the blanket represent the agency and the goods.

No. II. They have an abundance of buffalo meat. This is shown by the
full drying pole.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “White-hill-house winter.”

1857-’58.--No. I. Little-Gay, a white trader, was killed by the
explosion of a can of gunpowder. He was measuring out powder from the
can in his wagon while smoking his pipe.

No. II. They surrounded and killed ten Crows.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Bull-hunting winter.”

1858-’59.--No. I. They made peace with the Pawnees. The one on the left
is a Pawnee.

No. II. They bought Mexican blankets of John Richard, who bought many
wagon-loads of the Mexicans.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Yellow-blanket-killed winter.”

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XLVIII

1859-’60.

1860-’61.

1861-’62.

1862-’63.

1863-’64.

1864-’65.

THE CORBUSIER WINTER COUNTS.]

1859-’60.--No. I. Broken-Arrow fell from his horse while running
buffalo and broke his neck.

No. II. Black-Shield says prayers and takes the war path to avenge the
death of two of his sons who had been killed by the Crows.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Black-Shield’s-two
boys-go-hunting-and-are-killed-by-the-Crows winter.”

1860-’61.--No. I. Two-Face, an Oglála, was badly burnt by the explosion
of his powder-horn.

No. II. They capture a great many antelope by driving them into a pen.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Babies-all-sick-and-many-die winter.”

1861-’62.--No. I. Spider was killed (stabbed) in a fight with the
Pawnees.

No. II. Young-Rabbit, a Crow, was killed in battle by Red-Cloud.

White-Cow-Killer calls it
“Crow-Indian-Spotted-Horse-stole-many-horses-and-was-killed winter.”

1862-’63.--No. I. The Crows scalped an Oglála boy alive.

No. II. Some Crows came to their camp and scalped a boy.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Crows-scalp-boy winter.”

1863-’64.--No. I. The Oglálas and Minneconjous took the war path
against the Crows and stole three hundred Crow horses. The Crows
followed them and killed eight of the party.

No. II. Eight Dakotas were killed by the Crows. Here eight long marks
represent the number killed.

White-Cow-Killer calls it
“Dakotas-and-Crows-have-a-big-fight-eight-Dakotas-killed winter.”

1864-’65.--No. I. Bird, a white trader, went to Powder River to trade
with the Cheyennes. They killed him and appropriated his goods.

No. II. Bird, a white trader, was burned to death by the Cheyennes. He
is surrounded by flames in the picture.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Big-Lips-died-suddenly winter.”

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XLIX

1865-’66.

1866-’67.

1867-’68.

1868-’69.

1869-’70.

1870-’71.

THE CORBUSIER WINTER COUNTS.]

1865-’66.--No. I. General Maynadier made peace with the Oglálas and
Brulés. His name, the sound of which resembles the words “many deer,”
is indicated by the two deers’ heads connected with his mouth by the
lines.

No. II. Many horses were lost by starvation, as the snow was so deep
they couldn’t get at the grass.

1866-’67.--No. I. They killed one hundred white men at Fort Phil.
Kearny. The hats and the cap-covered head represent the whites; the
red spots, the killed; the circle of characters around them, rifle or
arrow shots; the black strokes, Dakota footmen; and the hoof-prints,
Dakota horsemen. The Phil. Kearny massacre occurred December 21, 1866,
and eighty-two whites were killed, including officers, citizens, and
enlisted men. Capt. W. J. Fetterman was in command of the party.

No. II. Lone-Bear was killed in battle.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “One-hundred-white-men-killed winter.”

1867-’68.--No. I. They captured a train of wagons near Tongue River.
The men who were with it got away. The blanket represents the goods
found in the wagons.

No. II. Blankets were issued to them at Fort Laramie.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Seven-Pawnees-killed winter.”

1868-’69.--No. I. They were compelled to sell many mules and
horses to enable them to procure food, as they were in a starving
condition. They willingly gave a mule for a sack of flour. The mule’s
halter is attached to two sacks of flour.

No. II. They had to sell many mules and horses to get food, as they
were starving.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Mules-sold-by-hungry-Sioux winter.”

1869-’70.--No. I. Tall-Bull was killed by white soldiers and Pawnees on
the south side of the South Platte River.

No. II. John Richard shot a white soldier at Fort Fetterman, Wyoming,
and fled north, joining Red-Cloud.

White-Cow-Killer calls it
“Tree-fell-on-woman-who-was-cutting-wood-and-killed-her winter.”

1870-’71.--No. I. High-Back-Bone, a very brave Oglála, was killed by
the Shoshoni. They also shot another man, who died after he reached
home.

No. II. High-Back-Bone was killed in a fight with the Snakes (Shoshoni).

White-Cow-Killer calls it “High-Back-Bone-killed-by-Snake-Indians
winter.”

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. L

1871-’72.

1872-’73.

1873-’74.

1874-’75.

1875-’76.

1876-’77.

THE CORBUSIER WINTER COUNTS.]

1871-’72.--No. I. John Richard shot and killed an Oglála named
Yellow-Bear, and the Oglálas killed Richard before he could get out of
the lodge. This occurred in the spring of 1872. As the white man was
killed after the Indian, he is placed behind him in the figure.

No. II. Adobe houses were built by Maj. J. W. Wham, Indian agent (now
paymaster, United States Army), on the Platte River, about 30 miles
below Fort Laramie.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Major-Wham’s-house-built-on-Platte-River
winter.”

1872-’73.--No. I. Whistler, also named Little-Bull, and two other
Oglálas, were killed by white hunters on the Republican River.

No. II. Antoine Janis’s two boys were killed by Joe (John?) Richard.

White Cow-Killer calls it “Stay-at-plenty-ash-wood winter.”

1873-’74.--No. I. The Oglálas killed the Indian agent’s (Seville’s)
clerk inside the stockade of the Red Cloud Agency, at Fort Robinson,
Nebraska.

No. II. They killed many Pawnees on the Republican River.

1874-’75.--No. I. The Oglálas at the Red Cloud Agency, near Fort
Robinson, Nebraska, cut to pieces the flag staff which their agent had
had cut and hauled, but which they would not allow him to erect, as
they did not wish to have a flag flying over their agency. This was in
1874. The flag which the agent intended to hoist is now at the Pine
Ridge Agency, Dakota.

No. II. The Utes stole all of the Brulé horses.

1875-’76.--No. I. The first stock cattle were issued to them. The
figure represents a cow or spotted buffalo, surrounded by people. The
gesture-sign also signifies spotted buffalo.

No. II. Seven of Red-Cloud’s band were killed by the Crows.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Five-Dakotas-killed winter.”

1876-’77.--No. I. The Oglálas helped General Mackenzie to whip the
Cheyennes. The Indian’s head represents the man who was the first to
enter the Cheyenne village. The white man holding up three fingers
is General Mackenzie, who is placed upon the head of the Dakota to
indicate that the Dakotas backed or assisted him. The other white man
is General Crook, or Three Stars, as indicated by the three stars above
him.

[This designation might be suggested from the uniform, but General
Crook did not probably wear during the year mentioned or for a long
time before it the uniform either of his rank as major-general of
volunteers or as brevet major-general in the Army, and by either of
those ranks he was entitled to but two stars on his shoulder-straps.]

No. II. Three-Stars (General Crook) took Red-Cloud’s young men to help
him fight the Cheyennes. A red cloud, indicating the chief’s name, is
represented above his head.

White-Cow-Killer calls it
“General-Mackenzie-took-the-Red-Cloud-Indians’-horses-away-from-them
winter.”

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. LI

1877-’78.

1878-’79.

THE CORBUSIER WINTER COUNTS.]

1877-’78.--No. I. A soldier ran a bayonet into Crazy-Horse, and killed
him in the guard-house, at Fort Robinson, Nebraska (September 5, 1877).

No. II. Crazy-Horse’s band left the Spotted Tail Agency (at Camp
Sheridan, Nebraska), and went north, after Crazy-Horse was killed
at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. Hoof-prints and lodge-pole tracks run
northward from the house, which represents the Agency. That the horse
is crazy is shown by the waved or spiral lines on his body, running
from his nose, foot, and forehead.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Crazy-Horse-killed winter.”

1878-’79.--No. I. Wagons were given to them.

No. II. The Cheyenne who boasted that he was bullet and arrow proof
was killed by white soldiers, near Fort Robinson, Nebraska, in the
intrenchments behind which the Cheyennes were defending themselves
after they had escaped from the fort.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “Wagons-given-to-the-Dakota-Indians
winter.”

NOTIFICATION.

This is an important division of the purposes for which pictographs
are used. The pictographs and the objective devices antecedent to
pictographs under this head that have come immediately to the writer’s
attention, may be grouped as follows: 1st. Notice of departure,
direction, etc. 2d. Notice of condition, suffering, etc. 3d. Warning
and guidance. 4th. Charts of geographic features. 5th. Claim or demand.
6th. Messages or communications. 7th. Record of expedition.

NOTICE OF DEPARTURE AND DIRECTION.

[Illustration: FIG. 47.--Alaskan notice of hunt.]

Dr. W. J. Hoffman obtained the original of the accompanying drawing,
Fig. 47, from Naumoff an Alaskan native, in San Francisco, California,
in 1882, also the interpretation, with text in the Kiatexamut dialect
of the Innuit language.

The drawing was in imitation of similar ones made by the natives, to
inform their visitors or friends of their departure for a certain
purpose. They are depicted upon strips of wood which are placed in
conspicuous places near the doors of the habitations.

Dr. Hoffman has published a brief account of this drawing as well as
the succeeding one, in the Trans. Anthrop. Soc. Washington, II, 1883,
p. 134, Fig. 3, and p. 132, Fig 2.

The spelling adopted in the Innuit text, following in each case the
explanation of characters, is in accordance with the system now used by
the Bureau of Ethnology.

The following is the explanation of the characters:

1. The speaker, with the right hand indicating himself, and with the
left pointing in the direction to be taken.

2. Holding a boat paddle--going by boat.

3. The right hand to the side of the head, to denote _sleep_, and the
left elevated with one finger elevated to signify _one_--one night.

4. A circle with two marks in the middle, signifying an island with
huts upon it.

5. Same as No. 1.

6. A circle to denote another island.

7. Same as No. 3, with an additional finger elevated, signifying
_two_--two nights.

8. The speaker with his harpoon, making the sign of a sea lion with the
left hand. The flat hand is held edgewise with the thumb elevated, then
pushed outward from the body in a slightly downward curve.

9. A sea lion.

10. Shooting with bow and arrow.

11. The boat with two persons in it, the paddles projecting downward.

12. The winter, or permanent habitation of the speaker.

The following is the text in the Aigaluxamut dialect, with an
interlinear translation:

Hui ta-wá-ut ai-wí-xa-na kui-gí-qta-mŭn a-xi-lú-mŭk ka-wá-xa-lú-a,
I there go (with boat) that island one sleep there,
(to that place)

tca-lí hui ai-wí-lu-a a-xá-mŭn kui-gí-qta-mŭn, ta-wá-ni ma-lú-qnŭk
then I go another that island, there two
(indicated)

ka-wá-xa-lú-a, hui pĭ-qlú-a a-xĭ-lú-mŭk’ wi-na-mŭk tca-lí a-ni-xlú-a
sleeps I catch one sea lion then return
(nights)

nú-nan m’nun.
(to) place mine.

The following is of a similar nature, and was obtained under
circumstances similar to the preceding.

[Illustration: FIG. 48.--Alaskan notice of departure.]

The explanation of the above characters is as follows:

1, 3, 5, 7, represent the person spoken to.

2. Indicates the speaker with his right hand to the side or breast,
indicating _self_, the left hand pointing in the direction in which he
is going.

4. Both hands elevated, with fingers and thumbs signifies many,
according to the informant. When the hands are thus held up, in
sign-language, it signifies _ten_, but when they are brought toward and
backward from one another, _many_.

6. The right hand is placed to the head to denote sleep--_many sleeps_,
or, in other words, _many nights and days_; the left hand points
downward, _at that place_.

8. The right hand is directed toward the starting point, while the left
is brought upward toward the head--_to go home, or whence he came_.

The following is the text in the same dialect last mentioned, with,
translation:

Hui a-qtcí-kua a-xlá mŭn nu-ná-mŭn, am-lić-ka-mŭ´-ik ha-wá-xa-lu-a,
I go (to) another place, many sleeps
(settlement) (nights)

ta-wá-nĭ, tca-lĭ´ hui a-ni-qlú-a.
there, then I return.

The drawing presented in Figure 49 was made by a native Alaskan, and
represents information to the effect that the artist contemplates
making a journey to hunt deer. The drawing is made upon a narrow strip
of wood, and placed somewhere about the door of the house, where
visitors will readily perceive it.

[Illustration: FIG. 49.--Alaskan notice of hunt.]

1. Represents the contour lines of the country and mountain peaks.

2. Native going away from home.

3. Stick placed on hill-top, with bunch of grass attached, pointing in
the direction he has taken.

4. Native of another settlement, with whom the traveler remained over
night.

5. Lodge.

6. Line representing the end of the first day, _i. e._, the time
between two days; rest.

7. Traveler again on the way.

8. Making signal that on second day (right hand raised with two
extended fingers) he saw game (deer, 9) on a hill-top, which he
secured, so terminating his journey.

9. Deer.

Figures 50, 51, and 52 were drawn by Naumoff, under the circumstances
above mentioned, and signify “Have gone home.”

[Illustration: FIG. 50.--Alaskan notice of direction.]

His explanation of Figure 50 is as follows:

When one of a hunting party is about to return home and wishes to
inform his companions that he has set out on such return, he ascends
the hill-top nearest to which they became separated, where he ties a
bunch of grass or other light colored material to the top of a long
stick or pole. The lower end of the stick is placed firmly in the
ground, leaning in the direction taken. When another hill is ascended,
another stick with similar attachment is erected, again leaning in
the direction to be taken. These sticks are placed at proper intervals
until the village is sighted. This device is employed by Southern
Alaskan Indians.

[Illustration: FIG. 51.--Alaskan notice of direction.]

He also explained Figure 51 as follows:

Seal hunters adopt the following method of informing their comrades
that they have returned to the settlement. The first to return to
the regular landing place sometimes sticks a piece of wood into the
ground, leaning toward the village, upon which is drawn or scratched
the out-line of a baidarka, or skin canoe, heading toward one or more
outlines of lodges, signifying that the occupants of the boat have gone
toward their homes. This is resorted to when the voyage has been a
dangerous one, and is intended to inform their companions of the safe
arrival of some of the party.

This device is used by coast natives of Southern Alaska and Kadiak.

[Illustration: FIG. 52.--Alaskan notice of direction.]

He also explained Figure 52 as follows:

When hunters become separated, the one first returning to the forks
of the trail puts a piece of wood in the ground, on the top of which
he makes an incision, into which a short piece of wood is secured
horizontally, so as to point in the direction taken by the individual.

The following instance is taken from the Narrative of an Expedition
to the Source of St. Peter’s River, * * under the command of Stephen
H. Long, major U. S. Top. Eng. [commonly known as Keating’s Long’s
Expedition]. Philadelphia, 1824. Vol. I, p. 217.

When we stopped, says Major Long, to dine, White Thunder, (the
Winnebago chief that accompanied me,) suspecting that the rest of his
party were in the neighborhood, requested a piece of paper, pen and
ink, to communicate to them the intelligence of his having come up
with me. He then seated himself and drew three rude figures, which
at my request he explained to me. The first represented my boat with
a mast and flag, with three benches of oars and a helmsman; to show
that we were Americans, our heads were represented by a rude cross,
indicating that we wore hats.

The representation of himself was a rude figure of a bear over a
kind of cypher representing a hunting ground. The second figure was
designed to show that his wife was with him; the device was a boat
with a squaw seated in it; over her head lines were drawn in a zigzag
direction, indicating that she was the wife of White Thunder. The
third was a boat with a bear sitting at the helm, showing that an
Indian of that name had been seen on his way up the river, and had
given intelligence where the party were. This paper he set up at the
mouth of Kickapoo Creek, up which the party had gone on a hunting
trip.

The following is extracted from an Account of an Expedition from
Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, * * under the command of Major
Stephen H. Long [commonly known as James’ Long’s Expedition].
Philadelphia, 1823. Vol. I, p. 478.

At a little distance [on the bank of the Platte River], in front of
the entrance of this breastwork, was a semicircular row of sixteen
bison skulls, with their noses pointing down the river. Near the
center of the circle which this row would describe, if continued, was
another skull marked with a number of red lines.

Our interpreter informed us that this arrangement of skulls and other
marks here discovered, were designed to communicate the following
information, namely, that the camp had been occupied by a war party
of the Skeeree or Pawnee Loup Indians, who had lately come from an
excursion against the Cumancias, Ietans, or some of the western
tribes. The number of red lines traced on the painted skull indicated
the number of the party to have been thirty-six; the position in
which the skulls were placed, that they were on their return to their
own country. Two small rods stuck in the ground, with a few hairs
tied in two parcels to the end of each, signified that four scalps
had been taken.

When a hunting party of the Hidatsa has arrived at any temporary
camping ground, from which point a portion of the members might leave
on a short reconnoitering expedition, the remainder, upon leaving for
a time, will erect a pole and cause it to lean in the direction taken.
At the foot of this pole a buffalo shoulder-blade or other flat bone
is placed, upon which is depicted the object causing departure. For
instance, should buffalo or antelope be discovered, an animal of the
character sighted is rudely drawn with a piece of charred wood or red
lead, the latter being a substance in the possession of nearly every
warrior to use in facial decoration, etc.

When a Hidatsa party has gone on the war path, and a certain number is
detailed to take another direction, the point of separation is taken as
the rendezvous. After the return of the first party to the rendezvous,
should the second not come up in a reasonable length of time, they
will set sticks in the ground leaning in the direction to be taken,
and notches are cut into the upper ends of the sticks to represent the
number of nights spent there by the waiting party.

A party of Hidatsa who may be away from home for any purpose whatever
often appoint a rendezvous, from which point they return to their
respective lodges. Should an individual return to the rendezvous before
any others and wish to make a special trip for game or plunder, he
will, for the information of the others, place a stick of about 3 or 4
feet in length in the ground, upon the upper end of which a notch is
cut, or perhaps split, for the reception of a thinner piece of twig or
branch having a length of about a foot. This horizontal top piece is
inserted at one end, so that the whole may point in the direction to
be taken. Should the person wish to say that the trail would turn at
a right angle, to either side, at about one-half the distance of the
whole journey in prospect, the horizontal branch is either bent in that
direction or a naturally-curved branch is selected having the turn at
the middle of its entire length, thus corresponding to the turn in the
trail. Any direction can be indicated by curves in the top branch.

NOTICE OF CONDITION.

According to Masta, chief of the Abnaki, members of that tribe remove
the bark of trees in prominent places to denote that the inhabitants of
the nearest lodge are in a starving condition.

The Ottawa and the Potawatomi Indians indicate hunger and starvation by
drawing a black line across the breast or stomach of the figure of a
man. (See Fig. 145, page 221.) This drawing is placed upon a piece of
wood, either incised or with a mixture of powdered charcoal and glue
water, or red ocher. This is then attached to a tree or fastened to a
piece of wood, and erected near the lodge on a trail, where it will be
observed by passers by, who are expected to alleviate the sufferings of
the native who erected the notice.

Figure 53 illustrates information with regard to distress in another
village, which occasioned the departure of the party giving the
notification. The drawing was made for Dr. W. J. Hoffman, in 1882,
by Naumoff, in imitation of drawings prepared by Alaska natives. The
designs are traced upon a strip of wood, which is then stuck upon the
roof of the house belonging to the recorder.

[Illustration: FIG. 53.--Alaskan notice of distress.]

1. The summer habitation, showing a stick leaning in the direction to
be taken.

2. The baidarka, containing the residents of the house. The first
person is observed pointing forward, indicating that they “go by boat
to the other settlement.”

3. A grave stick, indicating a death in the settlement.

4, 5. Summer and winter habitations, denoting a village.

The drawing, Figure 54, made for Dr. Hoffman in 1882, by a native,
in imitation of originals in Alaska, is intended to be placed in a
conspicuous portion of a settlement which has been attacked by a
hostile force and finally deserted. The last one to leave prepares the
drawing upon a strip of wood to inform friends of the resort of the
survivors.

[Illustration: FIG. 54.--Alaskan notice of departure and refuge.]

1. Represents three hills or ranges, signifying that the course taken
would carry them beyond that number of hills or mountains.

2. The recorder, indicating the direction, with the left hand pointing
to the ground, _one_ hill, and the right hand indicating the number
_two_, the number still to be crossed.

3. A circular piece of wood or leather, with the representation of a
face, placed upon a pole and facing the direction to be taken from the
settlement. In this instance the drawing of the character denotes a
hostile attack upon the town, for which misfortune such devices are
sometimes erected.

4, 5. Winter and summer habitations.

6. Store-house, erected upon upright poles.

This device is used by Alaska coast natives generally.

In connection with these figures reference may be made to a paper
by the present writer in the First Annual Report of the Bureau of
Ethnology, p. 369, showing the devices of the Abnaki.

Dr. George Gibbs (Contributions to N. A. Ethnology, Vol. I, p. 222)
says of “symbolic writing” of the northwest tribes:

I am not aware how far this may be carried among the Sound tribes.
Probably there is no great essential difference between them and
their neighbors of the plains in this art. It may perhaps be best
explained by an example given me by a veteran mountaineer, Dr. Robert
Newell, of Champoeg. A party of Snakes are going to hunt strayed
horses. A figure of a man, with a long queue, or scalp lock, reaching
to his heels, denoted Shoshonee; that tribe being in the habit of
braiding horse- or other hair into their own in that manner. A number
of marks follow, signifying the strength of the party. A foot-print,
pointed in the direction they take, shows their course, and a
hoof-mark turned backward, that they expect to return with animals.
If well armed, and expecting a possible attack, a little powder mixed
with sand tells that they are ready, or a square dotted about the
figures indicates that they have fortified.

The design shown in Figure 55 is in imitation of etchings made by
natives of Southern Alaska to convey to the observer the information
that the recorder had gone away to another settlement the inhabitants
of which were in distress. The drawings were put on a strip of wood and
placed at the door of the house where it might be seen by visitors or
inquirers.

[Illustration: FIG. 55.--Notice of departure to relieve distress.
Alaska.]

Naumoff gave the following explanation:

1. A native making the gesture of indicating _self_ with the right
hand, and with the left indicating direction and _going_.

2. The native’s habitation.

3. Scaffold used for drying fish. Upon the top of the pole is placed a
piece of wood tied so that the longest end points in the direction to
be taken by the recorder.

4. The baidarka conveying the recorder.

5. A native of the settlement to be visited.

6. Summer habitation.

7. “Shaman stick” or grave stick, erected to the memory of a recently
deceased person, the cause of which has necessitated the journey of the
recorder.

8. Winter habitation. This, together with No. 6, indicates a settlement.

Fig. 56, also drawn by Naumoff, means “ammunition wanted.”

[Illustration: FIG. 56.--Ammunition wanted. Alaska.]

When a hunter is tracking game, and exhausts his ammunition, he returns
to the nearest and most conspicuous part of the trail and sticks his
ihú^nŭk in the ground, the top leaning in the direction taken. The
ihú^nŭk is the pair of sticks arranged like the letter A, used as a
gun-rest. This method of transmitting the request to the first passer
is resorted to by the greater number of coast natives of Southern
Alaska.

Fig. 57, also drawn by Naumoff, means “discovery of bear; assistance
wanted.”

[Illustration: FIG. 57.--Assistance wanted in hunt. Alaska.]

When a hunter discovers a bear, and requires assistance, he ties
together a bunch of grass, or other fibrous matter, in the form of an
animal with legs, and places it upon a long stick or pole which is
erected at a conspicuous point to attract attention. The head of the
effigy is directed toward the locality where the animal was last seen.

This device is also used at times by most of the Southern Alaskan
Indians.

Figure 58 was also drawn by Naumoff, and signifies “starving hunters.”

[Illustration: FIG. 58.--Starving hunters. Alaska.]

Hunters who have been unfortunate, and are suffering from hunger,
scratch or draw upon a piece of wood characters similar to those
figured, and place the lower end of the stick in the ground on the
trail where the greatest chance of its discovery occurs. The stick
is inclined toward the locality of the habitation. The accompanying
explanation will serve to illustrate more fully the information
contained in the drawing.

1. A horizontal line denoting a canoe, showing the persons to be
fishermen.

2. An individual with both arms extended signifying _nothing_,
corresponding with the gesture for negation.

3. A person with the right hand to the mouth, signifying _to eat_, the
left hand pointing to the house occupied by the hunters.

4. The habitation.

The whole signifies that there is _nothing to eat_ in the _house_. This
is used by natives of Southern Alaska.

[Illustration: FIG. 59.--Starving hunters. Alaska.]

Figure 59, with the same signification, and from the same hand, is
similar to the preceding in general design. This is placed in the
ground near the landing place of the canoemen, so that the top points
toward the lodge.

The following is the explanation of the characters:

1. Baidarka, showing double projections at bow, as well as the two
individuals, owners, in the boat.

2. A man making the gesture for _nothing_. (See in this connection
Figure 155, page 235.)

3. Gesture drawn, denoting _to eat_, with the right hand, while the
left points to the lodge.

4. A winter habitation.

This is used by the Alaskan coast natives.

WARNING AND GUIDANCE.

An amusing instance of the notice or warning of “No thoroughfare” is
given on page 383 of the present writer’s paper, Sign Language among
North American Indians, in the First Annual Report of the Bureau of
Ethnology. It was taken from a rock-etching in Cañon de Chelly, New
Mexico. A graphic warning against trespass appears in Schoolcraft, Vol.
I, Plate 48, Figure B, op. page 338.

During his connection with the geographic surveys west of the one
hundredth meridian under the direction of Capt. G. M. Wheeler, U.
S. Army, Dr. Hoffman observed a practice which prevailed among the
Tivátikai Shoshoni, of Nevada, in which heaps of stones were erected
along or near trails to indicate the direction to be taken and followed
to reach springs of water.

Upon slight elevations of ground, or at points where a trail branched
into two or more directions, or at the intersection of two trails, a
heap of stones would be placed, varying from 1 to 2 or more feet in
height, according to the necessity of the case, to attract attention.
Upon the top of this would be fixed an elongated piece of rock so
placed that the most conspicuous point projected and pointed in the
course to be followed. This was continued sometimes at intervals of
several miles unless indistinct portions of a trail or intersections
demanded a repetition at shorter distances.

A knowledge of the prevalence of this custom proved very beneficial to
the early prospectors and pioneers.

Stone circles and stone heaps of irregular form were also met with,
which to a casual observer might be misleading. These resulted from
previous deposits of edible pine nuts, which had been heaped upon the
ground and covered over with stones, grass, and earth to prevent their
destruction by birds and rodents. These deposits were placed along the
trails in the timbered regions to afford sustenance to Indians who had
failed in the hunt, or who might not reach camp in time to prevent
suffering from hunger.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. LXXX

ROCK PAINTINGS IN AZUZA CAÑON, CALIFORNIA.]

Plate LXXX (A, B, C) represents colored pictographs found by Dr.
Hoffman in 1884 on the North Fork of the San Gabriel River, also known
as the Azuza Cañon, Los Angeles County, California. Its description is
as follows:

A and B are copies, one-sixteenth natural size, of rock painting found
in the Azuza Cañon, 30 miles northeast of Los Angeles, California.

The bowlder upon which the paintings occur measures 8 feet long, about
4 feet high, and the same in width. The figures occur on the eastern
side of the rock, so that the left arm of the human figure on the right
points toward the north.

The map (C) at the bottom of the plate presents the topography of the
immediate vicinity and the relative positions of the rocks bearing the
two illustrations. The map is drawn on a scale of 1,000 yards to the
inch.

The stream is the North Fork of the San Gabriel River, and is hemmed in
by precipitous mountains, with the exception of two points marked _c_,
_c_, over which the old Indian trail passed in going from the Mojave
Desert on the north to the San Gabriel Valley below, this course being
the nearest for reaching the mission settlements at San Gabriel and Los
Angeles. In attempting to follow the water-course the distance would
be greatly increased and a rougher trail encountered. The pictograph
A, painted on the rock marked _b_ on the map C, shows characters in
pale yellow, upon a bowlder of almost white granite, which are partly
obliterated by weathering and annual floods, though still enough
remains to indicate that the right-hand figure is directing the
observer to the northeast, although upon taking that course it would
be necessary to round the point a short distance to the west. It may
have been placed as a notification of direction to those Indians who
might have come up the cañon instead of on the regular trail. Farther
west, at the spot marked _a_ on the map, is a granite bowlder bearing a
large number of paintings part of which have become almost obliterated.
These were drawn with red ocher (ferric oxide). A selection of these
is shown in B on the plate. This is on the western face of the rock,
almost vertical. This also appears to refer to the course of the trail,
which might readily be lost on account of the numerous mountain ridges
and spurs. The left-hand figure appears to place the left hand upon a
series of ridges, as if showing pantomimically the rough and ridged
country over the mountains.

The middle figure represents gesture, which in its present connection
may indicate direction, of the trail, _i. e._, toward the left, or
northward in an up-hill course, as indicated by the arm and leg, and
southward, or downward, as suggested by the lower inclination of the
leg, and lower forearm and hand on the right of the illustration.

The right-hand figure, although similar in manner of delineating
gesture and general resemblance to the Shoshonian method, is not yet
determined in that connection.

These illustrations, as well as other pictographs on the same rock, not
at present submitted, bear remarkable resemblance to the general type
of Shoshonian drawing, and from such evidence as is now attainable it
appears more than probable that they are of Chemehuevi origin, as that
tribe at one time ranged thus far west, though north of the mountains,
and also visited the valley and settlements at Los Angeles at stated
intervals to trade. It is also known that the Mojaves came at stated
periods to Los Angeles as late as 1845, and the trail indicated at
point _a_ of the map would appear to have been their most practicable
and convenient route. There is strong evidence that the Mokis sometimes
visited the Pacific coast and might readily have taken this same
course, marking the important portion of the route by drawings in the
nature of guide boards.

CHARTS OF GEOGRAPHIC FEATURES.

Dr. W. J. Hoffman states that when at Grapevine Springs, Nevada, in
1871, the Pai-Uta living at that locality informed the party of the
exact location of Las Vegas, the objective point. The Indian sat upon
the sand, and with the palms of his hands formed an oblong ridge to
represent Spring Mountain, and southeast of this ridge another gradual
slope, terminating on the eastern side more abruptly; over the latter
he passed his fingers to represent the side valleys running eastward.
He then took a stick and showed the direction of the old Spanish trail
running east and west over the lower portion of the last-named ridge.

When this was completed the Indian looked at the members of the
party, and with a mixture of English, Spanish, Pai-Uta, and gesture
signs, told them that from where they were now they would have to go
southward, east of Spring Mountain, to the camp of Pai-Uta Charlie,
where they would have to sleep; then indicating a line southeastward
to another spring (Stump’s) to complete the second day; then he
followed the line representing the Spanish trail to the east of the
divide of the second ridge above named, where he left it, and passing
northward to the first valley, he thrust the short stick into the
ground and said, “Las Vegas.”

It is needless to say that the information was found to be correct and
of considerable value to the party.

Schoolcraft (Vol. I, p. 334, Pl. 47, Fig. B) mentions that the
discovery, on one of the tributaries of the Susquehanna River, “of an
Indian map drawn on stone, with intermixed devices, a copy of which
appears in the first volume of the collections of the Historical
Committee of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, proves,
although it is thus far isolated, that stone was also employed in that
branch of inscription. This discovery was in the area occupied by the
Lenapees, who are known to have practiced the art, which they called
Ola Walum.”

The Tegua Pueblos, of New Mexico, “traced upon the ground a sketch of
their country, with the names and locations of the pueblos occupied in
New Mexico,” a copy of which, “somewhat improved,” is given in Vol.
III, Pacific R. R. Explorations, 1856, Part III, pp. 9, 10.

A Yuma map of the Colorado River, with the names and locations of
tribes within its valley, is also figured in the last mentioned volume,
page 19. The map was originally traced upon the ground.

A Pai-Uta map of the Colorado River is also figured in the same
connection, which was obtained by Lieutenant Whipple and party.

[Illustration: FIG. 60.--Lean-Wolf’s map. Hidatsa.]

Lean-Wolf, of the Hidatsa, who drew the picture of which Figure 60
is a fac-simile, made a trip on foot from Fort Berthold to Fort
Buford, Dakota, to steal a horse from the Dakotas encamped there. The
returning horse tracks show that he attained the object in view, and
that he rode home. The following explanation of characters was made to
Dr. Hoffman, at Fort Berthold, in 1881:

1. Lean-Wolf, the head only of a man to which is attached the outline
of a wolf.

2. Hidatsa earth lodges, circular in form, the spots representing the
pillars supporting the roof. Indian village at Fort Berthold, Dakota.

3. Human footprints; the course taken by the recorder.

4. The Government buildings at Fort Buford (square).

5. Several Hidatsa lodges (round), the occupants of which had
inter-married with the Dakotas.

6. Dakota lodges.

7. A small square--a white man’s house--with a cross marked upon it, to
represent a Dakota lodge. This denotes that the owner, a white man, had
married a Dakota woman who dwelt there.

8. Horse tracks returning to Fort Berthold.

9. The Missouri River.

10. Tule Creek.

11. Little Knife River.

12. White Earth River.

13. Muddy Creek.

14. Yellowstone River.

15. Little Missouri River.

16. Dancing Beard Creek.

CLAIM OR DEMAND.

Stephen Powers states that the Nishinam of California have a curious
way of collecting debts. “When an Indian owes another, it is held to be
in bad taste, if not positively insulting, for the creditor to dun the
debtor, as the brutal Saxon does; so he devises a more subtle method.
He prepares a certain number of little sticks, according to the amount
of the debt, and paints a ring around the end of each. These he carries
and tosses into the delinquent’s wigwam without a word and goes his
way; whereupon the other generally takes the hint, pays the debt, and
destroys the sticks.” See Contrib. to N. A. Ethnology, Vol. III, 321.

Dr. W. J. Hoffman says, “When a patient has neglected to remunerate
the Shaman [Wĭktcŏm´nĭ´ of the Yokŏtsan linguistic division] for his
services, the latter prepares short sticks of wood, with bands of
colored porcupine quills wrapped around them, at one end only, and
every time he passes the delinquent’s lodge a certain number of them
are thrown in as a reminder of the indebtedness.” See San Francisco
(Cal.) Western Lancet, XI, 1882, p. 443.

MESSAGES AND COMMUNICATIONS.

[Illustration: FIG. 61.--Letter to Little-Man from his father.
Cheyenne.]

Figure 61 is a letter sent by mail from a Southern Cheyenne, named
Turtle-following-his-Wife, at the Cheyenne and Arapaho Agency, Indian
Territory, to his son, Little-Man, at the Pine Ridge Agency, Dakota
Territory. It was drawn on a half-sheet of ordinary writing paper,
without a word written. It was inclosed in an envelope, which was
addressed to “Little-Man, Cheyenne, Pine Ridge Agency,” in the ordinary
manner, written by some one at the first-named agency. The letter
was evidently understood by Little-Man, as he immediately called
upon Dr. V. T. McGillycuddy, Indian agent at Pine Ridge Agency, and
was aware that the sum of $53 had been placed to his credit for the
purpose of enabling him to pay his expenses in going the long journey
to his father’s home in Indian Territory. Dr. McGillycuddy had, by
the same mail, received a letter from Agent Dyer, inclosing $53, and
explaining the reason for its being sent, which enabled him also to
understand the pictographic letter. With the above explanation it very
clearly shows, over the head of the figure to the left, the turtle
following the turtle’s wife united with the head of the figure by a
line, and over the head of the other figure, also united by a line to
it, is a little man. Also over the right arm of the last-mentioned
figure is another little man in the act of springing or advancing
toward Turtle-following-his-Wife, from whose mouth proceed two lines,
curved or hooked at the end, as if drawing the little figure towards
him. It is suggested that the last-mentioned part of the pictograph
is the substance of the communication, _i. e._, “come to me,” the
larger figures with their name totems being the persons addressed and
addressing. Between and above the two large figures are fifty-three
round objects intended for dollars. Both the Indian figures have on
breech-cloths, corresponding with the information given concerning
them, which is that they are Cheyennes who are not all civilized or
educated.

The illustration, Figure 62, was made by a native Alaskan, and
represents a native of the Teninahs making a smoke signal to the people
of the village on the opposite shore of a lake, so that a boat may be
sent to carry the signalist across. The K’niqamūt band of the Tenina
have no boats, as they live inland, and therefore resort to signaling
with smoke when desiring transportation. On account of this custom they
are termed “Signal People.” If the pictograph could be transmitted in
advance of the necessity, the actual use of the smoke signal, with
consequent delay in obtaining the boat, would be avoided.

[Illustration: FIG. 62.--Drawing of smoke signal. Alaska.]

1. Represents the mountain contour of the country.

2. A Tenina Indian.

3. Column of smoke.

4. Bird’s-eye view of the lake.

5. The settlement on opposite shore of lake.

6. Boat crossing for the signalist.

Under this head of messages and communications may be included
the material objects sent as messages, many accounts of which are
published. It is to be expected that graphic representations of the
same or similar objects, with corresponding arrangement, should have
similar significance. Among the Indians painted arrows, bearing
messages when discharged, are familiar. The Turkish Selam, or flower
letters, are in the same category.

The following account of a “diplomatic packet” is extracted from
Schoolcraft, Vol. III, p. 306, _et seq._:

In the month of August, 1852, a message reached the President of
the United States, by a delegation of the Pueblos of Tesuque in New
Mexico, offering him friendship and intercommunication; and opening,
symbolically, a road from the Moqui country to Washington. * * *

This unique diplomatic packet consists of several articles of
symbolic import. The first is the official and ceremonial offer of
the peace-pipe. This is symbolized by a joint of the maize, five and
a half inches long, and half an inch in diameter. The hollow of the
tube is filled by leaves of a plant which represents tobacco. It is
stopped to secure the weed from falling out, by the downy yellow
under plumage of some small bird. Externally, around the center of
the stalk, is a tie of white cotton twisted string of four strands,
(not twisted by the distaff,) holding, at its end, a small tuft of
the before-mentioned downy yellow feathers, and a small wiry feather
of the same species. The interpreter has written on this, “The pipe
to be smoked by the President.” * * The object is represented in the
cut, A, [represented in Figure 63.]

[Illustration: FIG. 63.--Part of diplomatic packet.]

The second symbol consists of two small columnar round pieces of
wood, four and a half inches long, and four-tenths in diameter,
terminating in a cone. The cone is one and a half inches long, and
is colored black; the rest of the pieces are blue; a peace color
among the Indians south, it seems, as well as north. This color has
the appearance of being produced by the carbonate of copper mixed
with aluminous earth; and reminds one strongly of the blue clays
of the Dacotahs. The wood, when cut, is white, compact, and of a
peculiar species. A notch is cut at one end of one of the pieces,
and colored yellow. A shuck of the maize, one end of which, rolled
in the shape of a cone, is bound up by cotton strings, with a small
bird’s feather, in the manner of the symbolic pipe. There is also
tied up with the symbolic sticks, one of the secondary feathers and
bits of down of a bird of dingy color. The feather is naturally
tipped with white. Together with this, the tie holds a couple of
sticks of a native plant or small seed of the prairie grass, perhaps.
It may, together with the husk of the maize, be emblematic of
their cultivation. The whole of the tie represents the Moquis. The
following cut, B, [reproduced in Figure 64,] represents this symbol:

[Illustration: FIG. 64.--Part of diplomatic packet.]

[Illustration: FIG. 65.--Part of diplomatic packet.]

The third object is, in every respect, like B, [reproduced in Figure
64,] and symbolizes the President of the United States. A colored
cotton cord, four feet long, unites these symbols. Six inches of
this cord is small and white. At the point of its being tied to the
long colored cord there is a bunch of small bird’s feathers. This
bunch, which symbolizes the geographical position of the Navajoes,
with respect to Washington, consists of the feathers of six species,
the colors which are pure white, blue, brown, mottled, yellow, and
dark, like the pigeon-hawk, and white, tipped with brown. (See the
preceding cut, C.)

The interpreter appends to these material effigies or devices [which
are arranged as in D, reproduced in Figure 66] the following remarks.

[Illustration: FIG. 66.--Part of diplomatic packet.]

“These two figures represent the Moqui people and the President;
the cord is the road which separates them; the feather tied to the
cord is the meeting point; that part of the cord which is white is
intended to signify the distance between the President and the place
of meeting; and that part which is stained is the distance between
the Moqui and the same point. Your Excellency will perceive that the
distance between the Moqui and place of meeting is short, while the
other is very long.

“The last object of this communication from the high plains of New
Mexico, is the most curious, and the most strongly indicative of the
wild, superstitious notions of the Moqui mind. It consists of a
small quantity of wild honey, wrapped up in a wrapper or inner fold
of the husk of the maize, as represented in E, [reproduced in Figure
67.] It is accompanied by these remarks:

“A charm to call down rain from heaven.--To produce the effect
desired, the President must take a piece of the shuck which contains
the wild honey, chew it, and spit it upon the ground which needs
rain; and the Moquis assure him that it will come.”

[Illustration: FIG. 67.--Part of diplomatic packet.]

The Maori used a kind of hieroglyphical or symbolical way of
communication; a chief inviting another to join in a war party sent
a tattooed potato and a fig of tobacco bound up together, which was
interpreted to mean that the enemy was a Maori and not European by the
tattoo, and by the tobacco that it represented smoke; he therefore
roasted the one and eat it, and smoked the other, to show he accepted
the invitation, and would join him with his guns and powder. Another
sent a water-proof coat with the sleeves made of patchwork, red, blue,
yellow, and green, intimating that they must wait until all the tribes
were united before their force would be water-proof, _i. e._, able to
encounter the European. Another chief sent a large pipe, which would
hold a pound of tobacco, which was lighted in a large assembly, the
emissary taking the first whiff, and then passing it round; whoever
smoked it showed that he joined in the war. See Te Ika a Maui, by Rev.
Richard Taylor, London, 1870.

RECORD OF EXPEDITION.

Under this head, many illustrations of which might be given besides
several in this paper, see account of colored pictographs in Santa
Barbara County, California, page 34 _et seq._, Plates I and II, also
Lean-Wolf’s trip, Figure 60, page 158. Also, Figures 135 and 136, pages
214 and 215.

TOTEMIC.

This is one of the most striking of the special uses to which
pictography has been applied by the North American Indians. For
convenience, the characters may be divided into: First, tribal; Second,
gentile; and Third, personal designations.

TRIBAL DESIGNATIONS.

A large number of these graphic distinctions are to be found in the
Dakota Winter Counts.

Rev. J. Owen Dorsey reports that the Tsi[c]u side of the Osage tribe,
when on a war party, have the face painted red, with mud upon the
cheek, below the left eye, as wide as two or more fingers.

The Hañka side of the tribe paint the face red, with a spot of mud upon
the right cheek, below the eye, as wide as two or more fingers.

For an ingenious method of indicating by variation of incisions on
trees, the tribal use of paint by the Absaroka and Dakota respectively,
see page 62.

Figure 68 shows the tribal designation of the Kaiowa by the Dakota,
taken from the winter count of Battiste Good, 1814-’15. He calls the
winter “Smashed-a-Kaiowa’s-head-in winter.” The tomahawk with which it
was done is in contact with the Kaiowa’s head.

[Illustration: FIG. 68.--Kaiowa.]

The sign for Kaiowa is made by passing the hands--naturally
extended--in short horizontal circles on either side of the head, and
the picture is probably drawn to represent the man in the attitude of
making this gesture, and not the involuntary raising of the hands upon
receiving the blow, such attitudes not appearing in Battiste Good’s
system.

Figure 69 is the tribal sign of the Arikara made by the
Dakotas, taken from the winter count of Battiste Good
for the year 1823-’24, which he calls “General- ----
-first-appeared-and-the-Dakotas-aided-in-an-attack-on-the-Rees winter”;
also “Much-corn winter.”

[Illustration: FIG. 69.--Arikara.]

The gun and the arrow in contact with the ear of corn show that both
whites and Indians fought the Rees.

The ear of corn signifies “Ree” or Arikara Indians, who are designated
in gesture language as “Corn Shellers.”

Figure 70 is the tribal designation of the Omahas by the Dakotas, taken
from the winter count of Battiste Good.

[Illustration: FIG. 70. Omaha.]

A human head with cropped hair and red cheeks signifies Omaha. This
tribe cuts the hair short and uses red paint upon the cheeks very
extensively. This character is of frequent occurrence in Battiste
Good’s count.

Figure 71 is the tribal designation of the Pani by the Dakotas, taken
from Battiste Good’s winter count for the year 1704-’05.

[Illustration: FIG. 71.--Pani.]

He says: The lower legs are ornamented with slight projections
resembling the marks on the bottom of an ear of corn [husks], and
signifies Pani.

A pictograph for Cheyenne is given in Figure 78, page 173, with some
remarks.

Figure 72 is the tribal designation for Assiniboine by the Dakotas from
winter count of Battiste Good for the year 1709-’10.

[Illustration: FIG. 72.--Assiniboine.]

The Dakota pictorial sign for Assiniboine or Hohe, which means the
voice, or, as some say, the voice of the musk-ox, is the outline of the
vocal organs, as they conceive them, and represents the upper lip and
roof of the mouth, the tongue, the lower lip, and chin and neck. The
view is lateral, and resembles the sectional aspect of the mouth and
tongue.

Figure 73 is the tribal designation of the Gros Ventres, by the same
tribe and on the same authority.

[Illustration: FIG. 73.--Gros Ventre.]

Two Gros Ventres were killed on the ice by the Dakotas in 1789-’90.
The two are designated by two spots of blood on the ice, and _killed_
is expressed by the blood-tipped arrow against the figure of the man
above. The long hair, with the red forehead, denotes the Gros Ventre.
The red forehead illustrates the manner of applying war paint, and
applies, also, to the Arikara and Absaroka Indians, in other Dakota
records. The horizontal blue band signifies ice.

Stephen Powers says (Contrib. to N. A. Ethnology, III, p. 109) the
Mattoal, of California, differ from other tribes in that the men
tattoo. “Their distinctive mark is a round blue spot in the center of
the forehead.”

He adds: Among the Mattoal--

The women tattoo pretty much, all over their faces.

In respect to this matter of tattooing there is a theory entertained
by some old pioneers which may be worth the mention. They hold that
the reason why the women alone tattoo in all other tribes is that
in case they are taken captives their own people may be able to
recognize them when there comes an opportunity of ransom. There are
two facts which give some color of probability to this reasoning.
One is that the California Indians are rent into such infinitesimal
divisions, any one of which may be arrayed in deadly feud against
another at any moment, that the slight differences in their dialects
would not suffice to distinguish the captive squaws. A second is that
the squaws almost never attempt any ornamental tattooing, but adhere
closely to the plain regulation mark of the tribe.

Paul Marcoy, in Travels in South America, N. Y., 1875, Vol. II, page
353, says of the Passés, Yuris, Barrés, and Chumanas, of Brazil, that
they mark their faces (in tattoo) with the totem or emblem of the
nation to which they belong. It is possible at a few steps distant to
distinguish one nation from another.

GENTILE OR CLAN DESIGNATIONS.

Rev. J. Owen Dorsey reports of the Osages that all the old men who have
been distinguished in war are painted with the decorations of their
respective gentes. That of the Tsi[c]u wactake is as follows: The face
is first whitened all over with white clay; then a red spot is made on
the forehead, and the lower part of the face is reddened; then with the
fingers the man scrapes off the white clay, forming the dark figures,
by letting the natural color of the face show through.

In Schoolcraft, V, 73, 74, it is stated that by totemic marks the
various families of the Ojibwa denote their affiliation. A guardian
spirit has been selected by the progenitor of a family from some object
in the zoological chain. The representative device of this is called
the totem. A warrior’s totem never wants honors in their reminiscences,
and the mark is put on his grave-post, or _adjedatig_, when he is dead.
In his funeral pictograph he invariably sinks his personal name in that
of his totem or family name. These marks are, in one sense, the surname
of the clan. The personal name is not indicative of an Indian’s totem.

The same custom, according to Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, prevails among the
Omahas; and with the exception of that portion which relates to the
drawing of the totemic mark upon the grave post the above remarks
apply also to the Dakotas, of Northern Dakota, according to the
observations of Dr. Hoffman. The Pueblos, remarked Mr. James Stevenson
in a conversation with the writer, depict the gens totems upon their
various forms and styles of ceramic manufacture. The peculiar forms
of secondary decoration also permit the article to be traced to any
particular family by which it may have been produced.

PERSONAL DESIGNATIONS.

This head may be divided into (1) Insignia, or tokens of authority. (2)
Connected with personal name. (3) Property marks. (4) Status of the
individual. (5) Signs of particular achievement.

INSIGNIA OR TOKENS OF AUTHORITY.

A large number of examples are presented in connection with other
divisions of this paper. Many more are noted in Schoolcraft, especially
in Vol. I, plates 58 and 59, following page 408. In addition the
following may be mentioned:

Figure 74 is a copy of a drawing made by Lean-Wolf, second chief of
the Hidatsa, to represent himself. The horns on his head-dress show
that he is a chief. The eagle feathers on his war-bonnet, arranged in
the special manner portrayed, also show high distinction as a warrior.
His authority as “partisan,” or leader of a war party is represented
by the elevated pipe. His name is also added with the usual line drawn
from the head. He explained the outline character of the wolf, having
a white body with the mouth unfinished, to show that it was hollow,
nothing there, _i. e._, lean. The animal’s tail is drawn in detail and
dark to distinguish it from the body.

[Illustration: FIG. 74.--Lean-Wolf. Partisan.]

The character for “partisan” is also shown in the Dakota winter counts
for the year 1842-’43. See Plate XXIII.

Figure 75 (extracted from the First Annual Report Bureau of Ethnology,
Fig. 227), drawn and explained by an Oglala Dakota, exhibits four erect
pipes to show that he had led four war parties.

[Illustration: FIG. 75.--Two-Strike as Partisan.]

PERSONAL NAME.

The names of Indians as formerly adopted or bestowed among themselves
were and still remain connotive, when not subjected to white influence.
They very often refer to some animal, predicating an attribute or
position of that animal. On account of their objective, or at least
ideographic, character, they almost invariably admit of being expressed
in sign-language; and for the same reason they can with the same ease
be portrayed in pictographs. Abundant proof of this is given in two
collections _infra_, viz., the Ogalala Roster and the Red-Cloud Census.
The device generally adopted by the Dakotas to signify that an object
drawn in connection with a human head or figure was a name totem or a
personal name of the individual, is to connect that object with the
figure by a line drawn to the head or more frequently to the mouth of
the latter. The same tribes make a distinction in manifesting that the
gesture-sign for the object gestured is intended to be the name of an
individual, by passing the index forward from the mouth in a direct
line after the conclusion of the sign for the object. This signifies,
“that is his name,”--the name of the person referred to.

A similar designation of an object as a name by means of a connected
line is mentioned in Kingsborough’s Mexico, Vol. I, Plate 33, part 4,
and text, Vol. VI, page 150. Pedro de Alvarado, one of the companions
of Cortez, was red-headed. Because of this the Mexicans called him
_Tonatihu_, the “Sun,” and in their picture-writing his name was
represented by a picture of that luminary attached to his person by a
line.

As a general rule Indians are named at first according to a clan or
gentile system, but in later life one generally acquires a new name,
or perhaps several names in succession, from some special exploits or
adventures. Frequently a sobriquet is given which is not complimentary.
All of the names subsequently acquired as well as the original names
are so connected with material objects or with substantive actions as
to be expressible in a graphic picture, and also in a pictorial sign.
The determination to use names of this connotive character is shown
by the objective translation, whenever possible, of such European
names as it became necessary for them to introduce frequently into
their speech. William Penn was called _Onas_, that being the word for
feather-quill in the Mohawk dialect. The name of the second French
governor of Canada was Montmagny, erroneously translated to be “great
mountain,” which words were correctly translated by the Iroquois into
_Onontio_, and this expression becoming associated with the title
has been applied to all successive Canadian governors, though the
origin having been generally forgotten, it has been considered to be a
metaphorical compliment. Governor Fletcher was named by the Iroquois
_Cajenquiragoe_, “the great swift arrow,” not because of his speedy
arrival at a critical time, as has been supposed, but because they had
somehow been informed of the etymology of his name, “arrow-maker” (_Fr.
fléchier_). A notable example of the adoption of a graphic illustration
from a similarity in the sound of the name to known English words is
given in the present paper in the Winter Count of American-Horse for
the year 1865-’66, page 144, where General Maynadier is made to figure
as “many deer.”

While, as before said, some tribes give names to children from
considerations of birth and kinship according to a fixed rule, others
confer them after solemn deliberation. They are not necessarily
permanent. A diminutive form is frequently bestowed by the affection
of the parent. On initiation a warrior always assumes or receives a
name. Until this is established he is liable to change his name after
every fight or hunt. He will generally only acknowledge the name he
has himself assumed, perhaps from a dream or vision, though he may be
habitually called by an entirely different name. From that reason the
same man is sometimes known under several different epithets. Personal
peculiarity, deformity, or accident is sure to fix a name, against
which it is vain to struggle. Girls do not habitually change names
bestowed in their childhood. It may also be remarked that the same
precise name is often given to different individuals in the same tribe,
but not so frequently in the same band, whereby the inconvenience would
be increased. For this reason it is often necessary to specify the
band, sometimes also the father. For instance, when the writer asked an
Indian who Black-Stone, a chief mentioned in the Dakota winter counts,
was, the Indian asked, first, what tribe was he; then, what band; then,
who was his father; and, except in the case of very noted persons,
the identity is not proved without an answer to these questions. A
striking instance of this plurality of names among the Dakotas was
connected with the name Sitting-Bull, belonging to the leader of the
hostile band, while one of that name was almost equally noted as being
the head soldier of the friendly Dakotas at Red-Cloud Agency. The
present writer also found a number of Dakotas named Lone-Dog when in
search of the recorder of the winter count above explained. The case
may be illustrated by christian names among civilized people. At the
time when a former President of the United States was the leading
topic of conversation, nearly any one being asked who bore the name
of Ulysses would be able to refer to General Grant, but few other
christian names would convey any recognized identity. Indeed, the
surname may be added and multiplicity with confusion still remain.
Very few men have names so peculiar as not to find them with exact
literation in the directories of the large cities.

Among the many peculiarities connected with Indian personal names, far
too many for discussion here, is their avoidance of them in direct
address, terms of kinship or relative age taking their place. Major
J. W. Powell, in some remarks before the Anthropological Society of
Washington, on the functions performed by kinship terms among Indian
tribes, stated that at one time he had the Kaibab Indians, a small
tribe of northern Arizona, traveling with him. The young chief was
called by white men “Frank.” For several weeks he refused to give his
Indian name, and Major Powell endeavored to discover it by noticing the
term by which he was addressed by the other Indians; but invariably
some kinship term was employed. One day in a quarrel his wife called
him “Chuarumpik (Yucca-heart.)” Subsequently Major Powell questioned
the young chief about the matter, who explained and apologized for
the great insult which his wife had given him by stating that she was
excused by great provocation. The insult consisted in calling the man
by his real name.

The following is quoted for comparison with the name-system of the
Indians of Guiana, from Everard F. im Thurn, _op. cit._, p. 219, _et
seq._:

The system under which the Indians have their personal names is
intricate, and difficult to explain. In the first place, a name,
which may be called the proper name, is always given to a young
child soon after birth. It is said to be proper that the peaiman,
or medicine-man, should choose and give this name; but, at any rate
now, the naming seems more often left to the parents. The word
selected is generally the name of some plant, bird, or other natural
object. Among Arawak proper names may be mentioned _Yambenassi_
(night-monkey) and _Yuri-tokoro_ (tobacco-flower), and among Macusi
names _Ti-ti_ (owl), _Cheripung_ (star?), and _Simiri_ (locust-tree).
But these names seem of little use, in that owners have a very strong
objection to telling or using them, apparently on the ground that the
name is part of the man, and that he who knows the name has part of
the owner of that name in his power.

To avoid any danger of spreading knowledge of their names, one
Indian, therefore, generally addresses another only according to
the relationship of the caller and the called, as brother, sister,
father, mother, and so on; or, when there is no relationship, as
boy, girl, companion, and so on. These terms, therefore, practically
form the names actually used by Indians amongst themselves. But an
Indian is just as unwilling to tell his proper name to a white man
as to an Indian; and, of course, between the Indian and the white man
there is no relationship the term for which can serve as a proper
name. An Indian, therefore, when he has to do with a European, asks
the latter to give him a name, and if one is given to him, always
afterwards uses this. The names given in this way are generally
simple enough--John, Peter, Thomas, and so on. But sometimes they are
not sufficiently simple to be comprehended and remembered by their
Indian owners, who therefore, having induced the donor to write the
name on a piece of paper, preserve this ever after most carefully,
and whenever asked for their name by another European, exhibit the
document as the only way of answering. Sometimes, however, an Indian,
though he cannot pronounce his English names, makes it possible by
corruption. For instance, a certain Macusi Indian was known to me for
a long time as Shassapoon, which I thought was his proper name, until
it accidentally appeared that it was his ‘English name,’ he having
been named by and after one Charles Appun, a German traveler.

The original of Figure 76 was made by Lean-Wolf, second chief of the
Hidatsa, for Dr. W. J. Hoffman in 1881, and represents the method
which this Indian has employed to designate himself for many years
past. During his boyhood he had another name. This is a current, or
perhaps it may be called cursive, form of the name, which is given more
elaborately in Figure 74.

[Illustration: FIG. 76.--Lean-wolf.]

Figure 77 is taken from the winter count of Battiste Good for the year
1841-’42. He calls the year “Pointer-made-a-commemoration-of-the-dead
winter.” Also “Deep-snow winter.”

[Illustration: FIG. 77.--Pointer.]

The extended index denotes the man’s name, “Pointer,” the ring and
spots, deep snow.

The spots denoting snow occur also in other portions of this count,
and the circle, denoting _quantity_, is also attached in Figure 141,
p. 219, to a forked stick and incloses a buffalo head to signify _much
meat_. That the circle is intended to signify quantity is probable,
as the gesture for “much” or “quantity” is made by passing the hands
upward from both sides and together before the body, describing the
upper half of a circle, _i. e._, showing a heap.

Figure 78 is also from the winter count of Battiste Good for the year
1785-’86. This year he calls “The-Cheyennes-killed-Shadow’s-father
winter.”

[Illustration: FIG. 78.--Shadow.]

The umbrella signifies Shadow; the three marks under the arrow,
Cheyenne; the blood-stained arrow in the man’s body, killed; Shadow’s
name and the umbrella in the figure intimates that he was the first
Dakota to carry an umbrella. The advantages of the umbrella were soon
recognized by the Dakotas, and the first they obtained from the whites
were highly prized.

In the record prepared by Battiste Good this is the only instance
where the short vertical lines below the arrow signify Cheyenne. In
all others these marks are numerical, and denote the number of persons
killed. That these short lines signify Cheyenne may be attributable to
a practice of that tribe, to make transverse cuts in the forearm after
or before going into a conflict, as an offering or vow to the Great
Spirit for success. Cheyennes are thus represented in the winter count
of Cloud-Shield for 1834-’35 (see page 139) and 1878-’79 (see page 146.)

Mr. P. W. Norris has presented a buffalo robe containing a record of
exploits, which was drawn by Black-Crow, a Dakota warrior, several
years ago. The peculiarity of the drawings is, that the warrior is
represented in each instance in an upright position, the accompanying
figure being always in a recumbent posture, representing the enemy who
was slain. Instead of depicting the personal name above the fallen
personage with a line connecting the two, the name of the enemy is
placed above the head of the victor in each instance, a line extending
between the character and the speaker or warrior whose exploits the
characters represent. The latter seems to proclaim the name of his
victim. A pipe is also figured between the victor and the vanquished,
showing that he is entitled to smoke a pipe of celebration.

A copy of the whole record was shown to the Mdewakantawan Dakotas,
near Fort Snelling, Minnesota, in 1883, and the character reproduced
in Figure 79, about which there was the most doubt, was explained as
signifying “many tongues,” _i. e._, Loud-Talker, being the name of the
person killed.

[Illustration: FIG. 79.--Loud-Talker.]

The circle at the end of the line running from the mouth contains a
number of lanceolate forms, the half of each of which is black, the
other white. They have the appearance of feathers. These figures
signify voice, the sounds as issuing from the mouth, and correspond in
some respect to those drawn by the Mexicans with that significance. The
considerable number of these figures, signifying intensity, denotes
loud voice, or, as given literally, “loud talker,” that being the name
of the victim.

It is however to be noted that “Shield,” an Oglala Dakota, says the
character signifies Feather-Shield, the name of a warrior formerly
living at the Pine Ridge Agency, Dakota.

AN OGALALA ROSTER.

Plates LII to LVIII represent a pictorial roster of the heads of
families, eighty-four in number, in the band or perhaps clan of Chief
Big-Road, and were obtained by Rev. S. D. Hinman at Standing Rock
Agency, Dakota, in 1883, from the United States Indian agent, Major
McLaughlin, to whom the original was submitted by Chief Big-Road when
brought to that agency and required to give an account of his followers.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. LII

AN OGALALA ROSTER--“BIG-ROAD” AND BAND]

Chief Big-Road and his people belong to the Northern Ogalala
(accurately Oglala), and were lately hostile, having been associated
with Sitting-Bull in various depredations and hostilities against both
settlers and the United States authorities. Mr. Hinman states that the
translations of the names were made by the agency interpreter, and
although not as complete as might be, are, in the whole, satisfactory.
Chief Big-Road “is a man of fifty years and upwards, and is as ignorant
and uncompromising a savage, in mind and appearance, as one could well
find at this late date.”

The drawings in the original are on a single sheet of foolscap paper,
made with black and colored pencils, and a few characters are in yellow
ocher--water-color paint. On each of the seven plates, into which
the original is here divided from the requirements of the mode of
publication, the first figure in the upper left-hand corner represents,
as stated, the chief of the sub-band, or perhaps, “family” in the
Indian sense.

On five of the plates the chief has before him a decorated pipe and
pouch, the design of each being distinct from the others. On Plates LIV
and LV the upper left hand figure does not have a pipe, which leads to
the suspicion that, contrary to the information so far received, the
whole of the figures from Nos. 11 to 45 inclusive, on Plates LIII, LIV,
and LV, constitute one band under the same chief, viz., No. 11. In that
case Nos. 23 and 36 would appear to be leaders of subordinate divisions
of that band. Each of the five chiefs has at least three transverse
bands on the cheek, with differentiation of the pattern.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. LIII

AN OGALALA ROSTER--“LOW-DOG” AND BAND]

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. LIV

AN OGALALA ROSTER--“THE-BEAR-SPARES-HIM” AND BAND]

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. LV

AN OGALALA ROSTER--“HAS-A-WAR-CLUB” AND BAND]

It will be noticed that each figure throughout the plates, which
carries before it a war club, is decorated with three red transverse
bands, but that of No. 30, on Plate LIV, and No. 48 on Plate LVI, have
the three bands without a war club.

The other male figures seem in some instances to have each but a single
red band; in others two bands, red and blue, but the drawing is so
indistinct as to render this uncertain.

It will be observed, also, that in four instances (Nos. 14, 44, 45,
and 72) women are depicted as the surviving heads of families. Their
figures do not have the transverse bands on the cheek.

Also that the five chiefs do not have the war club, their rank being
shown by pipe and pouch. Those men who are armed with war clubs, which
are held vertically before the person, indicate (in accordance with a
similar custom among other branches of the Dakota Nation, in which,
however, the pipe is held instead of the club) that the man has at some
time led war parties on his own account. See pages 118 and 139.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. LVI

AN OGALALA ROSTER--“WALL-DOG” AND BAND]

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. LVII

AN OGALALA ROSTER--“IRON-CROW” AND BAND]

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. LVIII

AN OGALALA ROSTER--“LITTLE-HAWK” AND BAND]

_English names of the figures in the Ogalala Roster._

No. 1. Big-road.
2. Bear-looking-behind.
3. Brings-back-plenty.
4. White buffalo.
5. The-real-hawk.
6. Shield-boy.
7. The-bear-stops.
8. Wears-the-feather.
9. Dog-eagle.
10. Red-horn-bull.
11. Low-dog.
12. Charging-hawk.
13. White-tail.
14. Blue-cloud (woman).
15. Shield.
16. Little-eagle.
17. Spotted-skunk.
18. White-bear.
19. White-hair.
20. His-fight.
21. Center-feather.
22. Kills-Crows (Indians).
23. The-bear-spares-him.
24. White-plume.
25. Fears-nothing.
26. Red-crow.
27. The-last-bear.
28. Bird-man.
29. Horse-with-horns.
30. Fast-elk.
31. Chief-boy.
32. Spotted-elk.
33. Carries-the-badger.
34. Red-earth-woman.
35. Eagle-clothing.
36. Has-a-war-club.
37. Little-buffalo.
38. Has-a-point (weapon.)
39. Returning-scout.
40. Little-killer.
41. Whistler.
42. Tongue.
43. Black-elk.
44. Lone-woman.
45. Deaf-woman.
46. Long-dog. Erroneously printed Wall dog on Plate LVI.
47. Iron-hawk.
48. Pretty-weasel.
49. Short-buffalo.
50. Bull-with-bad-heart.
51. Four-crows.
52. Tall-white-man.
53. Eagle-hawk.
54. Lone-man.
55. Causes-trouble-ahead.
56. Makes-dirt (“foul”).
57. Black-road.
58. Shot-close.
59. Iron-crow.
60. Running-horse.
61. Owns-an-animal-with-horns.
62. Blue-cloud-man.
63. Fingers.
64. Sacred-teeth.
65. Searching-cloud.
66. Female-elk-boy.
67. Little-owl.
68. Pretty-horse.
69. Running-eagle.
70. Makes-enemy.
71. Prairie-chicken.
72. Red-flute-woman.
73. Little-hawk.
74. Standing-buffalo.
75. Standing-bear.
76. Iron-white-man.
77. Bear-whirlwind.
78. Sacred-crow.
79. Blue-hawk.
80. Hard-to-kill.
81. Iron-boy.
82. Painted-rock.
83. Yellow-wolf.
84. Made-an-enemy.

The information yet obtained from the author of the pictograph
concerning its details is meager, and as it will probably be procured
no unimportant conjectures are now hazarded. It is presented for the
ideography shown, which may in most cases be understood from the
translation of the several names into English as given in the preceding
list. A few remarks of explanation, occurring to the writer, may be
added:

No. 34, on plate LIV, with the translation Red-earth-woman, appears
from the scalp-lock and the warrior’s necklace to be a man, and
Red-earth-woman to be his name.

No. 62 on Plate LVII, probably refers to an Ogalala who was called
Arapaho, the interpretation, as well as the blue cloud, being in the
Dakota language “Blue cloud,” a term by which the Arapaho Indians are
known to the Dakotas, as several times mentioned in this paper. In
No. 65, Plate LVII, the cloud is drawn in blue, the _searching_ being
derived from the expression of that idea in gesture by passing the
extended index of one hand (or both) forward from the eye, then from
right to left, as if indicating various uncertain localities before the
person, _i. e._, searching for something. The lines from the eyes are
in imitation of this gesture.

In No. 77, Plate LVIII, is a reproduction of the character given in
Red-Cloud’s Census, No. 133. See Plate LXVII. The figure appears,
according to the explanation given by several Ogalala Dakota Indians,
to signify the course of a whirlwind, with the transverse lines in
imitation of the circular movement of the air, dirt, leaves, etc.,
observed during such aërial disturbances.

In No. 78 of the same plate the lines above the bird’s head again
appear to signify _sacred_, _mystic_, usually termed “medicine” in
other records. Similar lines are in No. 64, Plate LVII.

RED-CLOUD’S CENSUS.

The pictorial census, shown in Plates LIX to LXXIX, was prepared under
the direction of Red-Cloud, chief of the Dakota at Pine Ridge Agency,
Dakota Territory, about two years ago. The individuals referred to
and enumerated are the adherents of Red-Cloud, and do not represent
all the Indians at that Agency. Owing to some disagreement the agent
refused to acknowledge that chief as head of the Indians at the agency,
and named another as the official chief. The Indians under Red-Cloud
exhibited their allegiance to him by attaching, or having their names
attached, to seven sheets of ordinary manilla paper, which were sent to
Washington and, while in the custody of Dr. T. A. Bland, of that city,
were kindly loaned by him to the Bureau of Ethnology to be copied by
photography. The different sheets were apparently drawn by different
persons, as the drawings of human heads vary enough to indicate
individuality.

[Illustration:

BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. LIX