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.