Part 14
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.