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 3-256Mallery, Garrick
History
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
Mallery, Garrick
Haida Indians; Picture-writing, Indian; Tattooing
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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