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
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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