Fig. 193, 1810-’11.--Black-Stone made medicine. The expression medicine is too common to be successfully eliminated, though it is altogether misleading. 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. Their incantations are not only to drive away disease, but for many other purposes, such as to obtain success in war, avert calamity, and were very frequently used 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 the head of an albino buffalo, 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. Also see infra, Chap. XIV. The device in the chart is the man figure, with the head of an albino buffalo held over his own. [Illustration: FIG. 194.] Fig. 194, 1811-’12.--The Dakota 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 are too minute in this device for decision of objects represented; 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 Dakota are denoted by drawing a hand across the throat, signifying that they cut the throats of their enemies. The Dakota 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 round 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 removed all symbolic character, leaving the circle simply as the rude drawing of a dirt lodge to which the Gros Ventres were driven. The present writer, by no means devoted to symbolism, had supposed a legitimate symbol to be indicated, which supposition further information on the subject showed to be incorrect. [Illustration: FIG. 195.]