Indian and were handed down from father to son. When worn out and obliterated by use they were renewed. In winter they were often produced before the fire, and the events recounted. Everyone knew them, however, so that anybody could shew when he was born or when his father died, and some also knew the meaning of the pictures. Four copies belonging to the Dakota are known, which go back to 1800, 1786, 1775, and the mythical period, respectively. Every year is denoted by a picture, without distinction between winter and summer. Some of the terms used are:--1794-5, the ‘Long-Hair-killed’ winter; 1817-8, the ‘Chozé-built-a-house-of-dead-logs’ winter; 1818-9, the ‘small-pox-used-them-up-again’ winter; 1821-2, ‘the star (meteor)-passed-by-with-a-loud-noise’ winter; 1825-6, the ‘many-Yanktonais-drowned’ winter (through an inundation); 1833-4, the ‘storm-of-stars’ winter (so called from the abundance of shooting-stars), etc. Four Kiowa calendars are known, one of which is arranged in months, of which it gives 37; two of the others refer to the years 1833-93, one to the years 1864-93. In the first each month is indicated by the crescent of the moon, and above is the picture characteristic of the month. The Kiowa annual calendars are clearer than the Dakota in that they indicate winter by a thick black stroke signifying that the vegetation has died, and summer by the medicine lodge with its figures, which form the central feature of the religious ceremonies of the summer. Above and by the side of these signs are the pictures, giving the principal events of the seasons, so that the reckoning of the year becomes the history of the tribe. The Indians however were also acquainted with simpler modes of reckoning. Among the Nahyssan of S. Carolina time was measured and a rude chronology arranged by means of strings of leather with knots of various colours, like the Peruvian _quipos_[454]. The Dakota use a circle as the symbol of time, a smaller one for a year and a larger one for a longer period: the circles are arranged in rows, thus: ȱȱȱ or o-o-o[455]. The Pima of Arizona make use of a tally. The year-mark is a deep notch across the stick. The records of early years are memorised, and there are a few minor notches to aid in recalling them. The year-notches are alike, yet when a narrator was asked to go back and repeat the story for a certain year he never made a mistake. Taking the stick in his hand, he would rake his thumb-nail across the year-notch and begin:--‘This notch means etc.’[456].