Some tribes have a system of enumerating the members of it and keeping a kind of clan roll. Chief Big Road, a Dakota, was one day brought to the agency and required to give an account of his followers. He submitted a roster, made on common foolscap paper with black and coloured pencils. The names, represented by pictures, were Big Bear, Bear-looking-behind, Brings-back-Plenty, White Buffalo, and so on. This is also an example of the ideographic. Red Cloud had a similar census of his warriors. It was prepared under his supervision at the Pine Ridge Agency. Owing to some disagreement, the agent had refused to recognise Red Cloud’s leadership and named another man as chief. Thereupon the adherents of Red Cloud prepared this document, and sent it to Washington to establish his claim. The names pictorially represented are Shield-Bear, Sees-the-Enemy, Biting-Bear, Cut-through, Red Owl, etc. [Illustration: SPECIMENS OF THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS Dates determined by counting back from great events The left: 1788–89. Very severe winter. Crows were frozen to death. “Many-crows-died-winter” Middle: 1789–90. Two Mandans killed by the Minneconjous Right: 1790–91. “All-the-Indians-see-the-flag-winter” ] In this same line are the Dakota winter counts collected by Dr. Corbusier. The years are counted by winters, as the winter among the Dakotas makes the deepest impression. These records have been kept for many years and are used in computing time and to aid the memory in recalling names and events of different years. The enumeration is begun at the winter last recorded and carried backward. There are at least five of these counts kept among the Oglalas and Brules by different men.[55] From the manuscript drawing-book of an Amerind prisoner at St. Augustine we have a “conversation” about the lassooing, shooting, and final killing of a bison which had wandered into camp. “The dotted lines indicate footprints. The Indian drawn under the animal having secured it by the forefeet, so informs his companions, as indicated by the line drawn from his mouth to the object mentioned. The left-hand figure, having secured the buffalo by the horns, gives his nearest comrade an opportunity to strike it with an axe, which he no doubt announces that he will do, as the line from his mouth to the head of the animal indicates. The Indian in the upper left-hand corner is told by a squaw to take an arrow and join his companions, when he turns his head to inform her that he has one already, which fact he demonstrates by holding up the weapon.”[56] [Illustration: KILLING A BISON]