94 PICTOGRAPHS OP THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 



The agency was specially for the Two Kettles, Sans Arcs, and Min- 

 neconjous. A Miuneconjou chief, The-Swau, elsewhere called The-Lit- 

 tle-Swan, kept this record on the dressed skin of an antelope or deer, 

 claiming that it had been preserved in his family for seventy years. 

 The title of the written interpetation of this chart was called the His- 

 tory of the Miuneconjou Dakotas, its true use not being then under- 

 stood. In return for favors, Dr. West obtained permission to have some 

 copies made on common domestic cotton cloth and employed an Indian 

 expert of the Two Kettle band to do the work in fac-simile. From oue 

 of these he had a photograph taken on a small plate, and then enlat ged 

 in printing to about two thirds of the original size and traced and 

 touched up in India ink and red paint to match the original, wbich 

 was executed in some black pigment and ruddle. 



The characters are arranged in a spiral similar to those in Lone-Dog's 

 chart, but more oblong in form. The course of the spiral is from left 

 to right, not from right to left. The interpretation of this chart was 

 made at Cheyenne Agency in 18C8 for Dr. Washington West by Jean 

 Premeau, interpreter at that agency. 



A useful note is given in connection with the interpretation, that in 

 it all the names are names given by the Minueconjous, and not the 

 names the parties bear themselves, e. g., in the interpretation for the 

 year 1829-'30, (see Plate XVIII, and page 114,) Bad Arrow Indian is a 

 translation of the Dakota name for a band of Blackfeet. The owner 

 and explainer of this copy of the chart was a Miuneconjou, and there- 

 fore his rendering of names might differ from that of another person 

 equally familiar with the chart. 



3. Another chart examined was kindly loaned to the writer by Brevet 

 Maj. Joseph Bush, captain Tweuty-secoud United States Infantry. It 

 was procured by him in 1870 at the Cheyenne Agency, from James C. 

 Bobb, formerly Indian trader, and afterwards post trader. This copy 

 is one yard by three-fourths of a yard, spiral, beginning in the center 

 from right to left. The figures are substantially the same size as those 

 in Lone-Dog's chart, with which it coincides in time, except that it ends 

 at 1869-70. The interpretation differs from that accompanying the 

 latter in a few particulars. 



4. The chart of Mato Sapa, Black-Bear. He was a Minneconjou 

 warrior, residing in 1808 and 1869 on the Cheyenne Agency Reserva- 

 tion, on the Missouri River, near Fort Sully, Dakota, near the mouth of 

 the Cheyenne River. In order to please Lieut. O. D. Ladley, Tweuty- 

 secoud United States Infantry, who was in charge of the reservation, 

 he drew or copied on a piece of cotton cloth what he called, through the 

 interpreter, the History of the Minueconjous, and also gave through 

 the same interpreter the key or translation to the figures. Lieutenant 

 Ladley loaned them to an ex-army friend in Washington, who brought 

 them to the notice of the present writer. 



