mallery.j DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS, 1*70-1877. 127 



No. III. A Crow war party of 30 were surprised and surrounded in tbe 

 Black Hills by the Dakotas and killed. Fourteen of the Dakotas were 

 killed in the engagement. 



1871-72. — No. I. The-Flame's second son killed by Eees. 



lS72- , 73.— No. I. Sans- Arc- John killed by Eees. 



1873-'74. — No. I. Brides kill a number of Pawnees. 



Cloud-Shield says they killed many Pawnees on the Republican River. 



187I-'75. — No. I. A Dakota kills one Ree. 



1875-'7G.— No. I. Council at Spotted Tail Agency. 



1870-77. — No. I. Horses taken by United States Government. 



White Cow-Killer calls it "General-Mackeuzie-took-tke-Red-Cloud- 

 Indiaiis'-horses away-from-them wiuter." 



Iii the account of Lone-Dog's chart, published in 1877, as above men- 

 tioned, the present writer, on the subject of the recorder's selection of 

 events, remarked as follows : 



" The year 1S7G has furnished good store of events for his choice, and 

 it will be interesting to learn whether he has selected as the distin- 

 guishing 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, in- 

 cidents, being with special adaptation for use as a calendar. That in a 

 few instances small personal events, such as the biith 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 em- 

 braced 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 Iu- 

 ilians, to form a system of chronology. 



THE CORBISIER WINTER COUNTS. 



While the present paper was in preparation, a valuable and elaborate 

 communication was received from Dr. William H. Corbusier,, assistant 

 surgeon, United State Army, styled by him the Dakota Winter Counts, 

 which title was adopted for the whole subject-matter, including the 

 charts with their interpretations which had before been known to the 

 present writer, and those from Dr. Corbusier, which furnish a different 



