mallery.] CORBUSIER WINTER COUNTS, 1815-1825. 137 



White-Cow-Killer says, " Oue-star-niade-a-great-noise winter." 



Battiste Good, alias Wa-po-ctan-qi (Brown-Hat), historian and chief, 

 designated this year as that of his birth. Omaha bullets were whizzing 

 through the village and striking and piercing his mother's lodge as she 

 brought him forth. Red-Cloud also was born. 



1822-'23. — No. I. Dog, an Oglala, stole seventy horses from the 

 Crows. Each of the seven tracks stands for ten horses. A lariat, 

 which serves the purpose of a long whip, and is usually allowed to trail 

 on the ground, is shown in the man's hand. 



No. II. A Bruit 5 , who had left the village the night before, was found 

 dead in the morning outside the village, and the dogs were eating his 

 body. The black spot on the upper part of the thigh shows he was a 

 Brule\ 



White-Cow-Killer says," White-man-peels-tbe-stick-in-his-hand-broke- 

 his-leg winter." 



1823-'24. — No. I. They had an abundance of corn, which they got at 

 the Ree villages. 



No. II. They joined the whites in an expedition up the Missouri River 

 against the Rees. . 



White-Cow-Killer calls it " Old-corn-pleuty winter." For further ex- 

 planation of the record of this year, see page 111. 



1824-'25. — No. I. Cloud-Bear, a Dakota, killed a Dakota, who was a 

 long distance off, by throwing a bullet from his hand and striking him 

 in the heart. The spiral line is again used for wakan. The gesture- 

 sign for wdkan (holy, supernatural) is: With its index-finger extended 

 and pointing upward, or all the fingers extended, back of hand outward, 

 move the right hand from just in front of the forehead spirally upward 

 nearly to arm's length from left to right. [See "Sign Language N. A. 

 Indians," p. 380, by the present writer, in the First Annual Report of the 

 Bureau of Ethnology.] 



No. II. Cat-Owner was killed with a spider-web thrown at him by a 

 Dakota. The spider-web is shown reaching to his heart from the hand 

 of the man who threw it. The blood issuing from his mouth and nose 

 indicates that he bled to death. It is a common belief among them that 

 certain medicine men possess the power of taking life by shooting 

 needles, straws, spider-webs, bullets, and other objects, however distant 

 the person may be against whom they are directed. 



White-Co w-Killer calls it "Killed-the-women-pickingcherries win- 

 ter." 



1825-'26. — No. I. Some of the Dakotas were living on the bottom- 

 lauds of the Missouri River, below the Whetstone, when the river, 

 which was filled with broken ice, unexpectedly rose and flooded their 

 village. Many were drowned or else killed by the floating ice. Many 

 of those that escaped climbed on cakes of ice or into trees. 



No. II. Many of the Dakotas were drowned in a flood caused by a 

 rise of the Missouri River, in a bend of which they were camped. The 



