CPEHVASP DY HR) EX. 
CHRONOLOGY. 
It is not within the scope of the present work to examine the several 
systems of chronology of the American Indians, but only those pic- 
torially exhibited. The Mexican system, much more scientific and 
more elaborate than that employed by the northern tribes, resembled 
it in the graphic record or detail of exhibit, and is highly interesting 
as compared with the Dakota Winter Counts. Although the principle 
of designating the years was wholly different, the mode of that desig- 
nation was often similar, as is shown by collating the Codex Vaticanus 
and the Codex Telleriano Remensis with the Winter Counts of Lone 
Dog and Battiste Good, infra. It is also desirable to note the remarks 
of Prof. Brinton (e) with regard to the Chilan Balam. At the close 
of each of the Maya larger divisions of time (the so-called “ Katum”), a 
“¢hilan” or inspired diviner uttered a prediction of the character of 
the year or epoch which was about to begin. This prophetic designa- 
tion of the year was like a Zadkiel’s almanac, while the Dakotan method 
was a selection of the most important events of the past. 
SECTION 1. 
TIME. 
Dr. William H. Corbusier, surgeon, U. S. Army, gives the following 
information : 
The Dakotas make use of the circle as the symbol of a cycle of time; a small one 
for a year and a large one for a longer period of time, as a life time, one old man. 
Fig. 182.—Device denoting succession of time. Dakota. 
Also a round of lodges or a cycle of seventy years, as in Battiste Good’s Winter 
Count. The continuance of time is sometimes indicated by a line extending in a di- 
rection from right to left across the page when on paper, and the annual circles are 
suspended from the line at regular intervals by short lines, as in Fig. 182, upper 
character, and the ideograph for the year is placed beneath each one. At other times 
the line is not continuous, but is interrupted at regular intervals by the yearly cir- 
ele, as in the lower character of Fig. 182. 
Under other headings in this paper are presented graphic expres- 
sions for divisions of time—mouth, day, night, morning, noon, and 
evening. See, for some of them, Chap. xx, Sec. 2. 
265 
