380 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
ABSAROKA OR CROW. 
Fig. 484.—Dakota and Crow, Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 181920. 
In an engagement between the Dakotas and the Crows both sides 
expended all of their arrows, and then threw dirt at each other. A 
4 Crow is represented on the right, and 
gO =e is distinguished by the manner in 
<z LG a Cy. which the hair is worn. Hidatsa 
/ Y ‘a and Absaroka are represented with 
striped or spotted hair, which denotes 
the red clay they apply to it. 
The custom which prevails among 
these tribes, and is said to have origi- 
yy yj — nated with the Crows, is to wear a 
Hw wig of horse hair attached to the 
occiput, thus resembling the natural 
Tig, 484.— Absaroka. growth, but much increased in length. 
These wigs are made in strands having the thickness of a finger, varying 
from eight to fifteen in number, and held apart and in place by means of 
thin cross strands, thus resembling coarse network. At every inter- 
section of strands of hair and crossties, lumps of pine gum are attached 
to prevent disarrangement and as in itself ornamental, and to these 
lumps dry vermilion clay is applied by the richer classes and red ocher 
or powdered clay by the poorer people. 
Pictures drawn by some of the northern tribes of the Dakota show 
the characteristic and distinctive features for a Crow Indian to be the 
distribution of the red war paint which covers the forehead. 
Fig. 485.—Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 183031. The Crows were 
approaching a village at a time when there was a great deal of snow 
on the ground and intended to surprise it, but, some herders 
discovering them, the Dakotas went out, laid in wait for 
the Crows, surprised them, and killed many. A Crow’s 
head is represented in the figure. 
The Crow is designated not only by the arrangement of 
back hair, before mentioned, but by a topknot of hair ex- 
Me tending upward from the forehead, brushed upward and 
slightly backward. See also the seated figure in the record of Running 
Antelope, in Fig. 820; infra. 
o- 
Fig. 486.—The Dakotas surrounded and killed ten 
Crows. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 185758. 
The hair is somewhat shortened and not intentionally 
foreshortened, which was beyond the artist’s skill. 
Fig. 486.—Absaroka. 
