22 BULLETIN UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SUKVEY. 



"walking". It then became probable that the symbol simply meant that 

 the afore-said chief made buffalo medicine. 



Fig. 62, 1861. — Buffalo were so plenty that their tracks came close to 

 the tepees. The cloven hoof-mark is cleverly distinguished from the 

 tracks of horses in Fig. 50. 



Fig. 63, 1862. — " Eed Feather", a Minneconjou, was killed. His feather 

 is shown entirely red, while the "one feather". Fig. 43, has a black tip. 



Fig. 64, 1863. — Bight Sioux were killed. Again the short parallel 

 black lines united by a long stroke. In this year. Sitting Bull fought 

 General Sully in the Black Hills. 



Fig. 65, 1864. — The Dakotas killed four Crows. Four of the same 

 rounded objects, like severed heads, shown in Fig. 26, but these are 

 bloody, thus distinguishing them from the cases of drowning. 



Fig. 66, 1865. — Many horses died for want of grass. The horse here 

 drawn is sufficiently distinct from all others in the chart. 



Fig. 67, 1866. — " Swan ", father of Swan, now chief of the Minneconjous, 

 died. With the assistance of the name, the object intended for his to- 

 tem, over the head of the gentleman draped in the Spanish blanket, 

 may possibly be recognized as a swan swimming on the water, but it is 

 rather a trial for the imagination. 



Fig. 68, 1867. — The flag represents the power of the United States 

 Government appearing in the visit of the peace commissioners, among 

 whom were Generals Sherman, Terry, and other prominent military 

 and civil officers. Their report appears in the Annual Eeport of the 

 Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1868. They met at Fort Leaven- 

 worth, August 13, 1867, and between August 30 and September 13 held 

 councils with the various bands of the Dakota Indians at Forts Sully 

 and Thompson, and also at the Yankton, Ponca, and Santee Eeserva- 

 tions. These resulted in the Great Sioux treaty of 1868. 



Fig. 69, 1868, — Texas cattle were brought into the country. This was 

 done by Mr. William A. Paxton, a well-known business-man, now resi- 

 dent in the Territory. 



Fig. 70, 1869. — An eclipse of the sun. This was the solar eclipse of 

 j^ugust 7 of that year, which was central and total on a line drawn 

 through the Sioux country. This symbol has been criticised, because 

 the Indians believe an eclipse to be occasioned by a dragon or aerial 

 monster swallowing the sun, and it is contended that they would so rep 

 resent it. An answer is that the design is objectively good, the sun be 

 ing painted black as concealed, while the stars come out red, i. e., bright 

 and graphic illustration prevails throughout the chart where it is possi 

 ble to employ it. In addition, it is learned that Prof. Cleveland Abbe 

 who was famed as an astronomer before he became so as a meteorologist 

 was at Sioux Falls City with a corps of assistants to observe this very 

 eclipse, and exi)lained the subject to a large number of Indians there at 

 that time, so that their attention was not only directed specially to that 

 eclipse, but also to the white men as interested in it, and to its real 

 appearance as ajjart from their old superstition. 



