MALLERY ON THE DAKOTA CALENDAR. 23 



Fig. 71, 1870. — The Uncapapas had a battle with the Crows, the for- 

 mer losing, it is said, 14, and killing 29 out of 30 of the latter, though 

 nothing appears to show those numbers. The central object in the 

 symbol is not a circle denoting multitude, but an irregularly-rounded 

 object, clearly intended for one of the wooden iuclosures, or forts, fre- 

 quently erected by the Indians, and especially the Crows. The Crow 

 fort is shown as nearly surrounded, and bullets, not arrows or lances, 

 are flying. This is the first instance in which any combat or killing is 

 portrayed where guns explicitly appear to be used, though nothing in 

 the chart is at variance with the fact that the Dakotas had for a num- 

 ber of years been familiar with fire-arms. The most recent indications 

 of any weapon were those of the arrows piercing the Crow squaw in 

 1857 and Brave Bear in 1854, while the last one before them was the 

 lance used in 1848, and those arms might have well been employed in 

 all the cases selected for the calendar, although rifles and muskets were 

 common. There is also an obvious practical difficulty in picturing by a 

 single character killing with a bullet, not arising as to arrows, lances, 

 dirks, and hatchets, all of which can be and are in the chart shown pro- 

 jecting from the wounds made by them. It is, however, to be noted 

 that the bloody wound on the Eee's shoulder (Fig. 7) is without any 

 protruding weapon, as if made by a bullet. 



Here ends the copy in Clement's possession, but it was clearly under- 

 stood by all the Indians examined that Lone Dog was engaged in con- 

 tinuing the series, though none of them had seen him or his work since 

 1871. The year 1876 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 Eachel, 

 weep, and will not be comforted, because they are not. 



Measures have been taken to obtain, when the condition of the Sioux 

 country shall allow, a perfect copy of the chart in its latest form, further 

 general information regarding it, and a correction of several parts of the 

 present explanation, confessed to be unsatisfactory. 



In conclusion, it is submitted that the production is shown to be not 

 narrative in design, the noting of events being wholly subordinated to 

 the marking of years by them ; and the symbolized serial arrangement 

 of sometimes trivial, though always notorious incidents, being with 

 special adaptation to use as a calendar. If it had been a complete na- 

 tional history for the seventy-one years, its discovery would have been 

 far more valuable ; but it is the more curious and unique, because it is 

 only an attempt, before unsuspected among the nomadic tribes of Amer- 

 ican Indians, to form a system of chronology. We may adopt regarding 

 it Pope's remark about the objects found in amber: — 



" Tlie tilings, we kno\r. are neither rich nor rare, 

 But -(vouder ho-sv the ilevil they got there'' — 



*. c, among the generally-despised Sioux. 



