4 BULLETIN UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



Besides these records of the nomadic tribes, the eastern Algonquins 

 used strings of beads, fashioned from shells of different colors, called 

 wampum, to note events, these devices being generally mnemonic only 

 and seldom symbolic. The Pueblos figured histories on tablets of wood, 

 and both the Aztecs* and Toltecs have left elaborate si^ecimens of nar- 

 rative picture-writing; but it is believed that, in the similar productions 

 hitherto discovered of all of these peoples, the obvious intention was 

 either historical or biographical, or, more generally, was to chronicle 

 occurrences as such, and there was not an apparent design to symbolize 

 events selected withont reference to their intrinsic interest or importance, 

 but because they severally occurred within regular successive intervals 

 of time, and to arrange them in an orderly form, specially convenient for 

 use as a calendar, and valuable for no other purpose. 



The copy made by Lieutenant Eeed was traced over a duplicate of the 

 original, which latter was drawn on a buffalo-robe by, and is believed 

 to be still in the jDossession of. Lone Dog, an aged Indian belonging to 

 the Yanktonai tribe of the Dakotas, and who, in the autumn of 1876, 

 was near Fort Peck, Montana Territory. 



The duplicate from which the copy was immediately taken was in the 

 possession of Basil Clement, a half-breed interpreter, living at Little 

 Bend, near Fort Sully, Dak., who professed to have obtained informa- 

 tion concerning the chart and its symbols from personal inquiries of 

 many Indians, and whose dictated translation of them, reduced to writ- 

 ing in his own words, forms the basis of that given in the present paper. 

 The genuineness of the document was verified by separate examination, 

 through another interpreter, of the most intelligent Indians accessible at 

 Fort Eice, and at a considerable distance from Clement, who could have 

 had no recent communication with those so examined. One of the latter, 

 named Good Wood, a Blackfoot Dakota and an enlisted scout attached 

 to the garrison of Fort Eice, immediately recognized the copy now in the 

 possession of the writer as " the same thing that Lone Dog had ", and 

 also stated that he had seen another copy at Standing Eock Agency 

 in the hands of Blue Thunder, a Blackfoot Sioux. He said that it 

 showed " something iDut down for every year about his nation ", knew 

 how to use it as a calendar, beginning from the center and counting 

 from right to left, and was familiar with the meaning of many of the 

 later symbols and the events they commemorated, in which he corrobo- 

 rated Clement's translation, but explained that he had forgotten the 

 interpretation of some of the earlier signs, which were about things done 

 long before his birth. 



All the investigation that could be made elicited the following account, 

 which, whether accurate or not, the Indians examined certainly believed. 

 Lone Dog has been, ever since his youth, charged with the special duty 

 of deciding upon some event or circumstance which should distinguish 



* The Aztecs used sigus, chiefly sketches of diflerent auimals, to denote the days 

 only, not years. 



