54. Bites killed in a runaway.
55. Running-rabbit dies.
56. White-calf dies.
This calendar is given as a type and not for the value of its contents, though it doubtless has its merits from that point of view. The narrator was somewhat uncertain as to the order of many counts and made frequent use of a set of improvised counting sticks. We asked him why in later years the winter counts were designated chiefly by the deaths of the most prominent men, to which he replied that since his people were confined to the limits of the reservation nothing else happened worth remembering, and further, that the count ended with the death of White-calf because there were now no men living of sufficient worth to be honored with such mention. From the human point of view we agreed with him in that the book should be closed, for the old ways have all but gone. If we were interested in the historical aspect of this account the dates could doubtless be checked by certain specific references as Nos. 11, 22, 43, and 56.
For completeness, we add the winter count of Big-brave, covering a span of sixty-one years, but not giving full representation to the later years. Since reservation days, there is a general tendency among the older men to fix their counts in units of residence at a given spot; i. e., “for five winters, I lived on Two Medicine, then for eight winters on Cut Bank, etc.”:
1. The fall of the year, Gambler went on the warpath and was killed; Piegan spent the winter on the Marias River.
2. In the fall of the year, Big-lake, chief of The-don’t-laugh band died; Piegan wintered on the Marias River which was high and flooded their camps. In the summer, they had a sun dance at Sweet Grass Hills; Bobtail-horse was shot and killed; a woman was also killed.
3. Leaves-big-lodge-camp-marks clubbed a Flathead but did not kill him; in the summer, Piegan killed some Sioux on the Marias.
4. Black-tattoo became crazy; in the spring a man named Goose was killed by Sioux; in the summer, Goose’s father went to war and killed some Crow; some of the Crow escaped by letting themselves down a high cliff with a rope.
5. Still-smoking was killed; the Piegan stole a sorrel race horse from the Flathead. In the summer some Piegan were on the warpath south of the Missouri River. They came to some white settlers and there saw a Sioux Indian whom Last-bull killed with a club. The Sioux had been visiting with the white men.