k. Three single legs of leggings captured.
Figure 137, copied from Schoolcraft, IV, p. 253, Pl. 32, is taken from the shoulder-blade of a buffalo, found on the plains in the Comanche country of Texas. No. 5 is a symbol showing the strife for the buffalo existing between the Indian and white races. The Indian (1), presented on horseback, protected by his ornamented shield and armed with a lance, kills a Spaniard (3), the latter being armed with a gun, after a circuitous chase (6). His companion (4), armed with a lance, shares the same fate.
Fig. 137.—Comanche drawing on shoulder-blade.
Figure 138 is taken from the winter count of Battiste Good for the year 1853-’54.
He calls the year Cross-Bear-died-on-the-hunt winter.
Fig. 138.—Cross-Bear’s death.
The “travail” means, they moved; the buffalo, to hunt buffalo; the bear with mouth open and paw advanced, cross-bear. The involute character frequently repeated in Battiste’s record signifies pain in the stomach and intestines, resulting in death. In this group of characters there is not only the brief story, an obituary notice, but an ideographic mark for a particular kind of death, a noticeable name-totem, and a presentation of the Indian mode of transportation.