Copies of the paper publishing and explaining Lone-Dog’s record were widely circulated by the present writer among Army officers, Indian agents, missionaries, and other persons favorably situated, in hopes of obtaining other examples and further information. The result was a gratifying verification of all the important statements and suggestions in the publication, with the correction of some errors of detail and the supply of much additional material. The following copies of the chart, substantially the same as that of Lone-Dog, are now, or have been, in the possession of the present writer:
1. A chart made and kept by Bo-í-de, The-Flame (otherwise translated The-Blaze), who, in 1877, lived at Peoria Bottom, 18 miles south of Fort Sully, Dakota. He was a Dakota and had generally dwelt with the Sans Arcs, though it was reported that he was by birth one of the Two Kettles. The interpretation was obtained (it is understood originally at the instance of Lieutenant Maus, First United States Infantry) directly from The-Flame by Alex. Laravey, official interpreter at Fort Sully, in the month of April, 1877.
The fac-simile copy in the writer’s possession, also made by Lieutenant Reed, is on a cotton cloth about a yard square and in black and red—thus far similar to his copy of Lone-Dog’s chart, but the arrangement is wholly different. The character for the first year mentioned appears in the lower left-hand corner, and the record proceeds toward the right to the extremity of the cloth, then crossing toward the left and again toward the right at the edge of the cloth—and so throughout in the style called boustrophedon; and ending in the upper left-hand corner. The general effect is that of seven straight lines of figures, but those lines are distinctly connected at their extremities with others above and below, so that the continuous figure is serpentine. It thus answers the same purpose of orderly arrangement, allowing constant additions, like the more circular spiral of Lone-Dog. This record is for the years 1786-’7 to 1876-’7, thus commencing earlier and ending later than that of Lone-Dog.
2. The-Swan’s chart was kindly furnished to the writer by Dr. Charles Rau, of the Smithsonian Institution. It was sent to him in 1872 by Dr. John R. Patrick, of Belleville, Saint Clair County, Illinois, who received it from Dr. Washington West, of Belleville, Illinois, who became an acting assistant surgeon, U. S. Army, November 2, 1868, and was assigned to duty at Cheyenne Agency, Dakota, established by General Harney, as one of a number of agencies to become useful as rendezvous for Dakotas to keep them from disturbing the line of the Union Pacific Railroad. He remained there from November, 1868, to May, 1870. The agency was specially for the Two Kettles, Sans Arcs, and Minneconjous. A Minneconjou chief, The-Swan, elsewhere called The-Little-Swan, kept this record on the dressed skin of an antelope or deer, claiming that it had been preserved in his family for seventy years. The title of the written interpretation of this chart was called the History of the Minneconjou Dakotas, its true use not being then understood. In return for favors, Dr. West obtained permission to have some copies made on common domestic cotton cloth and employed an Indian expert of the Two Kettle band to do the work in fac-simile. From one of these he had a photograph taken on a small plate, and then enlarged in printing to about two-thirds of the original size and traced and touched up in India ink and red paint to match the original, which was executed in some black pigment and ruddle.
The characters are arranged in a spiral similar to those in Lone-Dog’s chart, but more oblong in form. The course of the spiral is from left to right, not from right to left. The interpretation of this chart was made at Cheyenne Agency in 1868 for Dr. Washington West by Jean Premeau, interpreter at that agency.
A useful note is given in connection with the interpretation, that in it all the names are names given by the Minneconjous, and not the names the parties bear themselves, e. g., in the interpretation for the year 1829-’30, (see Plate XVIII, and page [114],) Bad Arrow Indian is a translation of the Dakota name for a band of Blackfeet. The owner and explainer of this copy of the chart was a Minneconjou, and therefore his rendering of names might differ from that of another person equally familiar with the chart.
3. Another chart examined was kindly loaned to the writer by Brevet Maj. Joseph Bush, captain Twenty-second United States Infantry. It was procured by him in 1870 at the Cheyenne Agency, from James C. Robb, formerly Indian trader, and afterwards post trader. This copy is one yard by three-fourths of a yard, spiral, beginning in the center from right to left. The figures are substantially the same size as those in Lone-Dog’s chart, with which it coincides in time, except that it ends at 1869-’70. The interpretation differs from that accompanying the latter in a few particulars.
4. The chart of Mato Sapa, Black-Bear. He was a Minneconjou warrior, residing in 1868 and 1869 on the Cheyenne Agency Reservation, on the Missouri River, near Fort Sully, Dakota, near the mouth of the Cheyenne River. In order to please Lieut. O. D. Ladley, Twenty-second United States Infantry, who was in charge of the reservation, he drew or copied on a piece of cotton cloth what he called, through the interpreter, the History of the Minneconjous, and also gave through the same interpreter the key or translation to the figures. Lieutenant Ladley loaned them to an ex-army friend in Washington, who brought them to the notice of the present writer.
This copy is on a smaller scale than that of Lone-Dog, being a flat and elongated spiral, 2 feet 6 inches by 1 foot 6 inches. The spiral reads from right to left. This chart, which begins as does that of Lone-Dog, ends with the years 1868-’69.