It is not within the scope of the present work to examine the several systems of chronology of the American Indians, but only those pictorially exhibited. The Mexican system, much more scientific and more elaborate than that employed by the northern tribes, resembled it in the graphic record or detail of exhibit, and is highly interesting as compared with the Dakota Winter Counts. Although the principle of designating the years was wholly different, the mode of that designation was often similar, as is shown by collating the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Telleriano Remensis with the Winter Counts of Lone Dog and Battiste Good, infra. It is also desirable to note the remarks of Prof. Brinton (e) with regard to the Chilan Balam. At the close of each of the Maya larger divisions of time (the so-called “Katum”), a “chilan” or inspired diviner uttered a prediction of the character of the year or epoch which was about to begin. This prophetic designation of the year was like a Zadkiel’s almanac, while the Dakotan method was a selection of the most important events of the past.
SECTION 1.
TIME.
Dr. William H. Corbusier, surgeon, U. S. Army, gives the following information:
Fig. 182.—Device denoting succession of time. Dakota.
The Dakotas make use of the circle as the symbol of a cycle of time; a small one for a year and a large one for a longer period of time, as a life time, one old man. Also a round of lodges or a cycle of seventy years, as in Battiste Good’s Winter Count. The continuance of time is sometimes indicated by a line extending in a direction from right to left across the page when on paper, and the annual circles are suspended from the line at regular intervals by short lines, as in Fig. 182, upper character, and the ideograph for the year is placed beneath each one. At other times the line is not continuous, but is interrupted at regular intervals by the yearly circle, as in the lower character of Fig. 182.
Under other headings in this paper are presented graphic expressions for divisions of time—month, day, night, morning, noon, and evening. See, for some of them, Chap. XX, Sec. [2].
SECTION 2.
WINTER COUNTS.
In the preliminary paper on “Pictographs of the North American Indians,” published in the Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 58 pages of text and 46 full-page plates were devoted to the winter counts of the Dakota Indians. The minute detail of explanation, the systematic comparison, and the synoptic presentation which seemed to be necessary need not now be repeated to establish the genuine character of the invention. This consisted in the use of events, which were in some degree historical, to form a system of chronology. The record of the events was only the device by which was accomplished the continuous designation of years, in the form of charts corresponding in part with the orderly arrangement of divisions of time termed calendars. It was first made public by the present writer in a paper entitled “A Calendar of the Dakota Nation,” which was issued in April, 1877, in Bulletin III, No. I, of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey. The title is now changed to that adopted by the Dakotas themselves, viz, Winter Counts—in the original, wan'iyetu wo'wapi.