The man who first told the people of the appearance of the woman is represented both inside and outside the circle. He was thirty years old at the time, and said that she came as narrated above, in July of the year of his birth. Outside of the circle, he is standing with a pipe in his hand; inside, he is squatting, and has his hands in the position for the gesture-sign for pipe. The elm tree and yucca, or Spanish bayonet, both shown above the tipis, indicate that in those days the Dakota obtained fire by rapidly revolving the end of a dry stalk of the yucca in a hole made in a rotten root of the elm. The people used the bow and stone-pointed arrows, which are shown on the right. From time immemorial they have kept large numbers of sticks, shown by the side of the pipe, each one about as thick and as long as a lead-pencil (sic), for the purpose of counting and keeping record of numbers, and they cut notches in larger sticks for the same purpose.
(Note by Dr. Corbusier.—They commonly resort to their fingers in counting, and the V of the Roman system of notation is seen in the outline of the thumb and index, when one hand is held up to express five, and the X in the crossed thumbs, when both hands are held up together to express ten.)
The bundle of these sticks drawn in connection with the ceremonial pipe suggests the idea of an official recorder.
Pl. XXI B, 931-1000. From the time the man represented in Pl. XXI A was seventy years of age, i. e., from the year 931, time is counted by cycles of seventy years until 1700. This figure illustrates the manner of killing buffalo before and after the appearance of The-Woman. When the Dakotas had found the buffalo, they moved to the herd and corralled it by spreading their camps around it. The Man-Who-Dreamed-of-a-Wolf, seen at the upper part of the circle, with bow and arrow in hand, then shot the chief bull of the herd with his medicine or sacred arrow; at this, the women all cried out with joy, “He has killed the chief bull!” On hearing them shout the man with bow and arrow on the opposite side, The-Man-Who-Dreamed-of-the-Thunder-and-received-an-arrow-from-the-Thunder-Bird (wakinyan, accurately translated “the flying one”) shot a buffalo cow, and the women again shouted with joy. Then all the men began to shout, and they killed as many as they wished. The buffalo heads and the blood-stained tracks show what large numbers were killed. They cut off the head of the chief bull, and laid the pipe beside it until their work was done. They prayed to The-Woman to bless and help them as they were following her teachings. Having no iron or knives, they used sharp stones, and mussel shells, to skin and cut up the buffalo. They rubbed blood in the hides to soften and tan them. They had no horses, and had to pack everything on their own backs.
The cyclic characters that embrace the period from 1001 to 1140 illustrate nothing of interest not before presented. Slight distinction appears in the circles so that they can be identified, but without enough significance to merit reproduction.
BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY TENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXII
BATTISTE GOOD’S CYCLES.
A 1141-1210. B 1211-1280.
Pl. XXII A, 1141-1210. Among a herd of buffalo, surrounded at one time during this period, were some horses. The people all cried out, “there are big dogs with them,” having never seen horses before, hence the name for horse, sunka (dog) tanka (big), or sunka (dog) wakan (wonderful or mysterious). After killing all the buffalo they said “let us try and catch the big dogs;” so they cut a thong out of a hide with a sharp stone and with it caught eight, breaking the leg of one of them. All these years they used sharpened deer horn for awls, bone for needles, and made their lodges without the help of iron tools. [All other Dakota traditions yet reported in regard to the first capture of horses, place this important event at a much later period and long after horses were brought to America by the Spaniards. See this count for the year 1802-’03, and also Lone-Dog’s Winter Count for the same year.]