Fig. 819.—Killed two Arikara hunters.
Fig. 819.—Killed two Arikara hunters in 1859. Both were shot, as is indicated by the figure of a gun in contact with each Indian. The cluster of lines drawn across the body of each victim represents the discharge of the gun, and shows where the ball took effect. The upper one of the two figures was in the act of shooting an arrow when he was killed.
Fig. 820.—Killed five Arikara.
Fig. 820.—Killed five Arikara in one day in 1863. The dotted line indicates the trail which Running-Antelope followed, and when the Indians discovered that they were pursued, they took shelter in an isolated copse of shrubbery, where they were killed at leisure. The five guns within the inclosure represent the five persons armed.
The Arikara are nearly always delineated in these pictures wearing the topknot of hair, a fashion specially prevalent among the Absaroka, though as the latter were the most inveterate enemies of the Sioux, and as the word Palláni for Arikara is applied to all enemies, the Crow custom may have been depicted as a generic mark.
Wiener (e) gives the following account of the tablet found at Mansiche, reproduced as Fig. 821, one-fifth actual size:
Fig. 821.—Peruvian biography.
It gives all the descriptive elements of the life of the deceased; in fact his biography. He was a chieftain of royal blood (vide the red planache with five double plumes). He commanded an entire tribe. He had a military command (v. the mace which he holds in his right hand). He had taken part in three battles (v. the three arms which three times proved his strength). He was a judge in his district (v. the sign of the speaking-trumpet in the center). He had under him four judges (v. the four signs of the speaking-trumpet in the corners). He had during his administration irrigated the country (v. the designs which surround the painting); and he had constructed great buildings (v. the checkers surrounding the meanders). He had busied himself besides all that in the raising of cattle (v. the indications of llamas). He had lived 42 years (v. the blocks, which indicate years, just as the rings indicate the age of trees). He had had five children, three sons and two daughters (indicated by the little drops of sperm). Such is the life of this person, written by ideography on a tablet, which at first would be taken as a fantasy of an infant painter.