Fig. 1059.
Fig. 1059.—Steals-Horses. Red-Cloud’s Census. In this figure the horse tracks themselves are more rude and conventionalized.
The Prince of Wied mentions, op. cit., p. 104, that in the Sac and Fox tribes the rattle of a rattlesnake attached to the end of the feather worn on the head signifies a good horse stealer. The stealthy approach of the serpent, accompanied with latent power, is here clearly indicated.
Fig. 1060.
Fig. 1060.—Making-the-Hole stole many horses from a Crow tipi. Such is the translation in Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1849-’50. The man is cutting the hole with a knife. Through the orifice thus made he obtains access to the horse. But it is more probable that the single tipi represents a village into which the horse-thief effected an entrance and ran off the horses belonging to it.
KILL AND DEATH.
Fig. 1061.
Fig. 1061.—Male-Crow, an Oglala, was killed by the Shoshoni. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1844-’45. The bow in contact with the head of the victim is frequently the conventional sign for “killed by an arrow.” This is not drawn in the Winter Counts on the same principle as the touching with a lance or coup stick, elsewhere mentioned in this paper, but is generally intended to mean killed, and to specify the manner of killing, though in fact before the use of firearms the “coup” was often counted by striking with a bow.