Fig. 201, taken from the Dakota Calendar, illustrates this gesture. It represents the year in which a Minneconjou chief was stabbed in the shoulder by a Gros Ventre, and afterwards named "Dead Arm" or "Killed Arm." At first the figure was supposed to show the permanent drawing up of the arm by anchylosis, but that would not be likely to be the result of the wound described, and with knowledge of the gesture the meaning is more clear.
Fig. 202, taken from Report upon the Reconnaissance of Northwestern Wyoming, &c., Washington, 1875, p. 207, Fig. 53, found in the Wind River Valley, Wyoming Territory, was interpreted by members of a Shoshoni and Banak delegation to Washington in 1880 as "an Indian killed another." The latter is very roughly delineated in the horizontal figure, but is also represented by the line under the hand of the upright figure, meaning the same individual. At the right is the scalp taken and the two feathers showing the dead warrior's rank. The arm nearest the prostrate foe shows the gesture for killed.
The same gesture appears in Fig. 203, from the same authority and locality. The scalp is here held forth, and the numeral one is designated by the stroke at the bottom.
Fig. 204, from the same locality and authority, was also interpreted by the Shoshoni and Banak. It appears from their description that a Blackfoot had attacked the habitation of some of his own people. The right-hand upper figure represents his horse with the lance suspended from the side. The lower figure illustrates the log house built against a stream. The dots are the prints of the horse's hoofs, while the two lines running outward from the upper inclosure show that two thrusts of the lance were made over the wall of the house, thus killing the occupant and securing two bows and five arrows, as represented in the left-hand group. The right-hand figure of that group shows the hand raised in the attitude of making the gesture for kill.
As the Blackfeet, according to the interpreters, were the only Indians in the locality mentioned who constructed log houses, the drawing becomes additionally interesting, as an attempt appears to have been made to illustrate the crossing of the logs at the corners, the gesture for which (log-house) will be found on page [428].
