131 century led the migration from the Mississippi Valley, up the Minnesota River to the Coteau des Prairies of eastern North and South Dakota. The Yanktonais were followed by various inchoate bands of the Teton Lakota. One of these, which later, after a prairie fi re, acquired the name Sicangu (“Burned Thighs”), or the better-known French translation “Brule,” had adopted the winter count tradition by 1700–01 (Mallery, 1893: 293; Curtis, 1908: 161). Certain earlier events were recalled by elderly Brule, and dates for these were calculated by later keepers during the early reservation period (“1687, We fi rst rode horses”). Half a century later than the Brule, when an expatriate Ponca band known as the Wajaje (sometimes Wazaza or Waziahziah) allied themselves to the Teton Lakota, they too began keeping similar records. The earliest Wajaje record, designated the “Rosebud Winter Count,” begins in 1752–53 (Greene & Thornton, 2007: 85). The chronicle considered here (fi g. 2), now in the collection of the Museum of Native American History in Bentonville, Arkansas, is known as the “Wajaje Winter Count” in honor of the people whose history it records. It begins in 1758–59 and was transferred onto a muslin panel about 1870, then added to until its completion in 1885–86, when the keeper ran out of room to add further glyphs (fi g. 3). It is the fourtholdest winter count still in existence. Since the Wajaje were closely allied with the Brule and Oglala, they shared many experiences and often selected the same primary event to symbolize a year, although they separately devised their records. Certain details, however, identify this record as specifi cally Wajaje. In 1876, following the Battle of Little Bighorn, the U.S. Army confi scated all of the horses belonging to the Oglala band of Chief Red Cloud and those of the Wajaje band of Chief Red Leaf (fi g. 5) at the Red Cloud Agency. No other Lakota lost their horses in that year. The largest glyph on this winter count marks the traumatic loss of their horses in 1876 (fi g. 4). Since it is clear throughout that this cannot be an Oglala record, by elimination it must be Wajaje. This is confi rmed by the names of many known Wajaje families that appear throughout the record. Of the 127 glyphs that appear on the Wajaje Winter Count, a great many can be accurately understood by cross-referencing with known, historic events, other winter counts, and by interpreting the individual images, the iconography of which is often quite clear. For example, the glyph for 1833, an upward view of the encircling horizon, and the fi rmament fi lled with fall- Right, top to bottom FIG. 8: Glyph for the year 1835–36—Wizi Was Gored During the Hunt. Here, a bull buffalo, bleeding from a bullet wound, has gored a man through his abdomen, doubtless a fatal injury. As his life ebbs, the hunter stabs his killer. The man’s name glyph accentuates the smoke-darkened leather at the top of an old tipi. The Lakota word for this type of soft, waterproof leather is wizi, meaning golden-brown (Buechel, 1970: 593). When a tipi wore out, the wizi was always carefully saved and recycled to make waterproof moccasins, hunting leggings, etc. A prominent Lower Yanktonai chief in the 1880s is known to have been named Wizi. At that time he lived on Crow Creek Reservation on the other side of the Missouri River from the Lower Brule Reservation. In the 1830s, the Brule and Yanktonais were allied, often camping and hunting together. The known Wizi was born in 1833. It is possible the man killed two years after his birth was his father and that the name was passed on to the son. A similar glyph appears on the Rosebud Winter Count (Green & Thornton, 2007: 199). FIG. 9: Glyph for the year 1819–20—Standing Elk (Hehaka Najin) Was Killed During the Hunt. A man with the name glyph of a bull elk is shown being tossed onto the horns of a bull buffalo. Commentaries from some of the Rosebud winter counts specify his name as Hehaka Najin, or Standing Elk (Sundstrom, 2006; Buechel, 1970: 171 & 346). This is an example of one of the fi gures on which the black watercolor has been darkened by the addition of charcoal. The irregular lines from a charred stick are clearly discerned on top of the black underpainting. FIG. 10: Glyph for the year 1779–80—Red Otter (Ptan Luta) Was Killed. This name glyph is rendered in a particularly elegant manner, the more so considering the tiny scale. The Lakota name is ptan (otter) luta (red), (Buechel, 1970: 447 & 326). The fatal bullet wound is shown in the upper chest. Wajaje Winter Count
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