Page 134

•TribalPaginaIntera.indd

OBJECT history ing stars, denotes the massive Leonid meteor storm of November 12, 1833, when 10,000 meteors per hour were seen across North America and Europe (fi gs. 6 and 7). In terms of its artistic quality, the Wajaje Winter Count is certainly one of the fi nest surviving examples. Its creator’s use of color is unsurpassed. Most winter counts were drawn only in black or in black and red. Here may be seen a remarkable spectrum of colors, evidence of an acute understanding of how to mix and blend pigments. The menagerie of animals and birds depicted constitutes a zoology of the Plains biosphere, from the tiniest ant, to the largest buffalo bull (fi gs. 8 and 9). Many of these are remarkably small fi gures, tiny jewels depicted with great delicacy and subtle shading (fi gs. 10 and 11). The Wajaje Winter Count provides a wealth of new information about the early history of the Southern Teton Lakota tribes, beginning in the mid eighteenth century, nearly fi fty years before the appearance of Lewis and Clark. It gives a close, specifi c date for the beginning of the Lakota departure from the Minnesota borderlands in the 1750s. The winter count also clarifi es that it was the Wajaje, not the Oglala, who actually led the exploration that brought the Lakota to the Black Hills in 1773–74 (fi g. 12). It was the Wajaje with whom Pierre Antoine Tabeau traded on the Missouri in present Charles Mix County, South Dakota, during the winter of 1794–95, establishing the fi rst trading post in that state (fi g. 13). It was the Wajaje who were camped opposite Cedar Island, near present Chamberlain, South Dakota, on the night in 1809 when the post of “Little Beaver,” their name for the French trader Regis Loisel, was blown into the sky by the accidental explosion of its gunpowder magazine (fi g. 14). In terms of North American history, the winter count records of the Yanktonais and Lakota are invaluable gifts because they chronicle the memories of the only eyewitnesses to events in the vast country between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains prior to the arrival of Euro-Americans, shortly before 1800. Historians, climatologists, epidemiologists, demographers, 132 and astronomers may all explore these unique documents for information that is available in no other form. In addition to its striking aesthetics and great age, the Wajaje Winter Count gives us new “eyes on the ground” during the least-known period of Lakota history. FIG. 11 (right): Glyph for the year 1782–83—Yellow Hawk (Cetan Zi) Was Killed. The bird in the name glyph is shortwinged with a striped tail and lightcolored under parts. Such details indicate that it is almost certainly a light-phase sharp-shinned hawk (Accipiter striatus). “Yellow Hawk” would be an anecdotal and perhaps a personal designation. The Lakota generic name for the sharp-shin is cetan gleglega, or “speckled hawk” (Buechel, 1970: 130), a reference to the body feathers. FIG. 12 (above): Glyph for the year 1773–74—The Wajaje Discover the Black Hills. It was long thought that the Oglala were the Lakota group that led the movement up White River to gain southern access to the Black Hills because a similar glyph begins the American Horse Winter Count in 1775–76. There, an Oglala named Standing Bull is credited with being the fi rst of his tribe to reach the Black Hills, returning with a new type of tree never seen before (Corbusier, 1886: 130). Here, it is documented that Standing Bull was actually a latecomer, reacting to news of the Wajaje discovery two years earlier. The tree depicted is the lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta, latifolia), which has a trunk that is tall, thin, straight, lightweight, and strong, the perfect framework for supporting the cover of a tipi. Importantly, the lodgepole pine is about twice as tall as any of the species further east. Formerly, the tipis in which the Lakota had lived were quite small, low, and cramped. Especially in winter—which can last more than half the year on the Northern Plains—family life could be diffi cult in a tiny space often fi lled with smoke. The lodgepole pine revolutionized the lives of the Lakota peoples, allowing them to double their living space and improve their general health and lifespan by raising the smoke level above the height of a standing adult. By 1800, the average Lakota tipi was eighteen feet in diameter, with a similar height. The tanned skins of about eighteen buffalo were required to make the cover. Even larger tipis were created for council lodges. The psychological effect of this cannot be oversated and is the reason the discovery of a tree in the 1770s was carved into the memory of two tribes. Along with the rich herds of game in the Black Hills, the lodgepole pine is also the reason that the next generation of Lakota men dedicated their lives to driving fi rst the Kiowa and then the Crow from the region.


•TribalPaginaIntera.indd
To see the actual publication please follow the link above