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Show 9 4 PICTOGRAPHS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. The agency was specially for the Two Kettles, Sans Arcs, and Min-neconjous. A Minneconjou chief, The- Swan, elsewhere called The- Lit-tle- Swan, kept this record on the dressed skin of an antelope or deer, claiming that it had been preserved in his family for seventy years. The title of the written interpetation of this chart was called the History of the Minneconjou Dakotas, its true use not being then understood. In return for favors, Dr. West obtained permission to have some copies made on common domestic cotton cloth and employed an Indian expert of the Two Kettle band to do the work in fac- simile. From one of these he had a photograph taken on a small plate, and then enlarged in printing to about two- thirds of the original size and traced and touched up in India ink and red paint to match the original, which was executed in some black pigment and ruddle. The characters are arranged in a spiral similar to those in Lone- Dog's chart, but more. oblong in form. The course of the spiral is from left to right, not from right to left. The interpretation of this chart was made at Cheyenne Agency in 1868 for Dr. Washington West by Jean Premeau, interpreter at that agency. A useful note is given in connection with the interpretation, that in it all the names are names given by the Minneconjons, and not the names the parties bear themselves, e. g., in the interpretation for the year 1829- 730, ( see Plate XVIII, and page 114,) Bad Arrow Indiap is a translation of the Dakota name for a band of Blackfeet. The owner and explainer of this copy of the chart was a Minneconjou, and therefore his rendering of names might differ from that of another person equally familiar with the chart. 3. Another chart examined was kindly loaned to the writer by Brevet Maj. Joseph Bush, captain Twenty- secoud United States Infantry. It was procured by him in 1870 at the Cheyenne Agency, from James 0. Robb, formerly Indian trader, and afterwards post trader. This copy is one yard by three- fourths of a yard, spiral, beginning in the center from right to left. The figures are substantially the same size as those in Lone- Dog's chart, with which it coincides in time, except that it ends at 1869-' 70. The interpretation differs from that accompanying the latter in a few particulars. 4. The chart of Mato Sapa, Black- Bear. He was a Minneconjou warrior, residing in 1868 and 1869 on the Cheyenne Agency Reservation, on the Missouri Biver, near Fort Sully, Dakota, near the mouth of the Cheyenne River. In order to please Lieut. O. D. Ladley, Twenty-second United States Infantry, who was in charge of the reservation, he drew or copied on a piece of cotton cloth what he called, through the interpreter, the History of the Minneconjous, and also gave through the same interpreter the key or translation to the figures. Lieutenant Ladley loaned them to an ex- army friend in Washington, who brought them to the notice of the present writer. |