How do different cultures record their histories? For hundreds of years, many Plains Indian tribes created pictorial calendars called winter counts. Every year, a keeper of the history drew an image on an animal hide to record the most important event that had taken place from one winter to the next.
Often, the oldest recorded event was placed in the middle of the hide, with the drawings representing the events of the following years spiraling out in a circle. The counts served as an information-rich documentation of each tribe’s history as well as a piece of art.
Donovin Sprague is a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe and teaches history, art and government at Sheridan College. On April 11 at 6 p.m., he’ll give a lecture on winter counts as part of the school’s Thickman Faculty Lecture series.
“American Indian people didn't have books and so people always say ‘Where's the book that tells if that happened?,’ but what they overlook is these winter counts. They’re like our books,” he said.
Sprague, who’s also Miniconjou Lakota and Cheyenne, has worked at a handful of universities and colleges in the Great Plains region, including Black Hills State University, Iowa State University and Oglala Lakota College. He’s also the author of ten books and has presented at major universities, museums and cultural centers throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe.
Sprague said the oldest winter counts he’s seen date back to the late 1600s, but the vast majority of them stop in the early 1900s. He said that timeline is no coincidence.
“That's when the reservations were established. People came in and they confiscated these [winter counts], they took them away,” he said.
Many winter counts ended up in museums, where they were often thought to be just and not also a culturally-rich historical resource. Sprague said this colonial act of cutting communities off from referring to and writing their own history had very negative impacts on people’s sense of identity.
“Alcohol became rampant at that time. Men turned to alcohol, because there was no more warrior, no more hunting and no more history, no more winner count. You take that away from people and that it's really damaging, you know?,” he said.
Sprague’s presentation at Sheridan College will include information about a previously undocumented winter count, recorded by his great-great-grandfather Chief Hump. The count spans about eighty years and ends in 1876.
“This really has a personal connection, because it's in the family. I mean, the story is being told directly from the family and not from a scientist or historian or one of the workers at the Smithsonian,” he said. “I think that's really appropriate.”
Chief Hump fought at the Battle of the Little Bighorn and died in battle with the Shoshone in Western Wyoming. Sprague said that according to oral histories, his great-great-grandfather’s death was connected to a gun that malfunctioned during the fighting. Sprague said his death was recorded in winter counts across the Great Plains.
“In one of the winter counts I found at the Smithsonian, there’s a drawing and it's [Chief Hump]. Then there's this pistol, and instead of holding that upright, it's pointed down and dangling. He's got his arm outstretched and that tells that there's something wrong, that it’s misfired or jammed,” he said.
Sprague will share his interpretation of Chief Hump’s winter count, connecting the dots by using images depicted in other winter counts and connective historical events. The talk is free and open to all.
