Lakota Winter Count Robes

For thousands of years, Native American tribes would leave records carved and painted on cliffs, rock outcrops, and boulders. These pictographs and petroglyphs recorded visions and history.

According to the Plains Native Americans, there are 3 types are picture art: supernatural, a man's individual accomplishment, and...

Records of the history. 

A BRIEF description of winter count robes. This is a very detailed subject.

Winter counts were used all over the plains, but the best preserved counts were Lakota winter counts. Although there are some Blackfeet and Kiowa counts as well.

Winter Counts or waniyetu wo'wapi (Lakota word) were the way of keeping years of oral traditions documented.

Waniyetu- season or span of 1st snow -1st snow
Wo'wapi- anything that can be marked or can be read

One simple pictograph are selected for each year. They used as mnemonic devices and a guide for the "Symbol Makers" or "Keepers" of the counts. They were responsible for recording the histories and discussing with the elders what event was going to represent the season. Once the symbol maker for each band of 150-300 people was done with his responsibilities, his son or nephew would copy his winter count robe and recite the traditions. The previous robe would be buried with the keeper and the new robe would continue the traditions.

 Garrick Mallery was the first to acquire and research winter counts. 

Once the winter counts were copied and collected, there was a similarity between many of the counts...

 This symbol was present on most of the winter counts. It was compared with western calendars and it was identified as the Leonid Meteor Shower (1833). They could then number the years of each symbol and also relate each count to one another.

Below are images of the first counts acquired. Since, there are have been a few others that have been added.
To find more information on Lakota Winter Counts, visit the online exhibit. http://wintercounts.si.edu/


 All of the images were found in the book, The Year the Stars Fell


Green, Candace S., and Thorton, Russell. (2007). The year the stars fell: Lakota winter counts at the Smithsonian. Smithsonian Institution.