1) Does a winter count provide a unique perspective on intertribal warfare? Can it also be misleading?
15 comments:
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Mark: I think that a winter count does provide a unique perspective on warfare. Winter counts can be very useful in learning about the history of a tribe, who they went to war with, and what years they went to war.
On the major topics, I think that winter counts were probably accurate. For example, huge battles or important battles that can be verified were probably written down in a winter count. However, the smaller details were probably misleading. I am willing to bet that if you were to ask two waring tribes about the same battle, they would have totally different death counts. This is just one example of a small detail about a battle that was probably misleading in a winter count. However, overall, I think that winter counts were probably very accurate in their recordings.
I think that winter counts can provide a very accurate account of the lives of the tribes. They are a very good record of the history of the tribes because they recount the death doll of battles, the kinds of diseases that were spreading at the time, the meteor showers and eclipes that happened, and also the tribes they had made peace with. Since the tribes had very little written history winter counts are great for us to see their lives and history through their drawings.
I think that winter counts can provide a very accurate account of the lives of the tribes. They are a very good record of the history of the tribes because they recount the death doll of battles, the kinds of diseases that were spreading at the time, the meteor showers and eclipes that happened, and also the tribes they had made peace with. Since the tribes had very little written history winter counts are great for us to see their lives and history through their drawings.
In a way it can be misleading because we can not always be sure of what the different symbols mean and how to interrupt all of them. For the most part the symbols are easy to interrupt since we have guides to help us now.
I agree with what most of you have said about the winter counts. I found them to be very interesting, and they seem to prove to be a good tool when learning the history of the tribe. They defiantly prove that the plains people are NOT people without history. They had intricate details that sometimes described generations of a certain peoples. However, the book mentioned how they can be misleading, and are hard to read without being cross-referenced with something else.
I also found it interesting that sometimes it was personal accounts that were recorded on the winter counts not just major battles and events. Again, the winter accounts seem to be a good resource and are probably very accurate, but should be looked at carefully. We can't know what every symbol stood for, or how much of the winter count was based on fact.
Ashley Filberth: I think that the winter counts do give an accurate description of what their lives were like. At this time was not a lot of written history, so these drawings can be very helpful in learning about their people. For example they give information about disease that spread at that time, the amount of deaths at battles, and some of the tribes they were at peace with.
However, just like most of you have said, these counts should be looked at very carefully and may not be completely accurate. They are probably better at giving us a general idea of what happened, instead of accurate details of that time.
Rachel C. Cassie makes a very good point when she uses the word cross-reference. I believe this is the key to gaining a deeper understanding of winter counts and how accurate they can be. When the same event is recognized by different tribes, it was obviously a significant event, for example the meteor showers. When it comes to warfare, I think that the winter counts should be looked at with an open mind. Each tribe will have their own version of what happened. Much of the decoding of the symbols is left up to interpretation. Though there are some guides, there is no way to be sure that these are correct. I would use winter counts to record major details such as who was at war, but other things such as a death count would be hard to verify.
The winter counts do provide a unique perspective of intertribal warfare, however more then just warfare it shows us what was important to the tribe. The winter counts gives us an important insight into the tribe. Winter counts meant that the leaders of the tribe could only pick one single event to mark that year. Therefore, we know that whatever event was picked was agreed upon to be the most important to the tribe. This allows outsiders to know what mattered to the tribes without having to guess from observations. The counts show what is important in the culture of the individual tribes. However, winter counts just like anything done by human should not be taken as the absolute truth or fact. Since individuals had to remember history from several generations before their time, years could have been lost or pasted down incorrectly. In addition, since only tribe leaders and men decided the winter count we only get what was considered important to them and not what was important to an individual member of the tribe. So while winter counts are great insight into the tribe’s cultural values it should not be the only item used to judge important events in tribe history but a starting point
Winter counts definantly provide a unique account of intertribal warfare. These are the closest things to written history that exist for the plains indians. That reason alone makes them unique.
The ammount of information with in the counts that can be interpretted does not necessarily make the counts misleading, but it makes it more difficult to decipher their meaning when there is lack of cross reference to measure them with. Some of the symbols in the example of Lone Dog's count were very straight forward. Others appeared to need explaining for one to comprehend.
It would be really intresting to look at a collection of many different winter counts and their respective interpretations to see if there was any uniform meaning in some of the symbols among the different plains tribes. If anyone has read any of the books in notes at the end of the chapter and has an informed opinion, it would be interesting to hear it.
Winter counts are excellent resources when looking for a particular tribe's perspecive on events. Events such as meteors, diseases and warfare are all widely recorded in winter counts. Other events such as smaller battles may not have been important and as such were not recorded. While events were selectively recorded, tribes did record what was important to them and thus, the winter counts are excellent tools for understanding the priorities and importance of events to certain tribes.
Along with David I would also be excited to see if there were any uniform, standard symbols among or even between tribes. Could the winter counts represent a developing writing system?
I also wonder how long the winter count tradition is. The only dates mentioned in the Chapter are in the 19th century, and I wonder if winter counts existed before contact with Europeans. I wonder if their creators were influenced by hearing about other writing systems, like those of the Europeans or possibly the writing systems that were developed by the Central American Indians.
I think the winter counts give insight into the importance of warfare to the Plains Indians. The fact that they chose symbols representing battles tells us that these events held great importance. The numbers of enemies killed gives us clues to the small scale of battles on the plains. I think winter counts are possibly misleading for a number of reasons. One is that the rational and explanations of why the battles occurred (i.e. to get horses, to acquire new hunting grounds, to gain status and pride). Another is that winter counts (or at least the example given) seem to emphasize the activities of men. I wonder if any winter counts were made by women, and if so, how they would differ.
The winter counts provide a interesting view on what happened during these times such as warfare, disease and other important events in their lives. With every account in history there needs to be a cross-reference in order to make sure that the accounts for history are accurate. It is important to realize that the winter counts only state what was the most important to the tribe so therefore individual accounts were not spoken about in winter counts so the winter counts may not speak for everyone within the tribe. Overrall I believe that the winter counts were accurate for the most part and should be looked at as a credible reference.
Ashley: It is interesting to look at a people who many say where a people without a history before the Europeans, yet were recording what was going on in their lives. Recording what was taking place in their lives on buffalo robes in spirals of years were ways of keeping track of events. I venture to say that they were very accurate of events. They provide a unique perspective on intertribal warfare from the position of the tribes. The only way I see them as misleading is because of their limitations. They can be interpreted in different ways, between the keeper translator, adn ethnologist.
I do believe that a winter count provides an accurate and unique perspective on intertribal warfare. Seeing as how warfare was extremely important to men in the tribes it would be of the utmost importance to them that their deeds be recorded accurately.
The counts can be misleading due to the fact the definitions of some of the symbols seem to be somewhat vague. What I found most interesting is that the year was marked by an event, that Lone Dog with a counsel of elders, believed distinguished the year most appropriately. Which is why I find not marking the defeat of Custer in 1876 somewhat curious.
I believe that winter counts did give us a unique perspective on intertribal warfare because they showed us what events leaders saw as most important to record for each year, but feel that they could be misleading due to the limitations inherantly present under the circumstances (i.e. the inability to record more than one event for a given year). While drawings of events seem to be the easiest way for us to understand the events deemed worthy of documentation, there is certainly room for error in the interpretation--because the drawings could have been interpreted in many ways. Drawings seemed clear in some cases but more ambiguous in others.
Like Zach, I wondered how long winter counts had documented events prior to the 19th century, because earlier vents drawn may have been quite different from those in the 19th century (after cultures had begun drastically changing under the circumstances). It seems that smallpox epidemics were repeatedly chosen as the most important event to depict in certain years; prior to exposure to European diseases and general European influence, I wonder how much the documentation of other (natural) events would tell us about Indian cultures...
Tamera: I think that a winter count provides an important historical document that shows the kind of values that were important to Sioux during the 19th century, such as warfare, death, peace agreements, and meteor showers. It is a historical record that emphasizes key moments within the tribe's lifetime. I believe that it paints an accurate and convincing picture of certain events that happened. Calloway writes that a winter count recorded a single person's life, or was made over two to three generations. It could also be illustrated by one person that received instruction from the elders who remembered the events, or got their knowledge from people who had passed. Because the Sioux had no written language, the pictures are left for interpretation. This may cause it to be misleading. But as one student pointed out in class, winter counts were a way for individuals, or gathered elders, to draw a picture of a single important moment in history. And, those tribal cultures that relied heavily upon memorization through oral tradition deserve some kind of respect for their ability to recall certain events. On a side note: Ask those who has been to war and sustained heavy casualties or succeeded, and some will want to forget, but they cannot.
15 comments:
Mark: I think that a winter count does provide a unique perspective on warfare. Winter counts can be very useful in learning about the history of a tribe, who they went to war with, and what years they went to war.
On the major topics, I think that winter counts were probably accurate. For example, huge battles or important battles that can be verified were probably written down in a winter count. However, the smaller details were probably misleading. I am willing to bet that if you were to ask two waring tribes about the same battle, they would have totally different death counts. This is just one example of a small detail about a battle that was probably misleading in a winter count. However, overall, I think that winter counts were probably very accurate in their recordings.
Kristin de Koning:
I think that winter counts can provide a very accurate account of the lives of the tribes. They are a very good record of the history of the tribes because they recount the death doll of battles, the kinds of diseases that were spreading at the time, the meteor showers and eclipes that happened, and also the tribes they had made peace with. Since the tribes had very little written history winter counts are great for us to see their lives and history through their drawings.
Kristin de Koning:
I think that winter counts can provide a very accurate account of the lives of the tribes. They are a very good record of the history of the tribes because they recount the death doll of battles, the kinds of diseases that were spreading at the time, the meteor showers and eclipes that happened, and also the tribes they had made peace with. Since the tribes had very little written history winter counts are great for us to see their lives and history through their drawings.
In a way it can be misleading because we can not always be sure of what the different symbols mean and how to interrupt all of them. For the most part the symbols are easy to interrupt since we have guides to help us now.
Cassie Hollmann:
I agree with what most of you have said about the winter counts. I found them to be very interesting, and they seem to prove to be a good tool when learning the history of the tribe. They defiantly prove that the plains people are NOT people without history. They had intricate details that sometimes described generations of a certain peoples. However, the book mentioned how they can be misleading, and are hard to read without being cross-referenced with something else.
I also found it interesting that sometimes it was personal accounts that were recorded on the winter counts not just major battles and events. Again, the winter accounts seem to be a good resource and are probably very accurate, but should be looked at carefully. We can't know what every symbol stood for, or how much of the winter count was based on fact.
Ashley Filberth: I think that the winter counts do give an accurate description of what their lives were like. At this time was not a lot of written history, so these drawings can be very helpful in learning about their people. For example they give information about disease that spread at that time, the amount of deaths at battles, and some of the tribes they were at peace with.
However, just like most of you have said, these counts should be looked at very carefully and may not be completely accurate. They are probably better at giving us a general idea of what happened, instead of accurate details of that time.
Rachel C.
Cassie makes a very good point when she uses the word cross-reference. I believe this is the key to gaining a deeper understanding of winter counts and how accurate they can be. When the same event is recognized by different tribes, it was obviously a significant event, for example the meteor showers. When it comes to warfare, I think that the winter counts should be looked at with an open mind. Each tribe will have their own version of what happened. Much of the decoding of the symbols is left up to interpretation. Though there are some guides, there is no way to be sure that these are correct. I would use winter counts to record major details such as who was at war, but other things such as a death count would be hard to verify.
Buck Bradley
The winter counts do provide a unique perspective of intertribal warfare, however more then just warfare it shows us what was important to the tribe. The winter counts gives us an important insight into the tribe. Winter counts meant that the leaders of the tribe could only pick one single event to mark that year. Therefore, we know that whatever event was picked was agreed upon to be the most important to the tribe. This allows outsiders to know what mattered to the tribes without having to guess from observations. The counts show what is important in the culture of the individual tribes.
However, winter counts just like anything done by human should not be taken as the absolute truth or fact. Since individuals had to remember history from several generations before their time, years could have been lost or pasted down incorrectly. In addition, since only tribe leaders and men decided the winter count we only get what was considered important to them and not what was important to an individual member of the tribe. So while winter counts are great insight into the tribe’s cultural values it should not be the only item used to judge important events in tribe history but a starting point
David Tofflemire:
Winter counts definantly provide a unique account of intertribal warfare. These are the closest things to written history that exist for the plains indians. That reason alone makes them unique.
The ammount of information with in the counts that can be interpretted does not necessarily make the counts misleading, but it makes it more difficult to decipher their meaning when there is lack of cross reference to measure them with. Some of the symbols in the example of Lone Dog's count were very straight forward. Others appeared to need explaining for one to comprehend.
It would be really intresting to look at a collection of many different winter counts and their respective interpretations to see if there was any uniform meaning in some of the symbols among the different plains tribes. If anyone has read any of the books in notes at the end of the chapter and has an informed opinion, it would be interesting to hear it.
Dan Flynn
Winter counts are excellent resources when looking for a particular tribe's perspecive on events. Events such as meteors, diseases and warfare are all widely recorded in winter counts. Other events such as smaller battles may not have been important and as such were not recorded. While events were selectively recorded, tribes did record what was important to them and thus, the winter counts are excellent tools for understanding the priorities and importance of events to certain tribes.
Zach Flanders
Along with David I would also be excited to see if there were any uniform, standard symbols among or even between tribes. Could the winter counts represent a developing writing system?
I also wonder how long the winter count tradition is. The only dates mentioned in the Chapter are in the 19th century, and I wonder if winter counts existed before contact with Europeans. I wonder if their creators were influenced by hearing about other writing systems, like those of the Europeans or possibly the writing systems that were developed by the Central American Indians.
I think the winter counts give insight into the importance of warfare to the Plains Indians. The fact that they chose symbols representing battles tells us that these events held great importance. The numbers of enemies killed gives us clues to the small scale of battles on the plains. I think winter counts are possibly misleading for a number of reasons. One is that the rational and explanations of why the battles occurred (i.e. to get horses, to acquire new hunting grounds, to gain status and pride). Another is that winter counts (or at least the example given) seem to emphasize the activities of men. I wonder if any winter counts were made by women, and if so, how they would differ.
Eric Stein
The winter counts provide a interesting view on what happened during these times such as warfare, disease and other important events in their lives. With every account in history there needs to be a cross-reference in order to make sure that the accounts for history are accurate. It is important to realize that the winter counts only state what was the most important to the tribe so therefore individual accounts were not spoken about in winter counts so the winter counts may not speak for everyone within the tribe. Overrall I believe that the winter counts were accurate for the most part and should be looked at as a credible reference.
Ashley: It is interesting to look at a people who many say where a people without a history before the Europeans, yet were recording what was going on in their lives. Recording what was taking place in their lives on buffalo robes in spirals of years were ways of keeping track of events. I venture to say that they were very accurate of events. They provide a unique perspective on intertribal warfare from the position of the tribes. The only way I see them as misleading is because of their limitations. They can be interpreted in different ways, between the keeper translator, adn ethnologist.
John Alban:
I do believe that a winter count provides an accurate and unique perspective on intertribal warfare. Seeing as how warfare was extremely important to men in the tribes it would be of the utmost importance to them that their deeds be recorded accurately.
The counts can be misleading due to the fact the definitions of some of the symbols seem to be somewhat vague. What I found most interesting is that the year was marked by an event, that Lone Dog with a counsel of elders, believed distinguished the year most appropriately. Which is why I find not marking the defeat of Custer in 1876 somewhat curious.
Stephanie C.:
I believe that winter counts did give us a unique perspective on intertribal warfare because they showed us what events leaders saw as most important to record for each year, but feel that they could be misleading due to the limitations inherantly present under the circumstances (i.e. the inability to record more than one event for a given year). While drawings of events seem to be the easiest way for us to understand the events deemed worthy of documentation, there is certainly room for error in the interpretation--because the drawings could have been interpreted in many ways. Drawings seemed clear in some cases but more ambiguous in others.
Like Zach, I wondered how long winter counts had documented events prior to the 19th century, because earlier vents drawn may have been quite different from those in the 19th century (after cultures had begun drastically changing under the circumstances).
It seems that smallpox epidemics were repeatedly chosen as the most important event to depict in certain years; prior to exposure to European diseases and general European influence, I wonder how much the documentation of other (natural) events would tell us about Indian cultures...
Tamera:
I think that a winter count provides an important historical document that shows the kind of values that were important to Sioux during the 19th century, such as warfare, death, peace agreements, and meteor showers. It is a historical record that emphasizes key moments within the tribe's lifetime. I believe that it paints an accurate and convincing picture of certain events that happened. Calloway writes that a winter count recorded a single person's life, or was made over two to three generations. It could also be illustrated by one person that received instruction from the elders who remembered the events, or got their knowledge from people who had passed. Because the Sioux had no written language, the pictures are left for interpretation. This may cause it to be misleading. But as one student pointed out in class, winter counts were a way for individuals, or gathered elders, to draw a picture of a single important moment in history. And, those tribal cultures that relied heavily upon memorization through oral tradition deserve some kind of respect for their ability to recall certain events. On a side note: Ask those who has been to war and sustained heavy casualties or succeeded, and some will want to forget, but they cannot.
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