Lakota winter counts, pictographic records, and record making and remaking histories
Abstract
Winter counts are pictographic calendars created and used by certain Native American communities as mnemonic devices for remembering the sequence of events that mark each year, and for retelling community stories. Drawing on resources from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Anthropological Archives’ winter count collections and related literature, this study reviews and discusses the characteristics of pictographic records, traces their making and remaking histories, and revisits the pictorial tradition in the American history of records and record keeping.
From 2022 (Volume 50) authors contributing to Archives & Manuscripts agree to publish their work under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. Authors retain copyright of their work, with first publication rights granted to A&M.
