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WHEN THE STARS FELL
Leonid Meteor Storm November 12, 1833
NATIVE AMERICAN PORTRAYALS OF AN ASTRONOMICAL PHENOMENON
LONE DOG’S Winter Count, AD 1800-01 to AD 1870-71
Background photo by Scott Murrell, Leonid Meteor Shower, New Mexico, 1966.
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Leonid Meteor Storm
Leonid meteor storm over Niagara Falls,
Nov. 12, 1833.
Contemporary painting.
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Leonid Meteor Storm
Leonid meteor storm over Pennsylvania, Nov. 12, 1833.
Contemporary engraving.
Naturalist Alexander Von
Humboldt (seated) recorded the 1833
Leonid meteor storm on his South
American trip of exploration.
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Pioneering naturalist Alexander Von Humboldt.
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Winter Counts
Sam Kills Two painting the Big Missouri Winter Count,
photograph: John Anderson, 1926
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Many Native American records exist of this meteor storm as entries in Winter Counts, a form of pictorial calendrical record common among tribes of the Great Plains. Many different tribes created these records, among them Lakota, Blackfoot, Mandan, and Kiowa.
Winter counts were often originally painted on animal hides but with the availability of the white man’s materials many later examples were drawn on cloth and even paper. The pictographic symbols used in most winter counts represented the mnemonic imagery that the count keeper used to prompt memories of the memorable event for that year.
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Lakota Winter Counts
No Ears Winter Count, Winter 1833-34, Lakota.
The oldest known Lakota winter count. AD 1805 – 88.
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Lakota Winter Counts
Of known Winter Counts the largest number were painted by members of various bands of Lakotas. One name for Lakota pictographic calendars is waniyetu wowapi, literally, “winters they count,” meaning “counted winters” or “winter count.” Following this second designation, they are known in English as “winter counts.” Winter counts were drawn and cared for by Keepers and depict the most significant yearly experience of a tiyošpaye (extended kinship group).” There are more than 150 currently known winter counts. In Dakota the word for winter, waniyetu, is also the word employed for the English “year”.
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Lakota Winter Counts
Lone Dog’s Winter Count, AD 1800-01 to 1870-71, Lakota.This was the first winter count known to anglos. Collected in 1876 by Lt. H. T. Reed at Fort Sully, Dakota Territory.
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Lakota Winter Counts Lone Dog’s winter count, pictograph for the winter of 1833-34.It is illustrated as a cluster of stars around the crescent moon.
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Lakota Winter Counts
The Flame’s (Blaze) Winter Count.Collected in April, 1877, at Fort Sully.Again Lt. Reed traced it and Alex Laravey did the interpretations.
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Lakota Winter Counts
Little Swan’s Winter Count, collected in 1868 by U.S. Army Assistant Surgeon Washington West on the Cheyenne River Agency.
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Lakota Winter Counts
Swift Dog’s Winter Count, ca. AD 1798 – 1912.Collected on Standing Rock Reservation by Frances Densmore between 1911 – 1914. Traced onto linen.
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Lakota Winter Counts
American Horse’s Winter Count, collected by Dr. William H. Corbusier, Ass’t. U. S. Army Surgeon, at Camp Sheridan, NE, near the Pine Ridge Reservation in the late 1870s.
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Lakota Winter Counts
Battiste Good’s Winter Count, collected in 1879-80 by Dr. William H. Corbusier, at Camp Sheridan, NE, near Pine Ridge Reservation.
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Lakota Winter Counts
Battiste Good’s Winter Count, another copy of the Battiste Good winter count. This copy was made for Garrick Mallery by Battiste Good
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Lakota Winter Counts
Big Missouri Winter Count (A.D. 1796-1926), Collected by photographer John A. Anderson near the Rosebud Agency.
Symbol for Winter A.D. 1833-34
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Lakota Winter Counts
Brule Tipi Cover Winter Count, ca. A.D. 1892-93,
photo by John A. Anderson, Rosebud Agency, 1895. Thought to have been probably copied from the Rosebud winter count.
Includes the years from 1788-9 to 1865-6, with 47 pictographs.
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Blackfoot Winter Counts
Bull Plume (North Piegan) winter count, 1764 – 1910,
English translations were added by an Anglican missionary named W. R. Haynes.
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Kiowa Winter Counts
Sett’an Winter Count, 1833 – 1892.
Sett’an (Little Chief)
The symbol for 1833-1834 from Sett’an Winter count shows Sett’an as a child, standing atop a black bar which denotes the year, with stars above his head.
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Kiowa Winter Counts
Dohassan’s (Little Bluff’s) winter count, the earliest known Kiowa calendar.
Dohassan (Little Bluff) portrait by George Catlin, 1834.
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Canyon de Chelly Star Ceiling, NavajoWith so many examples of the 1833 Leonid Meteor Storm found in Ledger Book Art, it seems likely that examples in rock art should have been created too. Perhaps some of the known Navajo star ceilings represent this.
Canyon de Chelly Star Ceiling (CWC3, panel 2), Navaho.
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Canyon de Chelly Star Ceiling (CC95), Navajo. Polly Schaafsma believes that many western star ceilings date from the latter half of the 19th century.
Other rock art panels featuring groupings of stars might also represent “When the Stars Fell.” - Star Panel, Picture Canyon, Baca County, CO. Photo: Michael Maselli.
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