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New Smithsonian Web site explores Winter Counts
WASHINGTON, DC and RAPID CITY, S.D. – In response to enthusiastic requests by Lakota educators on several reservations in South Dakota, Smithsonian anthropologists have created a remarkable new resource that merges the oldest communications technologies with the newest.
“Winter Counts,” found at www.wintercounts.si.edu, is rich source material from the archives of the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History made available to the world through the interactive magic of the internet.
Begun as a book project, “Winter Counts” was expanded into an online resource in order to “provide culturally relevant content,” according to Candace Greene, co-creator of the project.
The schools she visited, including tribal colleges, said that “They had equipment – they had hardware, they had software – what they felt they were lacking was content.”
Winter Counts were used by tribes as ways to keep track of the years and to mark the most significant or noteworthy events of those years.
The Smithsonian project uses several different versions of the Winter Count as source material, including those very well-known accounts, such as that of Battiste Good, a Brule who was living on the Rosebud Reservation, and those lesser-known accounts, such as the Winter Count on hide attributed to Lone Dog, a Yanktonai. All Winter Counts used in this project come from the Smithsonian’s extensive anthropological collections.
This unique project spans accounting of winters over two centuries, specifically from 1701-1902, and includes ten different Winter Counts from all over the Lakota territories.
There are other tribes that have used Winter Counts, including the Kiowa and the Blackfoot, but this project was focused on those of the Lakota. The book of the Winter Counts is now available from the Smithsonian.
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