Lakota Winter Count of 1779-1780

This pictograph, one of the symbols used by the Lakota to show a memorable event of each winter, represents the winter of 1779. Translated as “Smallpox-used-them-up winter,” the pictograph shows a person covered with smallpox sores next to a curlicue symbol illustrating pain and suffering. Traveling Continental Army soldiers likely exposed the Lakota to the disease. The epidemic apparently lasted for more than a year, as the Lakota used a similar pictograph for the winter of 1780–1781.

Battiste Good, a leader and historian of the Sicangu Lakota Nation, copied the original version of this winter count by consulting with older members of his tribe and recording them as far back as he was able to learn, which was some 500 years. This particular version of the image, copied from Good's records, was published in ethnologist Garrick Mallery's Picture-writing of the American Indians (1894.)