Meaning Behind The Image Of Winter Count

Indigenous people have used various types of devices to record their events and activities since ancient times. Different devices were used to record important events or days to remember. Winter Count, a pictorial calendar of history was the most important of them all, which was used by indigenous people to record their histories. This method involved compiling a comprehensive narrative of events that had taken place over the years and adding a visual record of significant events that had happened during the year. This essay will clearly show the occurrence importance of these devices to record important events and will explain the meaning behind the image of winter count.

Several Indigenous tribes in North America, including the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Dakota, used the winter

Each tribe had its winter count, with different symbols and imagery used to represent significant events. From a historical standpoint, the Winter Count was used as a tool by indigenous people, primarily tribal or indigenous peoples from plain areas, to document their history and the significant events they witnessed. “The counts — painted mostly on buffalo hides until the species was hunted to near-extinction in the late 19th century — served as a way for tribes of the Great Plains to document significant events and pass a record of them from generation to generation”.1 The most significant occasion in the community's calendar was chosen by the elders of a band each year. The winter count keeper, who was typically a trusted elder, would paint a scene to represent it on the hide, adding to the years' worth of images that had come before.2 The winter count was a way for one generation to pass down stories and traditions to the