Virtual winter count: Student task sheet

"What is life like for us?"

Battiste Good (1821-ca. 1907)
[Winter Count, 1230-1907]
Library of Congress

Background

A 'winter count' is a is a North American Plains Indian tradition used to keep track of important events that happened each year in a tribe. The image to the left is the winter count of the Brulé Dakota tribe, and it tells the history from 1230 to 1907.

Drawings were used to record the important events in tribal life and told the story of years past. A tribe would make a drawing to represent the event they decided to record. Different drawings represented different significant events, such as the introduction of the horse, buffalo hunts, severe winter storms, and smallpox epidemics. Each tribe also had a Keeper of the Winter Count, an elder who knew the full story behind each picture. Every winter, the Keeper of the Winter Count would tell all the stories to the people so they could learn and remember the history of the tribe.

Battiste Good (1821-ca. 1907)
[Winter Count, 1230-1907]
Library of Congress

Below is a drawing from the Battiste Good winter count.

Here are some links to information and images of actual winter counts:

• Glenbow Museum
• Carnegie winter count
  www.human-nature.pdx.edu/Native American Art&Nature/NAfull.htm

The task

We will borrow the idea of a winter count as one way to answer the question "What is life like for us?" Each month, our class will decide on the most important event of the month to record and we will choose or create a graphic to represent that event. Maybe September is the month we started to learn keyboarding. Perhaps November is the month everyone had to get meningitis shots. In April, there might have been a freak snowstorm that closed the school for three days. Was May our graduation month?

Do you get the idea?

Create your own version of a winter count on paper or online.