A Winter Count Mystery

Winter Counts are important and invaluable primary source documents for Lakota/Dakota history. The location of a Standing Rock winter count attributed to a man named Iron Dog from Bullhead, South Dakota, remains a mystery. The only known representation is a blurry photograph copyrighted by an H.M Hiatt, a Seventh Adventist pastor from Anoka, Minnesota, who acquired it sometime between 1906 and 1923. The winter count was on cloth and represented history from 1823 to 1906. I will try to post a photograph in a later post once I have the permission. What is known about the winter count is told in the definitive book on Lakota winter counts by Candace Greene and Russell Thornton: The Year the Stars Fell: Lakota Winter Counts At the Smithsonian.