Question re Native American written language/numbers

[susnfx]

In the current issue of Smithsonian Magazine there is an article about Lakota winter counts--"a large piece of hide, cloth or paper covered in discrete drawings, each one representing an annual memorable event...these are how people remembered their past..."

However, I'm puzzled by something: they state that "the earliest single image refers to 1701 and depicts a buffalo carcass beside a man with a blood-red arrow in his side and the number "2" above his head; the picture has been interpreted to mean the year that two hunters were killed."

Aren't numbers considered language and would a Lakota have been writing numbers in 1701?

I found this about the Lakota language:
"The Lakota language, like most Native American languages, was not originally a written language. The first people to transcribe Lakota into a written alphabet were early missionaries and anthropologists. In 1834, the Episcopal missionaries Samuel W. Pond, Gideon H. Pond, Stephen R. Riggs, and Dr. Thomas S. Williamson created a Dakota alphabet. This alphabet system was adapted and extended to the "L" dialect by Ella Deloria and Franz Boas during the 1930s. Since then, three other spelling systems have been created. In 1939, the Reverend Eugene Buechel published a Lakota grammar book that contains his spelling system. In 1976 another alphabet system for the Lakota language was introduced by Allen Taylor and David Rood of the University of Colorado at Boulder."

But are numbers, counting, math, whatever you want to call it part of the language and wouldn't written numbers have been introduced about the same time as written language? Any ideas?

Susan

[Nanohedron]

It's possible that the numeral 2 was a later addition to the winter count. How early the use of written numerals took hold I have no idea, but 1701 seems a bit early to say the least. Normally two hunters would have been depicted if two had died.

[susnfx]

I (finally) went to the on-line exhibit of the winter counts and, while not referring specifically to numbers, they did explain that as winter counts wore out or they needed more room, they were copied over, with later record keepers adding things and correcting. I'm sure you're right, Nano, that the numeral 2 was added later.

BTW, it's a beautiful exhibit for anyone interested:

http://wintercounts.si.edu/index.html

Susan

[Nanohedron]

I (finally) went to the on-line exhibit of the winter counts and, while not referring specifically to numbers, they did explain that as winter counts wore out or they needed more room, they were copied over, with later record keepers adding things and correcting. I'm sure you're right, Nano, that the numeral 2 was added later.

BTW, it's a beautiful exhibit for anyone interested:

http://wintercounts.si.edu/index.html

Susan

The reason I suspected the numeral being added later was that the winter count was an oral tradition that had people trained to keep, record and recite it. The glyphs were a memory aid, and with the advent of literacy and Western education, these things falter or get lost, hence the numeral addition. It's also entirely possible that only one hunter was ever depicted, but the traditional record counted two.

[brianormond]

-Here are some links to the Cherokee syllabary/alphabet, not Lakota but one of the best documented native American languages for those with an interest.

http://www.logoi.com/links/nativeameric ... habet.html

-A friend's mother is a Skagit elder and one of the last three living to speak lushootseed as a first language growing up. Many others speak it yet as a second language, but it strikes me this is a demarcation past which identity and tradition weaken and can be retained only by strong grip. It saddens me that languages weaken as a language's health reflects the cultural and material health of its people. I don't think I could ever conquer all those silent consonants and learn Irish gaelic, but it cheers me to know its use
is growing.

[Walden]

An Arabic numeral 2, would surely be an adopted innovation, but I don't doubt that they had some means of recording mathematical information. Some tribes used knotted cords.

[I.D.10-t]

The Aztec empire was great at writing down information. They had a base 20 number system and were recording things in books for hundreds of years before the Spanish came and burned it all. So, I guess it varied a lot by region.