by Candace S. Greene (Editor), Russell Thornton (Author)
Winter counts-pictorial calendars by which Plains Indians kept track of their past-marked each year with a picture of a memorable event. The Lakota, or Western Sioux, recorded many different events in their winter counts, but all include the year the stars fell, the spectacular Leonid meteor shower of 1833-34. This volume is an unprecedented assemblage of information on the important collection of Lakota winter counts at the Smithsonian, a core resource for the study of Lakota history and culture. Fourteen winter counts are presented in detail, with a chapter devoted to the newly discovered Rosebud Winter Count. Together these counts constitute a visual chronicle of over two hundred years of Lakota experience as recorded by Native historians. A visually stunning book, The Year the Stars Fell features full-color illustrations of the fourteen winter counts plus more than 900 detailed images of individual pictographs. Explanations, provided by their nineteenth-century Lakota recorders, are arranged chronologically to facilitate comparison among counts. The book provides ready access to primary source material, and serves as an essential reference work for scholars as well as an invaluable historical resource for Native communities.
Format: Illustrated
Pages: 377
Edition: Illustrated
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Published: 11 Jun 2007
ISBN 10: 0803222114
ISBN 13: 9780803222113
The Year the Stars Fell. Lakota Winter Counts at the Smithsonian. Edited by Candace S. Greene and Russell Thornton.
Publication date: June 28, 2007
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8032-2211-3; Price: $45.00; Canadian: $56.25
Features: xii, 347pp., 8 x 10, 14 color illus., 916 b/w illus., 2 charts, map, index
For more information contact Kate Salem, Publicity Manager, (402) 472-5938, or ksalem2@unl.edu. University of Nebraska Press, 1111 Lincoln Mall, Lincoln, NE 68588-0630.
Winter counts - pictorial calendars by which Plains Indians kept track of their past - marked each year with a picture of a memorable event. The Lakota, or Western Sioux, recorded many different events in their winter counts, but all include the year the stars fell, the spectacular Leonid meteor shower of 1833-34. This volume is an unprecedented assemblage of information on the important collection of Lakota winter counts at the Smithsonian, a core resource for the study of Lakota history and culture.
Fourteen winter counts are presented in detail, with a chapter devoted to the newly discovered Rosebud Winter County. Together these counts constitute a visual chronicle of over two hundred years of Lakota experience as recorded by Native historians.
A visually stunning book, The Year the Stars Fell features full-color illustrations of the fourteen winter counts plus more than 900 detailed images of individual pictographs. Explanations, provided by their nineteenth-century Lakota recorders, are arranged chronologically to facilitate comparison among counts. The book provides ready access to primary source material, and serves as an essential reference work for scholars as well as an invaluable historical resource for Native communities.
Candace S. Greene is an ethnologist in the Anthropology Collections and Archives program at the Smithsonian Institution and author of Silver Horn: Master Illustrator of the Kiowa. Russell Thornton, a registered member of the Cherokee Nation, is a distinguished professor of anthropology at the University of California-Los Angeles and author of The Cherokees: A Population History (Nebraska 1990).
* Indian Artifact Magazine *Richly illustrated, The Year the Stars Fell is an outstanding contribution to the understanding of the cultures of the Plains Indians. -American Archaeology
* American Archaeology *