Winter Counts

by David Heska Wanbli Weiden

Wacantognaka, one of the seven Lakota values—it meant compassion, generosity, kindness, forgiveness.

Winter counts were the calendar system used by the Lakota, but they weren’t like modern ones. I’d loved the little pictures in the calendars, each image showing the most significant event from the past year. Sybil and I used to make our own with paper and crayons when we were kids.

But standard sex assault cases, thefts, assault and battery—these crimes were usually ignored. And the bad men knew this. It was open season for raping any Native woman, so long as the rape occurred on Indian land.

I wondered what it was like to live without that weight on your shoulders, the weight of the murdered ancestors, the stolen land, the abused children, the burden every Native person carries.

What I’d discovered was that sadness is like an abandoned car left out in a field for good—it changes a little over the years, but doesn’t ever disappear. You may forget about it for a while, but it’s still there, rusting away, until you notice it again.

THERE IS NO WORD for goodbye in Lakota. That’s what my mother used to tell me. Sure, there were words like toksa, which meant “later,” that were used by people as a modern substitute. She’d told me that the Lakota people didn’t use a term for farewell because of the idea that we are forever connected. To say goodbye would mean the circle was broken.