Calendar history of the Kiowa Indians. (1898 N 17 / 1895-1896 (pages 129-444))Mooney, James
History
Calendar history of the Kiowa Indians. (1898 N 17 / 1895-1896 (pages 129-444))
Mooney, James
Kiowa Indians; Kiowa language -- Glossaries, vocabularies, etc.
A fourth Kiowa calendar was obtained in the same year by Captain H. L.
Scott, Seventh cavalry, while stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, on the
Kiowa reservation, and was by him generously placed at the disposal of
the author, together with all his notes bearing on the subject. This
calendar was procured from Dohásän, "Little-bluff," nephew of the
celebrated Dohásän who was head chief of the Kiowa tribe for more than
thirty years. The nephew, who died in 1893 at an advanced age, told
Captain Scott that the calendar had been kept in his family from his
youth up, having originally been painted on hides, which were renewed
from time to time as they wore out from age and handling. The calendar
delivered by him to Scott is drawn with colored pencils on heavy manila
paper, as is also the Sett'an calendar obtained by the author. In both,
the pictographs are arranged in a continuous spiral, beginning in the
lower right-hand corner and ending near the center, the rows of
pictographs being separated from each other by a continuous spiral. In
both, the winter is designated by means of an upright black bar, to
indicate that vegetation was then dead, while summer is represented by
means of the figure of the medicine lodge, the central object of the
annual summer religious ceremony. The leading event of the season is
indicated by means of a pictograph above or beside the winter mark or
medicine lodge. In a few instances, in the earlier years, when the
medicine dance was omitted, the event recorded for the summer is placed
between the consecutive winter marks, without anything to show the
season, but toward the end, when the medicine dance had been practically
discontinued, the summer is indicated by the figure of a tree in
foliage.
The general plan of the Anko calendar is the same, excepting that the
winter pictographs are below the winter marks, with which they are
connected by lines, the winter marks forming a single row across the
page, with the center pole of the medicine lodge, the summer pictographs
above and the winter pictographs below. This calendar was originally
drawn with a black pencil in a small notebook, and afterward, by
direction of the author, redrawn in colored inks on buckskin. A
comparison of the three justifies the assertion that the Kiowa have a
recognized system of calendar pictography. In artistic execution the
Sett'an calendar ranks first.
Still another calendar, thought to have dated farther back than any of
those now under consideration, was kept by an old man of the Kiowa
Apache named Polä´ñyi-katón, "Rabbit-shoulder," and is supposed to have
been buried with him at his death, a few years ago.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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