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.
Mânka-gúădal is the Kiowa name of the Comanche chief Red-sleeve
(Îkämosa?), who was killed in an attack against a party of Santa Fé
traders in Kansas, where the Santa Fé trail crossed Pawnee fork of the
Arkansas, below the present Fort Larned, which was not built until 1859.
Pawnee fork, properly called by the Kiowa _Aíkoñ P'a_, "Dark-timber
river," is sometimes called by them from this circumstance
_Mâ´nka-gúădal-de P'a_, "Red-sleeve's river." According to the story
told by the Kiowa, they and the Comanche were out in search of the
Pawnee when they met at this point a large party of white men with
wagons--evidently Santa Fé traders. Red-sleeve wanted to attack them,
but Set-ängya, the Kiowa leader, refused, saying that the whites were
their friends. Red-sleeve then taunted the Kiowa as cowards, put on his
war-bonnet, and, calling his Comanche, attacked the traders. The Kiowa,
wishing to avoid trouble, drew off. About the first fire a bullet went
through the leg of Red-sleeve and into the spine of his horse, so that
the animal fell, pinning his wounded rider to the ground. He called on
Set-ängya to help him, but the Kiowa chief refused on account of the
taunt of cowardice, and the white men came up to Red-sleeve and shot
him.
[Illustration: FIG. 98--Summer 1847--Red-sleeve killed.]
As the government had but little communication with the tribes of the
southern plains until some years after the Mexican war, there is no
direct notice of this occurrence in the official reports, but a letter
by agent Fitzpatrick in the report of the Indian Commissioner for 1848,
the year after the attack upon the train, bears out the statement of
the Kiowa that they were anxious to keep peace with the whites, even at
the risk of quarreling with the Comanche and losing some very profitable
business opportunities. Speaking of depredations upon parties traveling
on the emigrant roads and the Santa Fé trail, he says:
Before leaving there [Bent's fort] last February I had an interview
with some of the Kiaway chiefs, and who have heretofore been allies
of the Comanches. They expressed themselves as sorry for having
anything to do with the war against us, and promised to quit their
country and all intercourse with the Comanches and join the
Cheyennes on the Arkansas, who are the friends of the whites. This
course I approved, and since my departure from that country last
spring learned that nearly all the Kiaways have moved to the
country of the Cheyennes and Arapahoes and are living in perfect
amity with the surrounding tribes.
He also states that there seem to have been fewer attacks made upon
travelers along the Santa Fé road recently, which he can account for
only on the supposition that "the Indians having, in 1846 and 1847,
secured so much booty by their daring outrages upon travelers, are now
and have been the past summer luxuriating in and enjoying the spoils"
(_Report, 77_).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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