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.
This winter is notable also for the arrival of a large trading party
from Kansas under the leadership of a man named John Smith. He traded
also among the Cheyenne, whose language he spoke, and was called by them
_Póomûts_, "Gray-blanket," or "Saddle-blanket," these articles forming a
part of his trading stock; this name the Kiowa corrupted into _Pohóme_.
The party visited all the various camps of the Cheyenne and Kiowa,
trading blankets and other goods for buffalo hides. Smith died among the
Cheyenne after having lived more than forty years in the Indian country,
and was buried in the sand hills near the present agency at Darlington,
Oklahoma. His name appears in the official reports as government
interpreter for the Cheyenne, and he rendered valuable assistance at the
Medicine Lodge treaty in 1867.
SUMMER 1866
_Hâñ-kopédal K`ádó_, "Flat metal (i. e. German silver) sun dance," was
held on Medicine-lodge creek, near its mouth, in Oklahoma. It was so
called because a trader brought them at this time a large quantity of
German silver, from which they made headdresses, belts for women,
bracelets, and other ornaments. German silver is known to the Kiowa as
"flat metal," because it is furnished to them in sheets, which they cut
and hammer into the desired shapes. On both calendars the event is
recorded in the same way, by the figure of a head pendent with silver
disks placed near the medicine lodge. Such pendants were attached to the
head of the scalplock, and consisted of a strip of buffalo hide reaching
nearly to the ground and covered along the whole length with a row of
silver, copper, or German-silver disks, gradually decreasing in size
toward the bottom, which was usually finished off with a tuft of
bright-colored horsehair. They were called _góm-â´dal-hâ´ñgya_,
"back-hair-metal," and were highly prized by the warriors. This was not
the first time the Kiowa had obtained German silver. In the old days
these ornaments were made for them, of genuine silver, by Mexican
silversmiths near the present Silver City, New Mexico.
Charles W. Whitacre (or Whittaker), the trader who brought their supply
of metal on this occasion, together with sugar and other goods, had some
knowledge of the Kiowa language, as well as of Comanche and Caddo, and
is familiarly known to the older Kiowa as _Tsâli_, i. e., Charley. He
was present at the Medicine Lodge treaty the next year, and afterward
kept a trading store on the north side of the Washita, near the place
where the Wichita school is now located, a short distance from the
agency at Anadarko. He was killed by accidentally shooting himself about
1882.
[Illustration: FIG. 139--Summer 1866--German-silver sun dance.]
WINTER 1866-67
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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