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.
The song ended, he suddenly sprang upon the guard with a knife which he
had managed to conceal about his person, and had cut him seriously when
the soldiers following behind fired and he fell dead in the wagon. He
was buried in the military cemetery at Fort Sill, but there is nothing
to distinguish the grave. The Kiowa statement of his singing his death
song is corroborated by Battey and by agent Tatum.
Although a noted warrior and a chief of the Kâitséñko, Set-ängya was
generally feared and disliked by the tribe on account of his vindictive
disposition and his supposed powers of magic. It was believed that he
could kill an enemy by occult means, and that he had in this manner
actually disposed of one or two who had incurred his displeasure. The
knife with which he attacked the soldier is reputed to have been a
"medicine knife," which he could swallow and disgorge as demanded by the
necessity of concealment or use; several stories are told by the Indians
to confirm this belief. His paternal grandmother was a woman of the
Sarsi (_Pákiägo_, a small tribe incorporated with the Blackfeet,) who
had married a Kiowa when the latter tribe lived in the far north. Unlike
Indians generally, he habitually wore a mustache and straggling beard.
He left two children; the elder, a son, was adopted into a white family
under the name of Joshua Given, was educated in the east, married a
white lady, afterward returned as a missionary to his people, and
died of consumption about four years ago. The younger child, Julia
Given, was until recently employed in one of the mission schools on the
reservation.
[Illustration: FIG. 150--Set-t'aiñte in prison (from _Scribner's
Monthly_, February, 1874)]
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. LXXVIII
PHOTO BY SOULE (1) 1872
LAWRIE TATUM, FIRST KIOWA AGENT, WITH GROUP OF RESCUED CAPTIVES]
Bearing on the subject of the arrest of the three chiefs and the death
of Set-ängya, we quote at length from a letter written by Lawrie Tatum,
the first agent for the Kiowa and associated tribes, from whom the
author has obtained much valuable information in response to letters of
inquiry. Mr Tatum, who is now (1896) living in Springdale, Iowa, at the
advanced age of 75 years, is a member of the Society of Friends, and was
appointed, on their recommendation, in accordance with the "Indian peace
policy" of President Grant, soon after the tribes were brought upon the
reservation. He took charge, as he states, July 1, 1869, and resigned
March 31, 1873, in consequence of the release of Set-t'aiñte and
Big-tree, a measure which he opposed, as it was on his motion that these
men were originally arrested. During his incumbency he rescued a number
of white captives without ransom--a thing before unexampled. On this
point he states, in a letter of March 31, 1896:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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