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.
_´dalk`atói K`ádó_, "Nez Percé sun dance," so called on account of a
visit from the Nez Percés, called by the Kiowa the "people with hair cut
off across the forehead." The figure above the medicine pole on the Anko
calendar is intended to represent a man in the act of cutting off his
front hair. The Set-t'an calendar has beside the medicine lodge the
figure of a man wearing the peculiar striped blanket of the Nez Percés.
This sun dance is sometimes known as _Máp'ódal K`ádó_, "Split-nose sun
dance," because held on the Washita on pasture lands inclosed by a
cattle man known to the Indians by that name.
[Illustration: FIG 174--Summer, 1883--Nez Percé sun dance.]
On account of difficulties with the whites, the Nez Percés of Chief
Joseph's band had left their homes in eastern Oregon in the summer of
1877, and after a retreat of a thousand miles were intercepted in
Montana by General Miles, when within a few miles of the British border,
and compelled to surrender. They were brought as prisoners to Fort
Leavenworth, and thence removed, in July, 1878, to a reservation
assigned to them in Indian Territory. The climate and surroundings
proving entirely unsuited to them, they were returned to reservations in
Washington and Idaho in 1885, their numbers in the meantime having been
reduced from about four hundred and fifty to three hundred and one,
about one-third of their whole number having died. It was while
domiciled in Indian Territory that they visited the Kiowa and other
tribes, dancing with the Kiowa and Apache at the head of _Sémät P'a_,
"Apache creek" (upper Cache creek), and attending the Kiowa sun dance,
which was held on the north side of the Washita, about ten miles above
Rainy-mountain creek, near where now is Cloud Chief. This was the first
time the Kiowa had ever seen the Nez Percés, although they had a dim
traditional memory of them in their old northern home.
In the spring of this year the keeper of the _taíme_ medicine,
Set-dayá-ite, "Many-bears," died, and the image was taken by Taímete,
"_Taíme_-man," who continued to hold it until his death in 1894.
WINTER 1883-84
For this winter the Set-t'an calendar has the picture of a house with
smoking chimney beside a tipi. It appears to be a canvas house, such, as
those Indians in a transition state sometimes use. Set-t'an explains it
to mean that Big-tree was given a stove by the government and put it
into a large tipi which he occupied; but Scott's informant, who is
corroborated by Anko and others, explains it as meaning that Gákinãăte,
"Ten," the brother of Lone-wolf, built a house this fall on the south
side of the Washita, about opposite Cobb creek. Stumbling-bear says that
he himself had received a stove as far back as 1875, two years before
the government built his house.
[Illustration: FIG. 175--Winter 1883-84--House built; children taken;
Sioux dances.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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