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.
These Indans retain much of their roving disposition, and except
during the cropping season do not camp long in one place, but do
not go far from their fields. Few of the Kiowas, Comanches, and
Apaches have houses, and most of them live in tents. This will
probably be the last of their savage customs to be abandoned
(_Report, 106_).
[Illustration: FIG. 177--Winter 1884-85--Winter camp; Tón-ak`á's
elopement.]
In 1886 it is officially stated that only nine Kiowa families were
living in houses, all the rest being in tipis (_Report, 107_).
The Anko calendar records the stealing of another man's wife by
Tón-ak`á, "Notched-tail," i. e. "Water-turtle," a noted medicine-man,
for which the woman was whipped and a number of Tón-ak`á's horses were
killed by the injured husband. The turtle below the winter mark
indicates the event.
SUMMER 1885
_Píhó K`ádó Sän_, "Little Peninsula sun dance," so called because it was
held in a peninsula formed by a bend of the Washita about twenty miles
above the agency; the same place where another dance, the _Píhó K`ádó_,
had been held in 1839. The figure on the Set-t'an calendar shows the
medicine lodge within the bend (see summer 1839). The figure on the Anko
calendar is intended to represent the medicine pole with the buffalo
head fastened below the forks.
[Illustration: FIG. 178--Summer 1885--Little Peninsula sun dance; Grass
payment.]
On this occasion Dohásän had to go to the Staked plain to find a buffalo
for the purpose. This dance was the first held by Taímete, the successor
of Set-dayá-ite. On this point the agent has to say:
I mentioned in my last report the fact that the annual medicine
dance of the Kiowa would not be held that year, and I expressed the
hope that they had abandoned it; but their old medicine man has
since died, and his successor, unfortunately a young man of little
ability or character, ordered that another be held this year. The
Comanche have no such ceremonial as an annual dance, and the other
tribes of the reservation have no medicine dance, but the Caddoes
frequently meet together and dance for enjoyment, as white people
do (_Report, 108_).
The Anko calendar notes that the Comanche received their first grass
money this summer, shown by the circles for dollars below the medicine
pole, but with nothing to indicate the tribe. The Kiowa did not make
leases until a year later. For some reason, perhaps on account of a
change of agents which occurred about this time, there is no notice of
this payment in the official report.
[Illustration: FIG. 179--Winter 1885-86--Camp burned.]
WINTER 1885-86
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