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 old men who have most knowledge of this northern residence and
alliance with the Crows and Arikara say, after the Indian style of
chronology, that it was in the time when their grandfathers were young
men, and when they still had but few horses and commonly used dogs as
pack animals in traveling. One of the mythic legends of the tribe
accounts for the origin of the Black Hills (_Sádalkañi K`op_, "manifold
mountains"), and another deals with the noted Bear Lodge or Devil's
Tower (_Tsó-aí_, "tree rock," i. e., monument rock), near Sun Dance,
Wyoming, which they claim is within their old country. Beyond the
Yellowstone (_Tsósâ P'a_) they say lived the Blackfeet (_Tóñ-kóñko_,
"blackleg people") and the Arapaho Gros Ventres (_Bot-k`iägo_, "belly
people"). They knew also the Shoshoni (_Sondóta_, "grass houses"), who,
they say, formerly lived in houses of interwoven rushes or grass; the
Flatheads, the northern Arapaho, and of course the Dakota. It is
somewhat remarkable that they knew also the small tribe of Sarsi, living
on the Canadian side of the line at the source of the North
Saskatchewan, whom they describe accurately as a tribe living with the
Blackfeet and speaking a language resembling that of the Apache. They
call them _Pák`iägo_, which they render "stupid people," indicating the
tribe in the sign language by a sweeping motion of the right hand across
the thigh, perhaps from a confusion with _paki_, thigh. It is possible
that the name is not really of Kiowa origin, but is derived from _Päki_
or _Päkiani_, the Shoshoni name for the Blackfeet themselves. The Kiowa
call the Brulé Dakota _Pakí-gudălkantă_, "red-burnt thigh" people, with
the same gesture sign as for the Sarsi. Several prominent men of the
Kiowa tribe, among whom may be mentioned Gaápiatañ and Pátádal, are of
Sarsi descent. The maternal grandmother of the noted chief Setäñgya,
killed at Fort Sill in 1871, was a Sarsi woman who married a Kiowa man
during an interchange of friendly visits between the two tribes. By
reason of this Athapascan blood, those of Sarsi descent, including
Gaápiatañ, who is Setäñgya's nephew, consider themselves in a measure
related to the Kiowa Apache.
From the beginning the Kiowa say that they were usually on friendly
terms with the Crows, Arapaho, Arikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa, and, so far
as they can recollect, with the Shoshoni and Flatheads, the friendship
being interrupted, however, by occasional quarrels more or less serious.
They were frequently at war with the Cheyenne, and always, from their
first acquaintance, with the Dakota, Pawnee, and Ute. Their relations
with the southern tribes will be noted hereafter.
ACQUIREMENT OF HORSES
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