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.
Although the Kiowa had no horses until they came down from the mountains
and settled near the Crows, it is probable that they obtained some very
soon afterward, probably from their friends the Crows. La Salle, in
1682, states that the Gattacka (Kiowa Apache) and Manrhoat (Kiowa?) had
then plenty of horses, which he says they had probably stolen from New
Mexico (_Margry, 1_).
The notice in Villaseñor would indicate that they were able to mount
some of their warriors as early as 1748, as it is hardly probable that
they would have been able to attract attention by their inroads so far
south as the Spanish settlements if their warriors had been obliged to
travel entirely on foot. With some tribes, however, notably the Pawnee,
it was a frequent practice for the warriors to go out on foot,
returning, if successful, mounted on the horses taken from their
enemies. Horses must also have been taken by the Kiowa from the
Comanche, who lived south of them in the territory adjoining the Spanish
possessions, and with whom the Kiowa were then at war. In the beginning
of the present century we find the Kiowa mentioned as possessing large
herds of horses, which they traded with the Arikara and Mandan for
European goods.
Horace Jones, interpreter at Fort Sill, states that at a council held at
Fort Cobb in 1868, Ten-bears, an old Comanche chief, scored the Kiowa
for their constant raids into Mexico and Texas in spite of their
promises to the government to cease such practices, saying to the
assembled Kiowa, "When we first knew you, you had nothing but dogs and
sleds. Now you have plenty of horses, and where did you get them if they
were not stolen from Mexico?" This must be interpreted, however, from a
point of comparison of the Comanche, who have long been noted for the
number of their ponies. It was certainly a case of the pot calling the
kettle black, as the principal business of both tribes for generations,
until confined to a reservation, was that of raiding their southern
neighbors in order to obtain horses and captives. It is unnecessary to
dilate on the revolution made in the life of the Indian by the
possession of the horse. Without it he was a half-starved skulker in the
timber, creeping up on foot toward the unwary deer or building a brush
corral with infinite labor to surround a herd of antelope, and seldom
venturing more than a few days' journey from home. With the horse he was
transformed into the daring buffalo hunter, able to procure in a single
day enough food to supply his family for a year, leaving him free then
to sweep the plains with his war parties along a range of a thousand
miles.
INTERCOURSE AND WAR WITH THE COMANCHE
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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