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.
At this critical juncture a young medicine-man named Ĭ´sätaí arose
among the Kwáhadi Comanche--the wildest and most intractable portion of
the tribe--with claims of supernatural powers. He asserted his ability
to cure all diseases and to restore the dead to life, and said that he
had been taken up repeatedly into the home of the Father of the Indians,
above the sun and far above the abode of the white man's God, and that
there he had been given control of the elements, with power to send
rain, wind, thunder, lightning, or drought upon the earth as he pleased.
What was most to the purpose, he promised to protect all who should
believe in him, as he could produce cartridges in unlimited quantities
from his stomach for his friends, and could so influence the guns of the
whites, and particularly of the soldiers, that they would not shoot
Indians, even though the latter stood in front of the muzzles. It was
the old story of the Indian medicine-man that has been familiar from the
time of the Shawano prophet to the messiah of the ghost dance.
His words created great excitement among the Comanche, nearly all of
whom believed him. Some of his deluded followers asserted that they had
themselves seen him ascend into the sky and again descend to earth, and
at another time had seen him produce from his stomach nearly a wagon
load of cartridges. Finally he commanded the tribe to assemble in May,
1874, at the junction of Elk creek (_Donä´i P'a_, "Pecan river") with
the North fork of Red river, to see the proofs of his mission and to
hear his message to the people. So great an impression had his fame
produced by this time that even the friendly chiefs attended, as well as
the main body of the Cheyenne and a part of the Kiowa. This was a new
departure for the Comanche, who, according to all authorities, had never
before "made medicine" as a tribe (_Report, 36_; _Battey, 5_).
On assembling at the designated spot the Indians were harangued by
the medicine-man, who told them that their god commanded them to
avenge their murdered kindred. Accordingly a party was made up to
go to Texas and kill the Tonkawa, who, as has been stated, were
cannibals, for which reason, and for the additional one that they
constantly served as scouts against the other Indians, they were
regarded with common hatred by all the tribes. Learning of the
proposed expedition, Agent Haworth warned the commander of Fort
Griffin, near which post the Tonkawa were located, who had them
removed to the post for safety. This being reported to the
confederate tribes by their spies, they changed their program and
decided to go out on the plains and kill the buffalo hunters at
Adobe Walls.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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