= Kiaways, Gallatin in Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, III, 402, 1853 (on
upper waters Arkansas).
= Kioway, Turner in Pac. R. R. Rep., III, pt. 3, 55, 80, 1856 (based
on the (Caigua) tribe only). Buschmann, Spuren der aztek. Sprache,
432, 433, 1859. Latham, EL. Comp. Phil., 444, 1862 (“more Paduca than
aught else”).
= Kayowe, Gatschet in Am. Antiq., 280, Oct., 1882 (gives phonetics
of).
Derivation: From the Kiowa word Kó-i, plural Kó-igu, meaning “Káyowe
man.” The Comanche term káyowe means “rat.”
The author who first formally separated this family appears to have been
Turner. Gallatin mentions the tribe and remarks that owing to the loss
of Dr. Say’s vocabularies “we only know that both the Kiowas and
Kaskaias languages were harsh, guttural, and extremely difficult.”[60]
Turner, upon the strength of a vocabulary furnished by Lieut. Whipple,
dissents from the opinion expressed by Pike and others to the effect
that the language is of the same stock as the Comanche, and, while
admitting that its relationship to Camanche is greater than to any other
family, thinks that the likeness is merely the result of long
intercommunication. His opinion that it is entirely distinct from any
other language has been indorsed by Buschmann and other authorities. The
family is represented by the Kiowa tribe.
[Footnote 60: Trans. and Coll. Am. Antiq. Soc., 1836, vol. II,
p. 133.]
So intimately associated with the Comanches have the Kiowa been since
known to history that it is not easy to determine their pristine home.
By the Medicine Creek treaty of October 18, 1867, they and the Comanches
were assigned their present reservation in the Indian Territory, both
resigning all claims to other territory, especially their claims and
rights in and to the country north of the Cimarron River and west of the
eastern boundary of New Mexico.
The terms of the cession might be taken to indicate a joint ownership of
territory, but it is more likely that the Kiowa territory adjoined the
Comanche on the northwest. In fact Pope[61] definitely locates the Kiowa
in the valley of the Upper Arkansas, and of its tributary, the Purgatory
(Las Animas) River. This is in substantial accord with the statements of
other writers of about the same period. Schermerhorn (1812) places the
Kiowa on the heads of the Arkansas and Platte. Earlier still they appear
upon the headwaters of the Platte, which is the region assigned them
upon the map.[62] This region was occupied later by the Cheyenne and
Arapaho of Algonquian stock.
[Footnote 61: Pac. R. R. Rep., 1855, vol. 2, pt. 3, p. 16.]
[Footnote 62: Pike, Exp. to sources of the Mississippi, App., 1810,
pt. 3, p. 9.]
_Population._--According to the United States census for 1890 there are
1,140 Kiowa on the Kiowa, Comanche, and Wichita Reservation, Indian
Territory.