Wichita] village, on the bank of Red river, about 90 miles from the
Comanchee town. The dragoon regiment was drawn up within half a
mile or so of this village and encamped in a square, where we
remained three days. We found here a very numerous village
containing some five or six hundred wigwams, all made of long
prairie grass thatched over poles which are fastened in the ground
and bent in at the top, giving to them in distance the appearance
of straw beehives, as in plate 173 [figure 68 herein], which is an
accurate view of it, showing the Red river in front and the
"mountains of rocks" behind it. To our very great surprise we have
found these people cultivating quite extensive fields of corn
(maize), pumpkins, melons, beans, and squashes; so, with these aids
and an abundant supply of buffalo meat, they may be said to be
living very well (_Catlin, 6_).
The picture by Catlin gives a good idea of the location and a tolerable
idea of the peculiar conical grass houses of the Wichita, who have
always been noted as an agricultural tribe. As usual, however, he has
grossly overestimated their number, attributing to the village five or
six hundred houses, and to the Wichita and Kiowa eight to ten thousand
population. It is very doubtful if the two tribes, with all their
affiliated bands, ever numbered a total of twenty-five hundred. The
Wichita village may have had, all told, seventy or eighty houses. When
the author examined the ground, in 1893, the circular depressions where
the houses had stood were still regular in shape and plainly visible.
According to Wichita information, the village was called Kĭ´tskûkătû´k,
a name which seems to refer to its situation beside the mountain, and
was abandoned soon after 1834, when the tribe removed to a new location,
where Fort Sill is now located. From there they again removed to Rush
spring, about 25 miles farther east, where Marcy found them in 1852. The
mountains immediately about the site of the village visited by the
dragoons are still known to the Kiowa as _Do`gúat K`op_, "Wichita
mountains," the name not being applied by them to the more eastern
portion of the range.
[Illustration: FIG. 68--Kĭ´tskûkătû´k, the Wichita village on Northfork
in 1834 (after Catlin)]
The meeting with the Wichita threatened at the start to be hostile.
Having learned that they had in their possession a captive white boy,
Colonel Dodge demanded that he be surrendered. They repeatedly
denied having any knowledge of the boy or the circumstances attending
his capture until, being convinced by the sight of their own children
brought back by the dragoons that the intentions of the white
visitors were friendly, they produced him.
An order was immediately given for the Pawnee and Kiowa girls to be
brought forward. They were in a few minutes brought into the
council house, when they were at once recognized by their friends
and relatives, who embraced them with the most extravagant
expressions of joy and satisfaction. The heart of the venerable
chief was melted at this evidence of the white man's friendship,
and he rose upon his feet, and taking Colonel Dodge in his arms
and, placing his left cheek against the left cheek of the colonel,
held him for some minutes without saying a word, whilst tears were
flowing from his eyes. He then embraced each officer in turn in the
same silent and affectionate manner, which form took half an hour
or more before it was completed.
From this moment the council, which before had been a very grave
and uncertain one, took a pleasing and friendly turn, and this
excellent old man ordered the women to supply the dragoons with
something to eat, as they were hungry. The little encampment, which
heretofore was in a woeful condition, having eaten up their last
rations twelve hours before, were now gladdened by the approach of
a number of women who brought their "back loads" of dried buffalo
meat and green corn, and threw it down amongst them. This seemed
almost like a providential deliverance, for the country between
here and the Comanchees was entirely destitute of game and our last
provisions were consumed.
The council thus proceeded successfully and pleasantly for several
days, whilst the warriors of the Kiowas and Wicos [Wacos], two
adjoining and friendly tribes living farther to the west, were
arriving, and also a great many from other bands of the Comanchees,
who had heard of our arrival, until two thousand or more of these
wild and fearless-looking fellows were assembled, and all, from
their horses' backs, with weapons in hand, were looking into our
pitiful little encampment of two hundred men, all in a state of
dependence and almost literal starvation, and at the same time
nearly one-half the number too sick to have made a successful
resistance if we were to have been attacked (_Catlin, 7_).
The result of the council was that a large delegation from the allied
tribes returned with the troops to Fort Gibson, where arrangements were
made for the subsequent treaties of 1835 and 1837, as already described,
which mark the beginning of the modern history of the Kiowa, Comanche,
Wichita, and affiliated bands.
The Wichita, as well as the Kiowa, still remember this friendly meeting.
Nasthoe, a Wichita chief, in giving testimony in 1894 in regard to the
location of the old village, said: "I was told that the white people and
the Osage and the Kidi-ki-tashe [Wichita] came to that old village,
where they lived and brought that girl and boy, and inside of one of
those tipis they had made a feast among themselves, and the soldiers had
fired their guns around there. The meaning of that was a peace" (_Greer
County, 1_).
While with this expedition Catlin painted a number of portraits, the
first on record from these tribes. He has this to say of his Kiowa
subjects:
The head chief of the Kioways, whose name is Teh-toot-sah [Dohásän,
see page 175], we found to be a very gentlemanly and high-minded
man, who treated the dragoons and officers with great kindness
while in his country. His long hair, which was put up in several
large clubs and ornamented with a great many silver brooches,
extended quite down to his knees. This distinguished man, as well
as several others of his tribe, have agreed to join us on the march
to Fort Gibson, so I shall have much of their company yet, and
probably much more to say of them at a future period. Bon-son-gee
(The New Fire) [Bohón-kóñkya, Black-cap], is another chief of this
tribe, and called a very good man; the principal ornaments which he
carried on his person were a boar's tusk and his war whistle, which
were hanging on his breast. Quay-ham-kay (The Stone Shell) is
another fair specimen of the warriors of this tribe ...
Wun-pan-to-mee (The White Weasel) [Gunpü´ñdamä´,
Medicine-tied-to-tipi-pole], a girl, and Tunk-aht-oh-ye (The
Thunderer), a boy, who are brother and sister, are two Kioways who
were purchased from the Osages, to be taken to their tribe by the
dragoons. The girl was taken the whole distance with us, on
horseback, to the Pawnee village, and there delivered to her
friends, as I have before mentioned; and the fine little boy was
killed at the fur trader's house, on the banks of the Verdigris,
near Fort Gibson, the day after I painted his portrait, and only a
few days before he was to have started with us on the march. He was
a beautiful boy of nine or ten years of age, and was killed by a
ram, which struck him in the abdomen, and knocking him against a
fence, killed him instantly. Kots-a-to-ah (The Smoked Shield) is
another of the extraordinary men of this tribe, near 7 feet in
stature, and distinguished not only as one of the greatest
warriors, but the swiftest on foot in the nation. This man, it is
said, runs down a buffalo on foot, and slays it with his knife or
his lance as he runs by its side! (_Catlin, 8_).
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. LXXVI
BÓHON-KÓÑKYA, "QUAYHAMKAY," GUNPÄÑDÂMÄ, AND "KOTSATOAH" (AFTER CATLIN)]
Two of those mentioned by Catlin--Dohásän and Bóhón-kóñkya--were signers
of the first Kiowa treaty, in 1837, and are still well remembered, as is
also the girl, Gunpä´ñdamä´. The other names are too badly mangled to be
identified, and the memory of the swift runner seems to have utterly
perished.
WINTER 1834-35
[Illustration: FIG. 69--Winter 1834-35--Bull-tail killed.]
_Pá-tón Ehótal-de Sai_, "Winter that Bull-tail was killed." He was
killed by the Mexicans. The figure above the winter sign has a blood
spot upon the body to represent the wound, while the erect cue from the
head indicates his name.
[Illustration: FIG. 70--Summer 1835--Cat-tail rush sun dance.]
The Kiowa had made their winter camp on the Washita, when a war party
set out against the _Toñhéñ-t'a`ká-i_ (Mexicans of the waterless
country), or Chihuahuans. Having started late, they camped all winter at
a mountain toward the southern edge of the Staked plain, known as
_Déngyä-kóñ K`op_, or "Black-ice mountain." One morning in the early
spring, while several men were out looking for their ponies, they were
suddenly surrounded by the Mexicans and all killed, including Pa-ton,
who was shot through the body. Their comrades saw the fight from a
distance, but, being outnumbered and therefore afraid to come near to
help them, they got away as soon as they could.
SUMMER 1835
_Donpä K`ádó_, "Cat-tail rush sun dance." This was the first sun dance
held by the Kiowa after the recovery of the _taíme_ from the Osages,
already narrated, and is thus distinguished because it was held at a
place where a great many cat-tail rushes (_Equisetum arvense_) were
growing on the south bank of North Canadian river, at the Red hills,
about 30 miles above the present Fort Reno, Oklahoma. The soft white
portion of the lower part of the stalk of this rush is eaten raw by the
Indians with great relish. The picture above the medicine lodge
represents the _taíme_ _bíĭmkâ-í_ or rawhide box in which the _taíme_ is
kept.
It was immediately after this dance that a war party of Kiowa made the
raid far down toward the coast in which they captured Bóiñ-edal
(Big-blond), now the oldest captive in the tribe. This man, sometimes
known to the whites as Kiowa Dutch, was born in Germany and is now,
according to his own account, about 70 years of age. He remembers having
gone to school in Germany as a small boy, and came to this country, when
about 8 or 9 years of age, with his father, stepmother, and an elder
brother. He describes the place where they located as being a small
settlement on a large river, up which ships could sail, where there were
alligators and trees with long moss, and which was within a day's ride
of the sea. The people were engaged in raising cotton, his family being
the only Germans. From other evidence it seems to have been about
Matagorda or Galveston bay, showing that the Kiowa carried their raids
in this direction even to the coast. Within a year of their coming, and
before he had learned English, a Kiowa war party attacked the settlement
at night, carried off himself, his mother, and his brother, and probably
killed his father; his mother was taken in another direction and he
never saw her again; she was afterward ransomed by Tométe, the trader
already mentioned; his brother committed suicide during the cholera
epidemic of 1849; Bóiñ-edal is still with the tribe. As his name
indicates, he is a typical German in appearance, and still remembers a
few words of his mother language, besides having a fair knowledge of
English and Spanish, although he does not remember his own name or
birthplace. It was about the same time that the Comanche raided Barker's
fort, on the Navasota, in eastern Texas, and carried off the girl
Cynthia Parker, who afterward became the mother of Quanah, the present
chief of the tribe. The story of these captives may have a hundred
parallels among the three confederated tribes.
[FIG. 71--Winter 1835-36--Big-face killed]
WINTER 1835-36
Tó`-edalte (Big-face) was shot through the body and killed by the
Mexicans while on a raid into old Mexico. This is Set-t'an's statement,
which is borne out by the picture of a man, whose name is indicated by
the figure of a big head or face above. Other informants, however, deny
any knowledge of such a man, and in the notes accompanying the Scott
calendar he is called Wolf-hair. The gunshot wound is indicated in the
ordinary way.
SUMMER 1836
_Gui P a K`ádó_, "Wolf-river sun dance." The figure of a wolf or coyote
above the medicine lodge indicates that the dance was held on _Gui P a_
or Wolf river, i. e., Wolf-creek fork of the North Canadian. Soon after
the dance the Kiowa moved to another camp north of the Arkansas, while
the Kiñep band went on to pay a social visit to the Crows and buy from
them ermine and elk teeth for ornamenting their buckskin shirts and the
dresses of the women. After they had gone, those who remained behind
were attacked in their camp by the whole Cheyenne tribe, but the Kiowa
threw up breastworks and defended themselves until their assailants were
compelled to retire.
[Illustration: FIG. 72--Summer 1836--Wolf-river sun dance]
WINTER 1836-37
_K`íñähíate Ehótal-de Sai_, "Winter that K`íñähíate was killed."
K`íñähíate ("Man") was killed in an expedition against the
_Ä´-t'á`ká-i_, "Timber Mexicans," or Mexicans of Tamaulipas and the
lower Rio Grande. The tribe was camped on upper Red river at the time.
The name is indicated by a small figure of a man above a similar larger
figure, with which it is connected by a line, the death wound being
indicated on the lower figure. No better illustration of the wide range
of the Kiowa could be given than the fact that while one band was thus
raiding in Mexico another, as we have just seen, was visiting upon the
upper Missouri.
[Illustration: FIG. 73--Winter 1836-37--K`íñähíate killed]
SUMMER 1837
_Säk`ota Ä´otón-de Pai_, "Summer that the Cheyenne were massacred," or
_Á`k`ádo Pai_, "Wailing sun-dance summer." The figure is the
conventional Indian symbol for a battle, with the party attacked
defending themselves behind breastworks thrown up in the sand, and the
arrows flying among them; below the main figure is another of a man
wearing a war bonnet. Compare the battle pictographs from the Dakota
calendars as given by Mallery (figure 75).
[Illustration: FIG. 74-Summer 1837--Cheyenne massacred]
At the time of the fight the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache were camped
upon a small tributary of Scott creek (_Pohón-ä P'a_, "Walnut creek"),
an upper branch of the North fork of Red river, southward from the
present Port Elliott in the panhandle of Texas. It was in early summer,
and they were preparing for the sun dance; a young man was out alone
straightening arrows when he saw two men creeping up, with grass over
their faces. Thinking they were Kiowa deer hunters, he advanced to meet
them, when they fired and wounded him and his horse; he fled back to
camp and gave the alarm, and Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache rushed out in
pursuit. They soon came up with a small party of the enemy, who proved
to be Cheyenne. The Kiowa and their allies killed three of them there,
and following the fugitives killed several others; continuing along the
trail down the north side of the creek to a short distance below its
junction with Sweetwater, they came upon the main camp of the Cheyenne,
who dug holes in the sand and made a good defense, but were at last all
killed except one, who strangled himself with a rope to avoid capture.
The bodies of the dead Cheyenne, 48 in number, were scalped, stripped,
and laid along the ground in a row by the victors. Six Kiowa were
killed, including the grandfather of the present Lone-wolf. T'ébodal,
the oldest man now in the tribe, was engaged in this encounter.
[Illustration: FIG. 75--Battle pictures (from the Dakota calendars)]
Set-t´an states that one Cheyenne wearing a war bonnet was killed as he
came out of a tipi (see figure 271). Other informants do not remember
this, but say that the Kiowa captured a fine medicine lance in a
feathered case, and also a _pabón_ or Dog-soldier staff, of the kind
carried by those who were pledged to die at their post. The stream where
the battle took place is since, called _Sä´k`ota Ä´otón-de P'a_, "Creek
where the Cheyennes were massacred." The summer of the occurrence is
sometimes called _Á'k`ádá Pai_, "Wailing sun-dance summer," because,
although the Kiowa wailed for their dead, the sun dance was not on that
account abandoned.
WINTER 1837-38
_A´daltem Etkúegán-de Sai_, "Winter that they dragged the head." The
figure above the winter mark shows a horseman carrying a bloody scalp
upon a lance and dragging a bloody head at the end of a reata.
Three Comanche, two men and a woman, were camped alone one night in a
tipi on the Clear fork of the Brazos (_Ä´sese P'a_, "Wooden-arrowpoint
river"), in Texas, when one of them noticed somebody raise the door-flap
and then quickly drop it again; he told the others, and as silently and
swiftly as possible they ran out, and jumping over a steep bank of the
creek hid themselves just a moment before their enemies returned and
fired into the vacated tipi. The Comanche returned the fire from their
hiding place and then made their escape to a Kiowa camp near by. In the
morning the Kiowa returned to the spot, together with the Comanche, and
found a dead Arapaho lying where he had been shot; they scalped and
beheaded him, and brought the head into camp dragging at the end of a
reata. The old German captive, Bóiñ-edal, then a little boy and who had
been with the Indians about two years, witnessed this barbarous
spectacle and still remembers the thrill of horror which it sent through
him.
[Illustration: FIG. 76--Winter 1837-38--Head dragged.]
SUMMER 1838
_Gúi-p'ágya Sä´k`ota Ĭmdóhä´pa-de Pai_, "Summer that the Cheyenne
attacked the camp on "Wolf river." The combined warriors of the Cheyenne
and Arapaho organized a great war party against the Kiowa, Comanche, and
Apache, to revenge the defeats of the previous two years. They attacked
the camps of the three confederated tribes on Wolf creek (_Gui P'a_), a
short distance above where that stream joins Beaver creek and forms the
North Canadian, in Oklahoma. They killed several women who were out
digging roots and some men whom they found out on the prairie after
buffalo, but were unable to take the camp, as the Kiowa and their allies
sheltered themselves in holes dug in the ground so as to form a circular
breastwork. Among others the Kiowa lost Gui-k`ate and several other
distinguished men.
[Illustration: FIG. 77--Summer 1838--Attacked by Cheyenne.]
The figure shows the warriors of the three confederate tribes, indicated
by the three tipis, within the breastwork, with the bullets and arrows
flying toward them, the bullets (from which it is evident that the
Cheyenne had some guns) being represented by black dots with wavy lines
streaming behind to indicate the motion.
WINTER 1838-39
While the Kiowa were all together in their winter camp some who had gone
out upon the prairie discovered a party approaching. They returned and
gave the alarm, upon which all the warriors went out and attacked the
strangers, who proved to be Arapaho, killing them all. Set-t'an's
father, Tĕn-píäk`ia ("Heart-eater"), was wounded in the leg in this
fight, as indicated by the figure of a man, with blood flowing from a
wound in the leg, below the battle picture.
[Illustration: _Fig._ 78--Winter 1838-39--Battle with Arapaho.]
SUMMER 1839
_Píhó K`ádó_, "Peninsula sun dance." The peninsula or bend is indicated
by a line bending around the medicine lodge. The dance is thus
designated because held in the _píhó_, or peninsula, on the south side
of the Washita, a short distance below Walnut creek, within the present
limits of the reservation. This dance simply serves as a tally date, as
nothing of more special interest is recorded for the summer. It would
seem that the incursions of the Cheyenne and Arapaho had prevented the
usual holding of the _k`ádó_ for the two preceding years.
[Illustration: Fig. 79--Summer 1839--Peninsula sun dance.]
WINTER 1839-4O
_Tä´dalkop Sai_, "Smallpox winter." The Kiowa were ravaged by the
smallpox, the second visitation of that disease within their memory, the
first having been in 1818. The disease is indicated in the conventional
Indian manner by means of the figure of a man covered with red spots
(compare figures from Mallery's Dakota calendar; see also 1861-62 and
1892). It was brought by some visiting Osage, and spread at once through
the Kiowa, Apache, and Comanche, killing a great number in each tribe.
The Kiowa and Apache fled to the Staked plain to escape it, and the
Comanche in some other direction.
[Illustration: _Fig._ 80--Winter 1839-40--Smallpox.]
This was the great smallpox epidemic which began on the upper Missouri
in the summer of 1837 and swept the whole plains north and south,
destroying probably a third, if not more, of the native inhabitants,
some whole tribes being nearly exterminated. The terribly fatal result
of smallpox among Indians is due largely to the fact that their only
treatment for this disease and for measles, both of which came to them
from the whites, is the sweat bath followed by the cold plunge. In this
instance the disease first broke out among the passengers of a steamer
in the Missouri river above Fort Leavenworth, and although every effort
was made to warn the Indians by sending runners in advance, the sickness
was communicated to them. It appeared first among the Mandan about the
middle of July, 1837, and practically destroyed that tribe, reducing
them in a few weeks from about sixteen hundred to thirty-one souls.
Their neighboring and allied tribes, the Arikara and Minitarí, were
reduced immediately after from about four thousand to about half that
number. The artist Catlin gives a melancholy account of the despair and
destruction of the Mandan.
[Illustration: _Fig._ 81--Smallpox (from the Dakota calendars)]
From the Mandan it spread to the north and west among the Crows,
Asiniboin, and Blackfeet. Among the last named it is estimated to have
destroyed from six to eight thousand (_Clark, 13_). As the plains tribes
were then almost unknown to the general government, we find little of
all this in the official reports beyond the mention that over sixty
lodges of Yanktonais Dakota--perhaps four hundred persons--died by this
disease about the same time (_Report, 75_). In 1838 it reached the
Pawnee, being communicated by some Dakota prisoners captured by them, in
the spring of that year. From the best information it seems probable
that at least two thousand Pawnee perished (_Clark, 14_), about double
the whole population of the tribe today. It probably continued southward
through the Osage until it reached the Kiowa and Comanche the next year,
although it is possible that it may have come more directly from the
east through the emigrating Chickasaw, who brought it with them to
Indian Territory in the spring of 1838 (_Report, 76_). We learn (_Gregg,
6_) that the disease ravaged New Mexico in the spring of 1840 and was
again carried east to the frontiers of the United States by the Santa Fé
traders.
SUMMER 184O
[Illustration: FIG. 82--Summer 1840--Red-bluff sun dance.]
_Gúadal Dóhá K`údó_, "Red-bluff sun dance," so called because held at
_Gúadal Dóha_ on the north side of the South Canadian, about the mouth
of Mustang creek, in the panhandle of Texas. The (red) figure over the
medicine lodge is intended to represent the "red bluff." The Red hills
on the North Canadian above Fort Reno are called by the same name, but
distinguished by the prefix _Sä´k`odal_, "Cheyenne."
The prominent event of this summer was the peace made by the Arapaho and
Cheyenne with the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache--a peace which, with
trifling interruptions, has been kept to this day. According to the
Kiowa account, the first overtures were made by the Cheyenne, who sent
two delegates with proposals, but the Kiowa were suspicious and sent
them back. The Cheyenne then made a second attempt, with more success,
and a peace was concluded. The Arapaho were included in this treaty,
but, as the Kiowa say, had always been in doubtful friendship, even when
their allies, the Cheyenne, were at war with the Kiowa. On the occasion
of the notable massacre of Cheyenne, in 1837, the Arapaho were camped
with the Kiowa and left to give the alarm to their friends. This agrees
with the conduct of the Arapaho in more recent times in remaining
neutral while their Cheyenne confederates were at war with the whites.
WINTER 1840-41