The Calendar History of Kiowa Indians (Illustrated Edition). James Mooney

1; Clark, 2.) A similar story is related to account for the origin of one of the bands of the Dakota. Among wandering hunters disputes in regard to the possession or division of game have always been the most potent causes of separations and tribal wars.

      In regard to the dissatisfied band that went to the north, the Kiowa have a fixed belief that their lost kindred, whom they call Azä´tañhop ("those who went away dissatisfied on account of the udder"), are still in existence beyond the mountains somewhere to the north or northwest of their old home, where they still speak the old Kiowa language. They assert as positively that they have no relatives in any other quarter, east, west, or south. Several stories are current in the tribe in support of this belief. One woman, now about 80 years of age, when a child was taken by her father with others on a visit to their old friends, the Crows, and says that while there they met a white trader from the north, who addressed them in the Kiowa tongue, which he said he learned from a tribe living farther north, which spoke the Kiowa language. Again, they say that when the Nez Percés (´dalkatóigo, "people with hair cut round across the forehead"), who had been brought down as prisoners to Indian Territory, visited them in 1883, they told the Kiowa that they knew a people who lived in the "white mountains" west of the old home of the Nez Percés in Idaho, and who spoke a language similar to Kiowa. Whatever weight we may attach to these stories, they at least offer a suggestion concerning the direction in which the linguistic affinity of the Kiowa is to be sought.

      Bearing on the subject of the early habitat of the tribe, it may further be stated that, while making a collection among the Kiowa a few years ago, the author obtained from them a small cradle which is essentially different from any now in use among the Kiowa or any other of the well-known prairie tribes, in that the buckskin covering is attached directly to a solid board back, which is elaborately carved and painted in the style characteristic of the tribes of the Columbia and the northwest coast. On asking the old woman who made it, where she had obtained the idea, she replied that it was the kind the Kiowa used to make a very long time ago. On showing it afterward to Dr Washington Matthews, the distinguished ethnologist and anatomist, he expressed the opinion that such a cradle would produce a flattened skull. It is now in the National Museum at Washington.

      Early Alliance with the Crows

       Table of Contents

      The leading facts in the traditional history of the Kiowa are those of their early residence at the extreme head of the Missouri and their subsequent removal to the east and alliance with the Crows. It is impossible to assign any definite date to this early migration from the mountain country, but it was probably about or before 1700. It was subsequent to the separation of the Crows from the Hidatsa, an event which probably took place before the end of the seventeenth century (Matthews, 2; Clark, 3), and it must have been long before the discovery of the Black Hills by the Dakota, which, according to a calendar of that people, occurred in 1775 (Mallery, 2). The present tai-me or sun-dance "medicine" of the Kiowa was obtained from the Crows while the two tribes were neighbors in the north, at a date probably very near 1765. It is probable that scarcity of game or severity of climate had much to do with their original removal from the head of the Missouri, but it is worthy of note that in all their wanderings the Kiowa have never, for any long period, entirely abandoned the mountains. After making friends with the Crows, they established themselves in the Black Hills until driven out by the invading Dakota and Cheyenne, and now for seventy years or more they have had their main headquarters in the Wichita mountains.

      The northern Arapaho, now living on a reservation in Wyoming, have distinct recollection of this former northern residence of the Kiowa, with whom in the old times they were on terms of intimate friendship. While visiting them in 1892 they informed the author that when they first knew the Kiowa that tribe lived about the Three forks of the Missouri, near where are now Gallatin and Virginia City, Montana. This information, obtained from old men without the use of leading questions, and with the aid of good maps, tallies exactly with the earliest tradition of the Kiowa tribe. They say further that the Kiowa moved down from the mountains and eastward along the Yellowstone in company with the Crows, and then turned southeastward to about the present neighborhood of Fort Robinson, Nebraska, where they parted with the Crows and continued southward. "Plenty-poles," then nearly ninety years of age, first met the Kiowa when he was a small boy on the head of the North Platte, west of the present town of Cheyenne, Wyoming.

      The friendship between the Kiowa and the Crows was close and intimate, in spite of occasional quarrels, and continued after the Kiowa had entirely removed from the north and established themselves on the Arkansas. They made common cause against the invading Dakota and Cheyenne from the east, by whom they were finally dispossessed. As already stated, the Kiowa obtained their present tai-me or sun-dance medicine from the Crows, and the sacred arrow lance of Tängúadal's family came originally from the same source. For a long time after removing from the north it was a frequent occurrence for Kiowa fathers to make visits to the Crows and leave with that tribe their young children for two or three years in order that they might learn the Crow language and thus help to preserve the old friendship. There are still several old people among the Kiowa who have a considerable Crow vocabulary acquired in this way. Conversely, the northern Arapaho state that the Crows refer to the Kiowa as their relatives, and that some of them speak a little of the language acquired during similar visits to the south.

      The Associated Kiowa Apache

       Table of Contents

      Incorporated with the Kiowa, and forming a component part of their tribal circle, is a small tribe of Athapascan stock, commonly known as Apache or Kiowa Apache, but calling themselves Nadiisha Dena. They are not a detached band of the Apache tribe proper of Arizona, as has commonly been supposed, but came down with the Kiowa from the north, and neither tribe has any tradition of a time when they were not associated. They will be spoken of at length later on. This ancient Athapascan alliance is another link in the chain connecting the Kiowa with the far north.

      The Historical Period

       Table of Contents

Possession of the Black Hills

       Table of Contents

      We come now to more definite historic ground. Situated east of the Crows, the Kiowa took possession of the Black Hills (Sádalkáñi K`op, "stomach-rind, i. e., 'manifold,' mountains"), and having by this time procured some horses, began to make raids on the Spanish frontiers to the south, while they established a friendly trade and intercourse with the Arikara and Mandan on the Missouri. They are mentioned under the name of Cargua (for Caigua) in a Spanish document of 1732, and again as Caigua in 1735. In 1748 the Spanish historian Villaseñor mentions the "Cayguas," in connection with Comanche, Apache, Navaho, and Ute, as among the hostile tribes of New Mexico (see the synonymy). It will be remembered that the greater portion of what is now Colorado was included with New Mexico under Spanish domination. If, as seems possible, they are identical with the Manrhoat or Manrhout of La Salle, allies of the Gattacka (Kiowa Apache), our knowledge of the tribe would go back to 1682. They continued to occupy the Black Hills until about the close of the last century, when they were driven out by the Dakota advancing from the east, and by the Cheyenne who crossed the Missouri from the northeast. The same pressure drove their old allies, the Crows, farther westward.

      The northern Cheyenne informed Grinnell that on first coming into their present country they had found the region between the Yellowstone and Cheyenne rivers, including the Black Hills, in possession of the Kiowa and Comanche (?), whom they drove out and forced to the south. When the author