Part 3

The Gâ´igwŭ´ or Kiowa, although originating in the far north, have been known for the last sixty years as one of the principal and most predatory tribes of the southern plains. Their linguistic affinity is still uncertain, the language apparently having no connection with that of any other tribe. This uncertainty, however, is due largely to the paucity of the linguistic material thus far collected from them, and to the fact that philologists have made the comparison with the languages of the southern tribes, with whom the Kiowa were found most closely associated, rather than with that of tribes nearer the Canadian border, whence they have drifted to the south. Another thing which serves to render comparison difficult is the fact that the Kiowa have the custom of dropping from the language any word which suggests the name of a person recently deceased, and substituting for the tabooed word another which will convey the same idea. The old word may be restored after a term of years, but it frequently happens that the new one keeps its place and the original word is entirely forgotten. The change is a new combination of existing roots, or a new use of an existing word, rather than the deliberate invention of a new word, although in some instances words seem to be borrowed for this purpose from existing languages. The same custom exists to a limited degree among the Comanche, who may have adopted it in consequence of their association with the Kiowa, and perhaps among other tribes. With the Kiowa it is carried to such an extent that old men sometimes remember as many as three names which have been used in chronologic succession for the same object. Further linguistic investigation may result in establishing their affinity with the Athapascan, northern Shoshonean, or Salishan tribes.

TRIBAL NAMES

_Kiowa_, the name by which the tribe is commonly known to the whites, is from the softened Comanche form of the name by which they call themselves, Gâ´igwŭ´ (see the glossary). It is claimed by one or two old men that Gâ´igwŭ´ was not originally their proper name, but a foreign name adopted by the tribe, and untranslatable in their own language. However that may be, it is now, in its root form, _Gâi_, synonymous with Kiowa, whether applied to the individual, language, territory, or utensils of the tribe. It is also the name of one of their recognized tribal divisions. Ancient names used to designate themselves are _Kwú'dă´_ and afterward _Tépdă´_, both names signifying "coming out," perhaps in allusion to their mystic origin. These two names are known now only to their oldest men. They sometimes refer to themselves as _Kómpabíăntă_, or people of the "large tipi flaps," although, so far as observation goes, their tipis are not peculiar in this respect. Their name for Indians in general is _Gíăguádaltágâ_, "people of the red flesh." Among other tribes they are called by various names, the best known being the Dakota or Cheyenne form _Witapähätu_, of doubtful translation. The tribal sign, a quick motion of the hand past the right cheek, they explain as referring to a former custom of cutting the hair on that side on a level with the ear.

GENESIS AND MIGRATION

According to Kiowa mythology, which has close parallels among other tribes, their first ancestors emerged from a hollow cottonwood log at the bidding of a supernatural progenitor. They came out one at a time as he tapped upon the log until it came to the turn of a pregnant woman, who stuck fast in the hole and thus blocked the way for those behind her so that they were unable to follow, which accounts for the small number of the Kiowa tribe. The same being gave them the sun, made the division of day and night, exterminated a number of malevolent monsters, and rendered the most ferocious animals harmless; he also taught them their simple hunting arts and finally left them to take his place among the stars. Other wonderful things were done for them by a supernatural boy hero, whose father was the son of the Sun and whose mother was an earthly woman. This boy afterward transformed himself into two, and finally gave himself to the Kiowa in eucharistic form as a tribal "medicine," which they still retain. Unlike the neighboring Cheyenne and Arapaho, who yet remember that they once lived east of the Missouri and cultivated corn, the Kiowa have no tradition of ever having been an agricultural people or anything but a tribe of hunters.

Leaving the mythic or genesis period, the earliest historic tradition of the Kiowa locates them in or beyond the mountains at the extreme sources of the Yellowstone and the Missouri, in what is now western Montana. They describe it as a region of great cold and deep snows, and say that they had the Flatheads (_´daltoñ-ká-igihä´go_, "compressed head people") near them, and that on the other side of the mountains was a large stream flowing westward, evidently an upper branch of the Columbia. These mountains they still call _Gá´i K'op_, "Kiowa mountains." Here, they say, while on a hunting expedition on one occasion, a dispute occurred between two rival chiefs over the possession of the udder of a female antelope, a delicacy particularly prized by Indians. The dispute grew into an angry quarrel, with the result that the chief who failed to secure the coveted portion left the party and withdrew with his band toward the northwest, while the rest of the tribe moved to the southeast, crossed the Yellowstone (_Tsósá P'a_, "pipe (?) stone river"), and continued onward until they met the Crows (_Gaă-k'íägo_, "crow people"), with whom they had hitherto been unacquainted. By permission of the Crows they took up their residence east of that tribe, with which they made their first alliance. Up to this time they had no horses, but used only dogs and the travois. For a while they continued to visit the mountains, but finally drifted out into the plains, where they first procured horses and became acquainted with the Arapaho and Cheyenne, and later with the Dakota.

Keim, writing in 1870, says that the Kiowa "claim that their primitive country was in the far north," from which they were driven out by wars, moving by the aid of dogs and dog sledges. "From the north they reached a river, now the south fork of the Platte. Their residence upon this river is within the recollection of the old men of the tribe. Not satisfied with the Platte country, they moved on across the Republican and Smoky Hill rivers until they reached the Arkansas. Thence they moved upon the headwaters of the Cimarron. Here they permanently located their council fire, and after much fighting secured control of all the country south of Arkansas river and north of the Wichita mountains and headwaters of Red river" (_Keim, 1_).

There can be no doubt as to the correctness of the main points of this tradition, which is corroborated by the testimony of the northern Arapaho and other tribes of that region. While to the ordinary reader the result of the quarrel may seem out of all due proportion to the cause, it will not appear so to anyone familiar with Indian life and thought. The savage is intellectually a child, and from the point of view of civilized man his history is shaped by trivial things, as will be sufficiently apparent from a study of the calendars. It is said that a war between the Delaware and Shawano originated in a dispute between two children concerning a grasshopper. The Crows themselves, according to their own story, separated from their kinsmen the Hidatsa or Minitari on the Missouri for a reason precisely like that of the Kiowa tradition--a quarrel between two chiefs over the proper division of a buffalo (_Matthews, 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

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 sundance 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

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

POSSESSION OF THE BLACK HILLS

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 was among the Dakota some years ago, they informed him that they had first known the Kiowa in the Black Hills, and had driven them out from that region. This is admitted by the Kiowa, who continued at war with the Dakota and Cheyenne until about 1840, when a permanent peace was made. It does not appear that the Arapaho had anything to do with this expulsion of the Kiowa, with whom they seem generally to have been on friendly terms, although at a later period we find them at war with the Kiowa, being probably drawn into hostilities through their connection with the Cheyenne. As is well known to ethnologists, the Dakota are comparatively recent immigrants from east of the Missouri. They first reached the Black Hills in 1775, as already stated, so that the final expulsion of the Kiowa must have occurred between that date and 1805, when Lewis and Clark found the Cheyenne in possession of the same region, the Cheyenne being then at war with the Dakota. Curiously enough, there is no note of this war on any of the several Dakota calendars covering this period, described and illustrated by Mallery, although we find a reference to the killing of a Kiowa in the winter of 1814-15.

THE EXTINCT K'ÚATO

The Kiowa have a better memory, and one of their old hero stories relates to the slaughter of an entire band of Kiowa by the Dakota. The ill-fated band was called the _K'úato_, a name signifying "pulling up, or pulling out" from the ground or from a hole, being indicated in the sign language by the motion of "pulling up" with one or both hands. According to the story the Kiowa, apparently nearly the whole tribe together, were attacked by an overwhelming body of the Dakota. Finding resistance hopeless, they fled, but the chief of the K'úato urged his people not to run, "because if they did their relatives in the other world would not receive them." Inspired to desperate courage by his words, the K'úato faced the enemy and were all killed where they stood, excepting one woman who had fled with the others. According to Te'bodal, who was born about 1817 and is now the oldest man in the tribe, this massacre took place when his grandfather was a young man, perhaps about 1770. Te'bodal himself remembered having seen the single woman survivor. It is said that the K'úato spoke a peculiar dialect of the Kiowa language, although recognized as a part of the tribe, and were noted for doing foolish and ridiculous things, a statement borne out by the story of their extermination.

INTERCOURSE WITH THE ARIKARA, MANDAN, AND HIDATSA.

Next to the Crows, the Kiowa have most to say of their friendship in these old days with the Arikara (Ree), Mandan, and Hidatsa or Minitari on Missouri river. For many years these three confederated tribes, now reduced to about 1,100 souls in all, have occupied jointly a single village on the northeastern bank of Missouri river, in the vicinity of old Fort Berthold, about opposite Knife river, in North Dakota. In 1805 the three tribes, with a small subtribe, now extinct, occupied eight villages, with a total population of nearly 6,000 souls. The Arikara were then considerably farther down the river, while the others were nearly in their present position. From the fact that Grand river, South Dakota, is known to the Dakota as Arikara river it is probable that the Arikara formerly had their residence there for a long period. In habits and home life the three tribes are almost identical, being sedentary agriculturists, living in substantial earth-covered log houses; but in language they are quite distinct. The Arikara or Ree are a branch, of the Pawnee and speak a dialect of that language; the Hidatsa, Grosventres, or Minitari were formerly a part of the Crows and speak a dialect of that language; while the language of the Mandan is distinct from either of the others, although remotely cognate with the Hidatsa. They are mentioned prominently by every traveler in that region during the last century, the best description of them being given by Matthews in his work on the Hidatsa.

The definite recollection which the Kiowa have of these tribes shows that they must have been very intimate with them in former times, especially with the Arikara, whom they call _K'át'á_, "biters," designating them in the sign language by a twisting motion of the closed right band, with thumb extended, in front of the month, the allusion being to gnawing corn from a cob. In the north the sign is sometimes made with both hands, the right working against the left, the allusion then being to shelling corn. The Arikara are preeminently distinguished among the northern tribes as the corn-planting Indians, and are usually designated in pictographs by the figure of a man with an ear of corn. It is probable that they taught agriculture to the Mandan and Hidatsa. The Kiowa further identify the K'at'a as being called _Paläni_ by the Dakota and as speaking a language like that of the Pawnee. Stumbling-bear claims to have met and talked with some of them on a former visit to Washington. They have more to say of the Arikara than of the others, probably because then, as now, they were the largest of the three tribes, and also, as the Kiowa themselves say, because the Arikara lived nearest, being probably located then, as at a later period, on Ree or Grand river, in South Dakota, which is called by their name in the various Indian languages. They describe the three tribes as living on the Missouri (_Tsosâ P'a_) river, in earth-covered grass houses (really log houses, filled in between the logs with grass and covered with earth), and cultivating corn and tobacco, which they traded to the Kiowa. One of the principal divisions of the Kiowa tribe, and the one to which the great Dohásän and several other prominent chiefs belonged, is the K`at'a or Arikara band, so called, the Kiowa state, on account of their special intimacy with the Arikara in the old times, and not because of Arikara descent. The name of the band must have originated, of course, subsequently to the first acquaintance of the two tribes.