Calendar history of the Kiowa Indians. (1898 N 17 / 1895-1896 (pages 129-444))

by James Mooney

RELIGION OF THE KIOWA

SCOPE OF THEIR BELIEF

In religion the Kiowa are polytheists and animists, deifying all the powers of nature and praying to each in turn, according to the occasion. Their native system has no Great Spirit, no heaven, no hell, although they are now familiar with these ideas from contact with the whites; their other world is a shadowy counterpart of this. There is an indistinct idea of transmigration, owls and other night birds being supposed to be animated by the souls of the dead, with a general belief in ghosts, witches, and various sorts of good and bad "medicine." Dreams and visions are supernatural revelations, to be trusted and obeyed implicitly.

A curious instance of the persistence of the Indian beliefs in spite of educational influences is afforded by the case of the late Kiowa interpreter, a full-blood Indian, who had been reared and educated in the east, graduated in theology, and was ordained to the ministry, married a white woman, and returned as a missionary to his people. The Indians accused him of deceiving them as to the terms of the treaty, and told him that he "could not live," and he died shortly afterward in the belief that he had been bewitched by the medicine-men as a punishment for his part in the negotiations. The fact is a matter of official record, as well as of contemporary newspaper publication.

THE SUN

The greatest of the Kiowa gods is the Sun; by him they swear, to him they make sacrifice of their own flesh, and in his honor they held the great annual k'ado or sun dance. Next to the sun the buffalo and the señi or peyote plant claim reverence, and these too may be reduced to the same analysis, as the buffalo bull in his strength and majesty is regarded as the animal symbol of the sun, while the peyote, with its circular disk and its bright center, surrounded by white spots or rays, is its vegetal representative. The â'dalbeáhya also derives its origin from the sun. Unlike the agricultural tribes, they pay but little attention to the rain gods and seem to have no reverence for the snake. Each shield order prays to some special deity, and every man has also his own personal "medicine," somewhat like the guardian angel or patron saint of the Catholic system. There are also supernatural heroes, of whom the Sun-boy and Sindi are the greatest, with ogres, dwarfs, water people, monsters, and all the other features of the orthodox fairy book.

OBJECTS OF RELIGIOUS VENERATION

Their most sacred objects of religious veneration are the Â'dalbeáhya, the Taíme, the Gadómbitsoñhi, and the señi or peyote. Their great tribal religious ceremony is the k'ado or. sun dance. Their tribal religion is that which centers around the â'dalbeáhya and the taíme. The worship of the peyote, although now general, excepting among the oldest men, is comparatively modern with the Kiowa, having been adopted from the more southern tribes. These two systems are compatible and auxiliary to each other. In 1890 the new religion of the ghost dance was introduced among the Kiowa. It is essentially different from the older Indian systems and antagonistic to them, being based on the doctrine of one God, although it preaches a return to the old Indian life.

The Â'dalbeáhya (the word has some connection with âdal, "hair," and scalp) is the eucharistic body of their supernatural hero teacher, the Sun-boy, and has been known among them almost from the beginning of their existence as a people. According to the myth, which has close parallels in other tribes, a girl was one day playing with some companions when she discovered a porcupine in the branches of a tree. She climbed up to capture it, but as she climbed the tree grew, carrying her with it, until it pierced the arch of the sky into the upper world; here the porcupine took on his proper form as the Son of the Sun; they were married and had a son. Her husband had warned her that, in her excursions in search of berries and roots, she must never go near the plant called äzón (pomme blanche, Psoralea esculenta) if its top had been bitten off by a buffalo. Like Eve, or Pandora, she longed to test the prohibition, so one day while digging food plants she took hold of a pomme blanche which a buffalo had already cropped and pulled it up by the root, leaving a hole through which she saw far below the earth, which she had forgotten since the day that she had climbed the tree after the porcupine. Old memories awakened, and full of an intense longing for her former home she took her child and fastening a rope above the hole began letting herself down to the earth. Her husband, returning from the hunt, discovered her absence and the method of her escape, and throwing a stone after her through the hole, before she had reached the end of the rope, struck her upon the head and she fell to the ground dead. The child was uninjured, and after staying some time beside the body of his mother he was found and cared for by Spider Woman, who became a second mother to him. One day in playing he threw upward a gaming wheel, which came down upon his head and cut through his body without killing him, so that instead of one boy there were now twin brothers. After many adventures, in the course of which they rid the world of several destructive monsters, one of the brothers walked into a lake and disappeared forever under its waters, after which the other transformed himself into this "medicine," and gave himself in that shape to the Kiowa, who still preserve it as the pledge and guardian of their national existence. This â´dalbeáhya, or, as it is sometimes called, the tä´lyí-dá-i, "boy-medicine," is in ten portions, in the keeping of as many priests. Its chief priest is T'ébodal, the oldest man of the tribe, with whom the author once had the opportunity of seeing the pouch in which it is carried, for no man, unless possibly the priest himself, has ever been permitted to open it and look upon the contents. It is kept in a small pouch fringed with numerous scalps, in a special tipi appointed for its residence; it is brought out for use in connection with a sweat-house ceremony as individuals may desire to sacrifice to it, and not, like the taíme, at tribal gatherings. It is briefly mentioned by Clark in his work on the sign language (Clark, 7).

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THE PORCUPINE IN THE TREE, AND FLIGHT OF THE SUN WOMAN (FROM THE NATIVE DRAWING.)

The Gadómbítsoñhi, "Old-woman-under-the-ground," belonged to the Kiñep band of the Kiowa. It was a small image, less than a foot high, representing a woman with flowing hair. It was exposed in front of the taíme at the great sun-dance ceremony, and by some unexplained jugglery the priest in charge of it caused it to rise out of the ground, dance in the sight of the people, and then again sink into the earth. A few years ago it was stolen by a crazy Indian from the priest who guarded it and has never since been recovered, although there are stories in the tribe of hunters belated in the mountains, or beside unfrequented streams, who have caught glimpses of a wailing dwarf with disheveled hair who vanished as soon as discovered, and is believed to have been the lost gadómbítsoñhi.

The Señi, "prickly fruit," the peyote or mescal plant, is a small species of cactus of the genus Lophophora (Coulter), which grows in the stony hill country along the Mexican border. On account of its medical properties and its wonderful effect upon the imagination, it is regarded by the Indians as the vegetal incarnation of a deity, and a whole system of myth and ritual has grown up in connection with its use. The rite originated among the more southern tribes, and has come through the Mescalero and Comanche to the Kiowa within about fifty years. The ceremony was first brought to public notice by the author and may be the subject of a more extended monograph at some future time.

Another ritual, pertaining more particularly to women, was dedicated to the Star Girls, or Pleiades (Dä´-mä´tán). Its last priestess died a few years ago.

The great, central figure of the k`adó, or sun dance, ceremony is the taíme. This is a small image, less than 2 feet in length, representing a human figure dressed in a robe of white feathers, with a headdress consisting of a single upright feather and pendants of ermine skin, with numerous strands of blue beads around its neck, and painted upon the face, breast, and back with designs symbolic of the sun and moon. The image itself is of dark-green stone, in form rudely resembling a human head and bust, probably shaped by art like the stone fetishes of the Pueblo tribes. It is preserved in a rawhide box in charge of the hereditary keeper, and is never under any circumstances exposed to view except at the annual sun dance, when it is fastened to a short upright stick planted within the medicine lodge, near the western side. It was last exposed in 1888 (see the [calendar]). The ancient taíme image was of buckskin, with a stalk of Indian tobacco for a headdress. This buckskin image was left in the medicine lodge, with all the other adornments and sacrificial offerings, at the close of each ceremony. The present taíme is one of three, two of which came originally from the Crows, through an Arapaho who married into the Kiowa tribe, while the third came by capture from the Blackfeet.

The tobacco upon the head of the ancient taíme is another evidence of the northern origin of the Kiowa, as the Kutenai, Blackfoot, and other tribes living near and across the Canadian border are noted for their cultivation of tobacco, and have a special tobacco dance and ceremonies. The more remote tribes along the northwest coast are equally celebrated for their carving in stone, the material used being commonly a black slate, and the original stone taímes may have come from that region.

According to the legend, which is told with the exactness of an historical tradition, an Arapaho, who was without horses or other wealth, attended with his tribe the sun dance of the Crows and danced long and earnestly before the "medicine," in hope that it would pity him and make him prosperous. The chief priest of the Crows rewarded him by giving him the taíme image, notwithstanding the protests of the Crows, who were angry at seeing such favor shown to a stranger. Fortune now smiled upon the Arapaho; he stole many horses and won new blessings for himself by tying numerous ponies to the medicine lodge as a sacrifice to the taíme, until at last his herd was of the largest. Being now grown wealthy, when next his own people visited the Crows he collected his horses and started back with them, but the jealous Crows followed secretly, untied the taíme bag from the pole in front of his tipi and stole it, as Rachel stole her father's gods. On discovering his loss the Arapaho made duplicates, which he took back with him to his own people. He afterward married a Kiowa woman and went to live with her tribe, bringing with him the taíme, which thus became the medicine of the Kiowa. Since that time the taíme has been handed down in his family, the keeper being consequently always of part Arapaho blood.

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PEYOTE PLANT AND BUTTON.

The present guardian is a woman, Émaä, who succeeded to the office on the death of Taíméte, "Taíme-man," in 1894; she is the ninth successive guardian, the Arapaho being the first. The fifth keeper, Ánsogíani, "Long Foot," or Ánso'te, held it forty years—from before the Osage massacre until his death in the winter of 1870—71. Assuming that the combined terms of the first four guardians equaled in time the combined terms of the last four—i. e., about sixty or sixty-five years, or from about 1830 to 1894—we would have 1770 as the approximate date when the Kiowa obtained the present taíme image. As previously stated, they already had the ceremony and an equivalent image of buckskin. Of the two taíme images, both of which were of the same shape and material, one, the "man," was small, only a few inches in length, while the other, the "woman," was much larger. It is believed among the Kiowa that the Crows still have the originals which they stole from the Arapaho.

Long afterward, after the Kiowa had confederated with the Comanche, the latter had a fight with the Blackfeet, in which they killed a warrior and captured his medicine. The Comanche captor, so the story goes, kept the medicine one night in his tipi, but it kept up a strange noise, which so frightened him that the next day he gave it to a Kiowa, who pulled off a long "tooth" attached to it, and thenceforth it was silent. Learning afterward that it was a part of the taíme medicine, he gave it to the taíme keeper, who put it with the other images. It is said to have been nearly similar in appearance to the smaller image.

The complete taíme medicine thus consisted of three decorated stone images, a large one or "woman," a smaller one called a "man," and a third one closely resembling the second. They were kept in a rawhide case known as the taíme-bíĭmkâ´i, shaped somewhat like a kidney (see figure, summer [1835]), and painted with taíme symbols, the large image being in one end of the case and the two smaller ones at the other; some say that the third image was kept in a separate box by a relative of the taíme priest. The smaller images, like the ark of the covenant, were sometimes carried to war, the box being slung from the shoulders of the man who carried it, and consequently were finally captured by the Ute. The large image, the "woman" taíme, was never taken from the main home camp.

The taíme has been twice captured by enemies, first by the Osage in 1833, and again by the Ute in 1868. In the first instance the Osage surprised the Kiowa camp and captured all the images with the bag, killing the wife of the taíme priest as she was trying to loosen it from its fastenings, but returned it two years later, after peace had been made between the two tribes (see the [calendar, 1833] and [1835]). In the other case the Kiowa had taken the two smaller images, as a palladium of victory, upon a war expedition, when they were met by a war party of Ute, who defeated them, killed the bearer of the medicine, and carried off the images, which have never since been recovered. The larger image is still with the tribe (see the [calendar, 1868]; also plate [LXIX]).

TRIBAL MEDICINES OF OTHER INDIANS

Nearly every important tribe, excepting perhaps those aboriginal skeptics, the Comanche, has or did have a tribal "medicine" equivalent to the taíme, around which centers the tribal mythology and ceremonial with which the prosperity and fate of the tribe is bound up. With the Cheyenne this is a bundle of sacred arrows, now in the keeping of one of the southern bands near Cantonment, Oklahoma. With the Arapaho it consists of a pipe, a turtle, and an ear of corn, all of stone, wrapped in skins, and kept by the hereditary priest with the northern branch of the tribe in Wyoming. Among the Omaha it was a large shell, now preserved in the Peabody Museum at Cambridge, Massachusetts. With the Creeks it is a set of graven metal tablets, possibly relics of De Soto's disastrous expedition through the gulf states, religiously guarded by the priest of the Wind clan of the nation in Indian Territory.

THE SUN DANCE

The great tribal ceremony of the Kiowa was the k`adó, or sun dance, which was commonly celebrated annually when the down appeared on the cottonwoods, i. e., about the middle of June. In their calendar system the summers are counted by k`adós, the winters being designated as "cold seasons." On this occasion the whole tribe encamped in a circle, each band in its appropriate place, with the k`adó or medicine lodge in the center. Within the medicine lodge the taíme was exposed during the continuance of the ceremony, which lasted four days, although the preliminary buffalo hunt and other necessary arrangements occupied much more time. Space forbids a detailed account of the ceremony, which was common to most of the prairie tribes, and has been described with more or less accuracy by various writers. The Kiowa sun dance resembled that of the Dakota, Cheyenne, and other tribes in its general features—the search for the buffalo, the arrangement of the camp circle, the procession of the women to cut down the tree for the center pole of the medicine lodge, the sham battle for possession of the pole, the building of the medicine lodge, and the four days' dance without eating, drinking, or sleeping. It differed radically, however, in the entire absence of those voluntary self tortures which have made the sun dance among other tribes a synonym for savage horrors. With the Kiowa even the accidental shedding of blood on such an occasion was considered an evil omen, and was the signal for abandoning the dance; voluntary laceration by way of sacrifice was practiced at other times, but not at the k'ado. Among the Kiowa the center pole must always be cut down by a captive woman. On account of the dread in which the taíme is held, by reason of the many taboos connected with it, they have also a captive, taken from Mexico when a boy and given to the taíme for this special purpose, to unwrap it and set it in place at the ceremonial exposure, so that should any regulation be inadvertently violated, the punishment would fall upon the captive and not upon the tribe. It is hardly necessary to state that this Mexican captive has as perfect faith in the taíme as the priestly keeper himself.

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THE TAIME.

In the Sett'an calendar the summer is always designated by a rude figure of the medicine lodge. On the Anko calendar the distinction is made by the decorated center-pole of the lodge. Medicine-lodge creek, where the famous treaty was negotiated, derives its name from several medicine lodges formerly standing on its banks near the southern Kansas line, this being a favorite spot for the sun dance with both the Kiowa and Cheyenne. The following description of the medicine lodge is from Battey's account of the Kiowa sun dance witnessed by him in 1873, to which account the reader is referred (Battey, 15):

The medicine house is situated nearly in the center of the encampment, is circular in form, and about 60 feet in diameter, having its entrance toward the east. It is built by erecting a forked post, 20 feet high, perhaps, for a central support; around this, and at nearly equal distances, are 17 other forked posts, forming the circumference of the building. These are from 12 to 15 feet in height, and all of cottonwood. Small cottonwood trees are tied on the outside of these, in a horizontal position, with ropes of rawhide, having limbs and leaves on them. Outside of these small cottonwood trees are placed in an upright position, thus forming a wall of green trees and leaves several feet in thickness, in the midst of which many hundred spectators afterwards found a cool retreat, where they could observe what was going on without making themselves conspicuous. Long cottonwood poles extend from each of the posts in the circumference to the central post, and then limbs of the same are laid across these, forming a shady roof one-third of the way to the center.

The central post is ornamented near the ground with the robes of buffalo calves, their heads up, as if in the act of climbing it. Each of the branches above the fork is ornamented in a similar manner, with the addition of shawls, calico, scarfs, etc., and covered at the top with black muslin. Attached to the fork is a bundle of cottonwood and willow limbs, firmly bound together and covered with a buffalo robe, with head and horns, so as to form a rude image of a buffalo, to which were hung strips of new calico, muslin, strouding, both blue and scarlet, feathers, shawls, etc., of various lengths and qualities. The longer and more showy articles were placed near the ends. This image was so placed as to face the east. The lodges of the encampment are arranged in circles around the medicine house, having their entrances toward it, the nearest circle being some 10 rods distant....

The ground inside the inclosure had been carefully cleared of grass, sticks, and roots, and covered several inches deep with clean white sand. A screen had been constructed on the side opposite the entrance by sticking small cottonwoods and cedars deep into the ground, so as to preserve them fresh as long as possible. A space was left, 2 or 3 feet wide, between it and the inclosing wall, in which the dancers prepared themselves for the dance, and in front of which was the medicine. This consisted of an image lying on the ground, but so concealed from view in the screen as to render its form indistinguishable; above it was a large fan made of eagle quills, with the quill part lengthened out nearly a foot by inserting a stick into it and securing it there. These were held in a spread form by means of a willow rod or wire bent in a circular form; above this was a mass of feathers, concealing an image, on each side of which were several shields highly decorated with feathers and paint. Various other paraphernalia of heathen worship were suspended in the screen, among these shields or over them, impossible for me to describe so as to be comprehended. A mound had also been thrown up around the central post of the building, 2 feet high and perhaps 5 feet in diameter.

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ARAPAHO SUN-DANCE LODGE, 1893.

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PHOTO BY JACKSON, 1872.

PACER (PESO), FORMER HEAD-CHIEF OF THE KIOWA APACHE.