SUMMER 1844
K`ódalpäk`iä K`ádó, "Dakota sun dance." A number of mounted Dakota paid a friendly visit to the Kiowa to dance and receive presents of ponies, while the Kiowa were engaged in the sun dance, which was held, like the last two preceding, on K`ádó P'a or Kiowa Medicine-lodge creek. Although the Dakota had been at war with the Kiowa when the latter lived in the north, the two tribes had now been friends for a long time, so long that the old men do not remember when the peace was made.
Fig. 90—Summer 1844—Dakota sun dance.
The Dakota are represented by the figure of a man's bust, wearing a k`ódalpä or necklace bracelet of long shell or bone tubes, popularly known among the traders as Iroquois beads. The Kiowa call the Dakota the K'ódalpä-k`íägo, "Necklace people," and say that the Dakota were the original wearers of such necklaces.
The explanation appears to be a myth founded on a misconception of the tribal sign for Dakota, which is the same as for necklace, i.e., a sweeping pass of the hand across the throat, but commonly translated "beheaders" when applied to that tribe.