SUMMER 1853
Bíăsot K`ádó, "Showery sun dance," so called because there were continual showers during the dance. The figure above the medicine lodge is intended to represent the drizzling rain descending from the black clouds overhead, with occasional red flashes of lightning. Compare the corresponding rain and cloud symbols given below. The dance was held at the same place where the "dusty" sun dance was celebrated in 1851, near the present Fort Supply.
Fig. 113—Rain symbols (a Chinese; b Hopi; c Ojibwa).
This sun dance is distinguished for a deliberate violation of the taíme rules by Ten-píäk`ia, "Heart-eater," a noted warrior and medicine-man, rival of Ansó`te, the taíme keeper, and father of Set-t'an, the author of this calendar. One of the strictest regulations of the sun dance was the taboo against mirrors, which form part of the toilet equipment of nearly every Indian, but which must not even be brought near the taíme of the Kiowa. Notwithstanding this, Ten-píäk`ia, in defiance of the medicine and its priest, deliberately rode around inside the circle with a small mirror while the taíme was exposed, and afterward tried to poison Ansó`te by scraping off the mercury from the back and mixing it with some tobacco which he gave to the priest to smoke. Ansó`te took one puff, but detecting something wrong, put away the pipe, saying, "There is something there of which I am afraid." Soon afterward Ten-píäk`ia, while hunting buffalo, was thrown from his horse and killed, which was regarded as a speedy punishment of his sacrilege.
Fig. 114—Winter 1853—54—Pä´ñgyägíate killed.
Although Indian tradition records frequent instances of careless and unthinking neglect of some of the numerous taboos and other regulations in connection with sacred matters, such a deliberate defiance of their ordinances is almost unexampled; more rare, indeed, than heresy in the old days when Europe held but one religious doctrine. It is of interest as showing that even among savages attempts are sometimes made by bolder spirits to break away from the bonds of mental slavery. A somewhat similar incident is recorded for 1861.