SUMMER 1860
T'ené-badaí, "Bird-appearing," was killed. The figure shows a man shot through the body, with blood streaming from his mouth, while the bird above is intended to indicate his name. As there was no sun dance this year, the medicine lodge is omitted.
A part of the Kiowa tribe was south of the Arkansas, while the rest, with the Kwáhadi and other western Comanche, under the chiefs Täbi-nä´năkă (Hears-the-sun) and Ĭsä-hä´bĭt (Wolf-lying-down), were camped north of that stream, when one day the latter party discovered a large body of people crossing the river. Täbi-nä'năka went out to reconnoiter, and returned with the report that there were a great many of them and that they were probably enemies. The Kiowa and Comanche at once broke camp and fled northward, and on their way met the Cheyenne and Arapaho, to whom they told the news, whereupon the latter also fled with them. By this time it had been discovered that the pursuers were white soldiers, accompanied by a large body of Caddo, Wichita, Tonkawa, and Pénätĕka Comanche. As they fled, the Kiowa and their allies kept spies on the lookout, who one night reported their enemies asleep, when they turned and attacked them at daylight, killing a soldier, but losing a Comanche named Silver-knife (properly Tin-knife, Hâ´ñt'aiñ-k`á in Kiowa), who was shot through the neck with an arrow, and a Kiowa named T'ené-badaí, "Bird-appearing," noted for his handsome appearance, who was killed by a Caddo. The engagement took place in Kansas, somewhere northward from Smoky-hill river (Pe P'a).
Fig. 127—Summer 1860—Bird-appearing killed.
The Pénätĕka Comanche lived in Texas, near the settlements, and associated more with the Caddo, Wichita, and whites than with their western kinsmen, the Kwáhadi Comanche, against whom and their allies, the Kiowa and Apache, they several times aided the whites.
There is no direct notice of this engagement in the Indian Report, but the Commissioner states that peace had prevailed among the treaty tribes during the year, with the conspicuous exception of the Kiowa, whose increasing turbulence would seem to render military operations against them advisable. In another place he states that both the Kiowa and Comanche were known to be hostile, and that the army had been ordered to chastise them, as the only way to make them respect their engagements and to stay their murderous hands. In going to Bent's fort, he says:
Citizens of the United States in advance of me as I went out, and also on my return, were brutally murdered and scalped upon the road. It is a fact also worthy of remark that the murders were committed almost within range of the guns at Fort Larned. The Indian mode of warfare, however, is such that it is almost impossible to detect them in their designs. They cautiously approach the Santa Fé road, commit the most atrocious deeds, and flee to the plains (Report, 85).