SUMMER 1877
Dä´-mä´tánä´ P'a K`ádó, "Star-girl-tree river sun dance," or Á`gat-hódal K`ádó, "Measles sun dance." This dance took place within the present Greer county, Oklahoma, on Salt fork of Red river, called by the Kiowa the "Star-girl-tree river," from a noted tree which originated from a sapling used in a medicine sacrifice to the "Star girls" or Pleiades. On this occasion the troops accompanied the Kiowa on their buffalo hunt and afterward escorted them to the place selected for the dance.
This summer is noted for an epidemic of measles, which is said to have killed more children in the tribe than the measles epidemic of 1892. It is represented on both calendars by a human figure covered with red spots, above the medicine lodge. Strangely enough there is no notice of this epidemic in the report of the agent for this year, which may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that he was himself prostrated by sickness which occasioned his retirement in the following spring. From the report of the agent for the Cheyenne and Arapaho, however, we learn that the epidemic broke out among the latter tribes in April, and in spite of the best efforts of the physician, killed two hundred and nineteen children, so that almost every family was in mourning. In happy contrast to the more recent experience of the Kiowa, the government school was temporarily turned into a hospital, with the teachers for nurses, so that although seventy-four children were sick at the same time, not one died (Report, 95).
Fig. 163—Winter 1877—78—Camp at Signal mountain; hunt on Pecan creek.