SUMMER 1883
Fig. 174—Summer, 1883—Nez Percé sun dance.
´dalk`atói K`ádó, "Nez Percé sun dance," so called on account of a visit from the Nez Percés, called by the Kiowa the "people with hair cut off across the forehead." The figure above the medicine pole on the Anko calendar is intended to represent a man in the act of cutting off his front hair. The Set-t'an calendar has beside the medicine lodge the figure of a man wearing the peculiar striped blanket of the Nez Percés. This sun dance is sometimes known as Máp'ódal K`ádó, "Split-nose sun dance," because held on the Washita on pasture lands inclosed by a cattle man known to the Indians by that name.
On account of difficulties with the whites, the Nez Percés of Chief Joseph's band had left their homes in eastern Oregon in the summer of 1877, and after a retreat of a thousand miles were intercepted in Montana by General Miles, when within a few miles of the British border, and compelled to surrender. They were brought as prisoners to Fort Leavenworth, and thence removed, in July, 1878, to a reservation assigned to them in Indian Territory. The climate and surroundings proving entirely unsuited to them, they were returned to reservations in Washington and Idaho in 1885, their numbers in the meantime having been reduced from about four hundred and fifty to three hundred and one, about one-third of their whole number having died. It was while domiciled in Indian Territory that they visited the Kiowa and other tribes, dancing with the Kiowa and Apache at the head of Sémät P'a, "Apache creek" (upper Cache creek), and attending the Kiowa sun dance, which was held on the north side of the Washita, about ten miles above Rainy-mountain creek, near where now is Cloud Chief. This was the first time the Kiowa had ever seen the Nez Percés, although they had a dim traditional memory of them in their old northern home.
In the spring of this year the keeper of the taíme medicine, Set-dayá-ite, "Many-bears," died, and the image was taken by Taímete, "Taíme-man," who continued to hold it until his death in 1894.