WINTER 1848—49
The Kiowa were camped on Arkansas river near Bent's fort and made "antelope medicine" (ät'á´kagúa) for a great antelope drive. Compare the figures from the Dakota calendars of Mallery ([figure 102]).
The antelope drive was made only in seasons of scarcity, when the supply of buffalo meat was insufficient, and only in the winter, at which season the antelope are accustomed to go in herds, while in the spring and summer they scatter. Such a drive was an event so rare that one informant over 60 years of age had seen but one in his lifetime.
When it has been decided to have an antelope drive, the "antelope medicine-man" builds a special tipi and remains in it all night, singing his medicine songs until daylight. In the morning he starts out in the probable direction of the antelope, carrying in each hand a rod about two feet long decorated at each end with eagle feathers and in the center with a wheel from which depend the feathers of other carnivorous birds, his face is painted white, a buffalo robe is thrown over his shoulder, and a whistle hangs from his neck. He is accompanied by the whole tribe, mounted and on foot—men, women, and children. On arriving at the place selected for the hunt, he sits upon the ground, facing the direction in which the antelope are supposed to be; in most other Indian ceremonies the priest faces the east. Beside him sit some of the principal men, while behind stand several women. The two men chosen to sit next him on each side must be men known as successful in the hunt and on the warpath. He plants the two decorated sticks in the ground in front of him, lights his pipe, and begins to smoke; after smoking a little while he hands the rods to the men sitting next him, crossing his right hand over his left as he does so, and giving their hands a peculiar pressure four times. These two men then rise, put their hands upon his head—a gesture of prayer or invocation—step across each into the place of the other so as to again reverse the position of the rods, and then, after the same four hand pressures, again plant the rods in front of the priest.
Fig. 102—Antelope drives (from the Dakota calendars).
Two other men, noted war chiefs, then take their places beside the priest, while the first two sit next them. Grasping the upright sticks at the top, the priest now sings the first antelope song, blowing upon the whistle at intervals, while all the surrounding men and women join in the song, and the four men sitting beside him beat time on the ground. Four different songs are sung in this manner, the sticks being grasped lower down at each song, until at the last song the priest pulls them out from the ground, and, holding them by their lower ends, pushes them out alternately in front of himself, while the whole company—mostly women now, as the men have gone on ahead—swell the chorus, waving their arms with a sweeping motion, as if grasping at the antelope. Then the two war chiefs place their hands upon his head as before, and he gives them the sticks, with four other hand pressures. Taking the rods, the two chiefs run forward on foot at full speed on diverging lines until they meet two horsemen, to whom they deliver the rods, and then return to the place where the priest is sitting with the women and children. In the meantime the hunters have ridden far out in a semicircle, so as to inclose a large area of country. The two hunters who have taken the rods now also ride far out on diverging lines, then turn, cross each other's paths, and return to the priest. The four songs "draw the minds" of the antelope to the priests, and the crossing of the paths typifies the surrounding of the game by the lines of hunters.
Fig. 103—Summer 1849—Cholera sun dance.
The horsemen now begin to close in toward the center, driving before them the antelope and any other animals that may be within the semicircle; as they approach, the women close in from, the opposite side, and as the circle contracts, with the frightened animals running about within it, they seize them with their hands or with reatas. It is said that once, in such a drive, a woman caught a coyote by throwing her arms about its neck. No shooting is allowed within the circle, but any antelope that break through are pursued and shot outside (for other methods, see winter [1860—61]).