WINTER 1865—66
In this winter the Set-t'an calendar records the death of the noted war chief, Tä´n-kóñkya, "Black-warbonnet-top," on a southern tributary of the upper South Canadian. The war-bonnet is made conspicuous in the figure to call attention to his name.
Fig. 138—Winter 1865—66—Tän-kóñkya died; Dohásän died.
The Anko calendar notes the death of the celebrated chief Dohásän, "Little-bluff," the greatest and most noted chief in the history of the tribe, who died on the Cimarron in this winter. The event is indicated by the figure of a wagon, he being the only Kiowa who owned a wagon at that time. For more than thirty years from the massacre by the Osage in 1833, he had been the recognized head chief of the Kiowa. His death left no one of sufficiently commanding influence to unite the tribe under one leadership, and thenceforth the councils of the Kiowa were divided under such rival chieftains as Set-t'aiñte and Kicking-bird until the unsuccessful outbreak of 1874 finally reduced them to the position of a reservation tribe and practically put an end to the power of the chiefs.
This winter is notable also for the arrival of a large trading party from Kansas under the leadership of a man named John Smith. He traded also among the Cheyenne, whose language he spoke, and was called by them Póomûts, "Gray-blanket," or "Saddle-blanket," these articles forming a part of his trading stock; this name the Kiowa corrupted into Pohóme. The party visited all the various camps of the Cheyenne and Kiowa, trading blankets and other goods for buffalo hides. Smith died among the Cheyenne after having lived more than forty years in the Indian country, and was buried in the sand hills near the present agency at Darlington, Oklahoma. His name appears in the official reports as government interpreter for the Cheyenne, and he rendered valuable assistance at the Medicine Lodge treaty in 1867.