WINTER 1870—71
Set-ä´ngya Ä´ton Ágan-de Sai, "Winter when they brought Set-ängya's bones."
For this winter the Set-t'an calendar records the bringing home of the bones of young Set-ängya, indicated by a skeleton above the winter mark, with a sitting bear over the head.
In the spring of 1870, before the last sun dance, the son of the noted chief Set-ängya ("Sitting-bear"), the young man having the same name as his father, had made a raid with a few followers into Texas, where, while making an attack upon a house, he had been shot and killed. After the dance his father with some friends went to Texas, found his bones and wrapped them in several fine blankets, put the bundle upon the back of a led horse and brought them home. On the return journey he killed and scalped a white man, which revenge served in some measure to assuage his grief. On reaching home he erected a tipi with a raised platform inside, upon which, as upon a bed, he placed the bundle containing his son's bones. He then made a feast within the funeral tipi, to which he invited all his friends in the name of his son, telling them, "My son calls you to eat." From that time he always spoke of his son as sleeping, not as dead, and frequently put food and water near the platform for his refreshment on awaking. While on a march the remains were always put upon the saddle of a led horse, as when first brought home, the tipi and the horse thus burdened being a matter of personal knowledge to all the middle-age people of the tribe now living. He continued to care for his son's bones in this manner until he himself was killed at Fort Sill about a year later, when the Kiowa buried them. Although a young man, Set-ängya's son held the office of Toñhyópdă´, the pipe-bearer or leader who went in front of the young warriors on a war expedition.
Fig. 149—Summer 1871—Set-t'aiñte arrested; Koñpä´te killed.
The Anko calendar records two incidents. The first was a drunken fight between two Kiowa, in which one killed the other, indicated by the rude representation of two heads with a bottle between them. The other event was the killing of four or five negroes in Texas by a party led by Mamä´nte ("Walking-above)," who brought back the scalps with the woolly-hair attached. It is shown on the calendar by means of a figure with bullet and arrow wounds, drawn below the heads and the bottle. An attempt has been made to indicate the peculiar woolly hair of the negro; the trousers are blue, like those worn by soldiers, Anko thinking they were probably soldiers, because, as he says, "Negroes can't go alone."
In this winter Ansó-gíăni or Ansó`te, "Long-foot," the great medicine keeper, died of extreme old age. He had been in charge of the taíme for forty years; consequently there was no sun dance for two years until his successor was selected.