On the Set-t'an calendar the event is indicated by a figure intended to represent a scalp at the end of a pole, carried by a man wearing a striped robe to indicate his name, Little-robe. On the Anko calendar there is a representation of a scalp on a pole under the winter mark.
SUMMER 1880
Fig. 168—Summer 1880—No dance; Päbóte died.
This summer there was no sun dance, perhaps on account of failure to find buffalo, and instead of the medicine lodge the summer is indicated on the Set-t'an calendar by the figure of a leafy tree above a square figure, which is explained as meaning that the author of the calendar stayed at home, the lines being intended to show a space inclosed in a fence after the manner of a white man's farm. A similar device is several times used for the same purpose in later years. Under date of September 1, 1881—a year later—the agent says:
Last year I was encouraged in the belief that the Indians under my charge were rather disposed to lay aside these ideas and ceremonies, from the fact that very little was heard of their medicine men during the year, and the Kiowas failed to hold their annual "medicine dance." The latter part of this year, however, from some cause, their medicine men have been unusually active, as I learn has been the case at other agencies, and the Kiowas have recently returned from the western part of their reservation, where they held their annual dance (Report, 101).
The Anko calendar records the death of a chief named Päbóte, "American-horse." He was a man of unusual height and size, hence his name, which signifies literally an animal taller than the average. He was buried in a coffin by the whites at the agency nearly opposite Fred's store. On the calendar the square figure below the picture of the man, and connected with it by a line, is intended to represent the coffin.
On first explaining the calendar, in 1892, Anko evaded the mention of this man's name, in accordance with the Kiowa custom which forbids naming the dead, but three years later consented to do so. The same objection was frequently encountered, but finally overcome in regard to other names on the calendars.
WINTER 1880—81
For this winter the Set-t'an calendar has a house over the winter mark, but he could not remember whose house it was intended to represent. In Captain Scott's notes it is said to be Paul Set-k'opte's new house, but Set-k'opte did not return from the east until 1882. It is probably intended to represent a new house built for another, Paul Zoñtam, who returned from the east in 1881 as an ordained Episcopal minister.