The grass question seems to be the most difficult thing I have to contend with. I find it impossible to keep trespassing cattle entirely off the reservation, and we are now crowded on all sides. It seems to do very little good to put them off, for it is found that cattle that have just been driven off will come back on the reservation as soon as the police force advances. Our Indians are not disposed to rent the grass, yet if it is used it seems they should be paid for it.... The grass should be utilized in some way that will benefit the Indians, and if it is not possible to supply them with herds sufficient to consume it, it does seem as if the grass should be rented and the Indians receive the money for it (Report, 103).
The final result was the establishment of the system of grass leases.
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.
WINTER 1883—84
For this winter the Set-t'an calendar has the picture of a house with smoking chimney beside a tipi. It appears to be a canvas house, such, as those Indians in a transition state sometimes use. Set-t'an explains it to mean that Big-tree was given a stove by the government and put it into a large tipi which he occupied; but Scott's informant, who is corroborated by Anko and others, explains it as meaning that Gákinãăte, "Ten," the brother of Lone-wolf, built a house this fall on the south side of the Washita, about opposite Cobb creek. Stumbling-bear says that he himself had received a stove as far back as 1875, two years before the government built his house.