The great, central figure of the k`adó, or sun dance, ceremony is the taíme. This is a small image, less than 2 feet in length, representing a human figure dressed in a robe of white feathers, with a headdress consisting of a single upright feather and pendants of ermine skin, with numerous strands of blue beads around its neck, and painted upon the face, breast, and back with designs symbolic of the sun and moon. The image itself is of dark-green stone, in form rudely resembling a human head and bust, probably shaped by art like the stone fetishes of the Pueblo tribes. It is preserved in a rawhide box in charge of the hereditary keeper, and is never under any circumstances exposed to view except at the annual sun dance, when it is fastened to a short upright stick planted within the medicine lodge, near the western side. It was last exposed in 1888 (see the [calendar]). The ancient taíme image was of buckskin, with a stalk of Indian tobacco for a headdress. This buckskin image was left in the medicine lodge, with all the other adornments and sacrificial offerings, at the close of each ceremony. The present taíme is one of three, two of which came originally from the Crows, through an Arapaho who married into the Kiowa tribe, while the third came by capture from the Blackfeet.
The tobacco upon the head of the ancient taíme is another evidence of the northern origin of the Kiowa, as the Kutenai, Blackfoot, and other tribes living near and across the Canadian border are noted for their cultivation of tobacco, and have a special tobacco dance and ceremonies. The more remote tribes along the northwest coast are equally celebrated for their carving in stone, the material used being commonly a black slate, and the original stone taímes may have come from that region.
According to the legend, which is told with the exactness of an historical tradition, an Arapaho, who was without horses or other wealth, attended with his tribe the sun dance of the Crows and danced long and earnestly before the "medicine," in hope that it would pity him and make him prosperous. The chief priest of the Crows rewarded him by giving him the taíme image, notwithstanding the protests of the Crows, who were angry at seeing such favor shown to a stranger. Fortune now smiled upon the Arapaho; he stole many horses and won new blessings for himself by tying numerous ponies to the medicine lodge as a sacrifice to the taíme, until at last his herd was of the largest. Being now grown wealthy, when next his own people visited the Crows he collected his horses and started back with them, but the jealous Crows followed secretly, untied the taíme bag from the pole in front of his tipi and stole it, as Rachel stole her father's gods. On discovering his loss the Arapaho made duplicates, which he took back with him to his own people. He afterward married a Kiowa woman and went to live with her tribe, bringing with him the taíme, which thus became the medicine of the Kiowa. Since that time the taíme has been handed down in his family, the keeper being consequently always of part Arapaho blood.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY— SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. LXVIII
PEYOTE PLANT AND BUTTON.
The present guardian is a woman, Émaä, who succeeded to the office on the death of Taíméte, "Taíme-man," in 1894; she is the ninth successive guardian, the Arapaho being the first. The fifth keeper, Ánsogíani, "Long Foot," or Ánso'te, held it forty years—from before the Osage massacre until his death in the winter of 1870—71. Assuming that the combined terms of the first four guardians equaled in time the combined terms of the last four—i. e., about sixty or sixty-five years, or from about 1830 to 1894—we would have 1770 as the approximate date when the Kiowa obtained the present taíme image. As previously stated, they already had the ceremony and an equivalent image of buckskin. Of the two taíme images, both of which were of the same shape and material, one, the "man," was small, only a few inches in length, while the other, the "woman," was much larger. It is believed among the Kiowa that the Crows still have the originals which they stole from the Arapaho.
Long afterward, after the Kiowa had confederated with the Comanche, the latter had a fight with the Blackfeet, in which they killed a warrior and captured his medicine. The Comanche captor, so the story goes, kept the medicine one night in his tipi, but it kept up a strange noise, which so frightened him that the next day he gave it to a Kiowa, who pulled off a long "tooth" attached to it, and thenceforth it was silent. Learning afterward that it was a part of the taíme medicine, he gave it to the taíme keeper, who put it with the other images. It is said to have been nearly similar in appearance to the smaller image.
The complete taíme medicine thus consisted of three decorated stone images, a large one or "woman," a smaller one called a "man," and a third one closely resembling the second. They were kept in a rawhide case known as the taíme-bíĭmkâ´i, shaped somewhat like a kidney (see figure, summer [1835]), and painted with taíme symbols, the large image being in one end of the case and the two smaller ones at the other; some say that the third image was kept in a separate box by a relative of the taíme priest. The smaller images, like the ark of the covenant, were sometimes carried to war, the box being slung from the shoulders of the man who carried it, and consequently were finally captured by the Ute. The large image, the "woman" taíme, was never taken from the main home camp.
The taíme has been twice captured by enemies, first by the Osage in 1833, and again by the Ute in 1868. In the first instance the Osage surprised the Kiowa camp and captured all the images with the bag, killing the wife of the taíme priest as she was trying to loosen it from its fastenings, but returned it two years later, after peace had been made between the two tribes (see the [calendar, 1833] and [1835]). In the other case the Kiowa had taken the two smaller images, as a palladium of victory, upon a war expedition, when they were met by a war party of Ute, who defeated them, killed the bearer of the medicine, and carried off the images, which have never since been recovered. The larger image is still with the tribe (see the [calendar, 1868]; also plate [LXIX]).