After a few days the command, guided by some of the Comanche, started for the Wichita village lying farther to the west. After four days' march, keeping close along the base of the mountains, they reached the village, which was situated on the northeast bank of the North fork of Red river, about 4 miles below the junction of Elm fork, and within the present limits of the reservation. It was close to the mouth of Devil canyon, with the river in front and the mountains behind. It was an old settlement site of the Wichita, having been occupied by them as far back at least as about the year 1765 (Lewis and Clark, 8). Catlin thus describes it:
We found the mountains inclosing the Pawnee [i.e., Pawnee Pique, or Wichita] village, on the bank of Red river, about 90 miles from the Comanchee town. The dragoon regiment was drawn up within half a mile or so of this village and encamped in a square, where we remained three days. We found here a very numerous village containing some five or six hundred wigwams, all made of long prairie grass thatched over poles which are fastened in the ground and bent in at the top, giving to them in distance the appearance of straw beehives, as in plate 173 [[figure 68] herein], which is an accurate view of it, showing the Red river in front and the "mountains of rocks" behind it. To our very great surprise we have found these people cultivating quite extensive fields of corn (maize), pumpkins, melons, beans, and squashes; so, with these aids and an abundant supply of buffalo meat, they may be said to be living very well (Catlin, 6).
The picture by Catlin gives a good idea of the location and a tolerable idea of the peculiar conical grass houses of the Wichita, who have always been noted as an agricultural tribe. As usual, however, he has grossly overestimated their number, attributing to the village five or six hundred houses, and to the Wichita and Kiowa eight to ten thousand population. It is very doubtful if the two tribes, with all their affiliated bands, ever numbered a total of twenty-five hundred. The Wichita village may have had, all told, seventy or eighty houses. When the author examined the ground, in 1893, the circular depressions where the houses had stood were still regular in shape and plainly visible. According to Wichita information, the village was called Kĭ´tskûkătû´k, a name which seems to refer to its situation beside the mountain, and was abandoned soon after 1834, when the tribe removed to a new location, where Fort Sill is now located. From there they again removed to Rush spring, about 25 miles farther east, where Marcy found them in 1852. The mountains immediately about the site of the village visited by the dragoons are still known to the Kiowa as Do`gúat K`op, "Wichita mountains," the name not being applied by them to the more eastern portion of the range.
Fig. 68—Kĭ´tskûkătû´k, the Wichita village on Northfork in 1834 (after Catlin).
The meeting with the Wichita threatened at the start to be hostile. Having learned that they had in their possession a captive white boy, Colonel Dodge demanded that he be surrendered. They repeatedly denied having any knowledge of the boy or the circumstances attending his capture until, being convinced by the sight of their own children brought back by the dragoons that the intentions of the white visitors were friendly, they produced him.
An order was immediately given for the Pawnee and Kiowa girls to be brought forward. They were in a few minutes brought into the council house, when they were at once recognized by their friends and relatives, who embraced them with the most extravagant expressions of joy and satisfaction. The heart of the venerable chief was melted at this evidence of the white man's friendship, and he rose upon his feet, and taking Colonel Dodge in his arms and, placing his left cheek against the left cheek of the colonel, held him for some minutes without saying a word, whilst tears were flowing from his eyes. He then embraced each officer in turn in the same silent and affectionate manner, which form took half an hour or more before it was completed.
From this moment the council, which before had been a very grave and uncertain one, took a pleasing and friendly turn, and this excellent old man ordered the women to supply the dragoons with something to eat, as they were hungry. The little encampment, which heretofore was in a woeful condition, having eaten up their last rations twelve hours before, were now gladdened by the approach of a number of women who brought their "back loads" of dried buffalo meat and green corn, and threw it down amongst them. This seemed almost like a providential deliverance, for the country between here and the Comanchees was entirely destitute of game and our last provisions were consumed.
The council thus proceeded successfully and pleasantly for several days, whilst the warriors of the Kiowas and Wicos [Wacos], two adjoining and friendly tribes living farther to the west, were arriving, and also a great many from other bands of the Comanchees, who had heard of our arrival, until two thousand or more of these wild and fearless-looking fellows were assembled, and all, from their horses' backs, with weapons in hand, were looking into our pitiful little encampment of two hundred men, all in a state of dependence and almost literal starvation, and at the same time nearly one-half the number too sick to have made a successful resistance if we were to have been attacked (Catlin, 7).
The result of the council was that a large delegation from the allied tribes returned with the troops to Fort Gibson, where arrangements were made for the subsequent treaties of 1835 and 1837, as already described, which mark the beginning of the modern history of the Kiowa, Comanche, Wichita, and affiliated bands.
The Wichita, as well as the Kiowa, still remember this friendly meeting. Nasthoe, a Wichita chief, in giving testimony in 1894 in regard to the location of the old village, said: "I was told that the white people and the Osage and the Kidi-ki-tashe [Wichita] came to that old village, where they lived and brought that girl and boy, and inside of one of those tipis they had made a feast among themselves, and the soldiers had fired their guns around there. The meaning of that was a peace" (Greer County, 1).
While with this expedition Catlin painted a number of portraits, the first on record from these tribes. He has this to say of his Kiowa subjects: