Tä´dalkop Sai, "Smallpox winter." The smallpox, like the measles, is indicated by a human figure covered with red spots (see [1839—40] and [1892]). The Kiowa were camped for the winter about the Arkansas, in the vicinity of Âdalka-i Doha, in southwestern Kansas, and a party went into New Mexico to trade. They stopped at a town in the mountains at the head of the South Canadian, where smallpox was prevalent at the time, and the people warned them of the danger; they therefore left, but one Kiowa had already bought a blanket, which he refused to throw away, although requested to do so. On returning to their home camp, about New Year, he was attacked by the disease and died, and the epidemic spread through the tribe; many died, and the others scattered in various directions to escape the pestilence. The Cheyenne, Arapaho, Dakota, and other tribes also suffered greatly at the same time, as appears from the official report (Report, 86). It was in consequence of this epidemic that the Arikara abandoned their village lower down the Missouri and removed to their present location near Fort Berthold, North Dakota.
It will be noticed that for several years the Kiowa appear to have been drifting eastward from their former haunts on the upper Arkansas. Although no definite reason is assigned for this movement, it may have been due to the influx of white men into Colorado, consequent upon the discovery of gold at Pike's peak in 1858, which would have a tendency to drive away the buffalo as well as to disquiet the Indians.
SUMMER 1862
Fig. 131—Summer 1862—Sun dance after smallpox.
Tä´dalkop Kyäkán K'ádó, "sun dance after the smallpox," or sometimes simply Tä´dalkop K'ádó, "smallpox sun dance." It was held a short distance west of where the sun dance had been held in 1858, on Mule creek, near the junction of Medicine-lodge creek with the Salt fork of the Arkansas. No event of importance marked this summer, which is indicated only by the medicine lodge.
WINTER 1862—63
Ä´pätsä´t Sai, "Treetop winter," or Tséñko Sápän Étpata Sai, "Winter when horses ate ashes." This winter the Kiowa camped on upper Walnut creek (Tsodal-héñte-de P'a, "No-arm's river"), which enters the Arkansas at the Great Bend, in Kansas. There was unusually deep snow upon the ground, so that the horses could not get at the grass, and in their hunger tried to eat the ashes thrown out from the camp fires.
In the early spring a large war party, accompanied by women, as was sometimes the custom among the Kiowa, started for Texas, along the trail which runs south through the Panhandle, crossing the North Canadian near Kiowa creek and passing on by Fort Elliott. While singing the "travel song" on a southern head stream of Wolf creek the tree tops returned the echo. The phenomenon was a mystery to the Indians, who ascribed it to spirits, but it may have been due to the fact that just south of the camp was a bluff, from which the sound may have been echoed back. The figure over the winter mark is intended to indicate the sound above the tree tops.
