The soldiers of the tribe then had a frolic in and about it, running and jumping, striking and kicking, throwing one another down, stripping and tearing the clothes off each other.[10]
Martinez knew of no instance of a man voluntarily leaving his society. A father might give presents to poor Indians in honor of a boy who becomes a Rabbit, but he would not take the initiative to get his son into his own organization.
The mutual-benefit feature that characterizes the Crow clubs does not seem to have been prominent among the Kiowa. For example, when a man bought the medicine privileges described by Methvin under the caption "quo-dle-quoit,"[11] he was assisted by his relatives, but his society had nothing to do with the procedure.
At the time of the sun dance the medicineman appointed one of the societies to get the sacred tree. Similarly, he would choose one of them to act as police during the buffalo hunt. Their function in this connection is called q'ī´at'ā´tu, which seems to mean "they can stop any one." The offender who hunted individually instead of taking his place with the rest lost the meat so secured, and if he resented this punishment the police might shoot his horse or whip him.
If a member absented himself from an evening session of his society during the sun dance period, his associates would sing a song the next day, hallooing and making a big noise at the end of the song. Then one man would call aloud the delinquent's name, coupling it with that of his mother-in-law and crying, "That is your wife!" Since the mother-in-law taboo held sway among the Kiowa,[12] the object of the performance was evidently to make the offender ashamed.
MEN'S SOCIETIES.
Rabbits.[13]
According to Mr. Mooney the Rabbit society embraced boys of the age of about ten or twelve. Martinez was about ten years old when he joined, but said that any boy belonged to the Rabbits when old enough to walk freely. In his case the event occurred later because he only came to live among the Kiowa at nine. There were two leaders, who were grown-up men and stayed with the Rabbits as long as they lived. These also belonged to some other organization, but their first duty was to the Rabbits if a meeting of both organizations should be called at the same time. Kō´tar and Ayáte were the leaders in Martinez's time.