906 THE GHOST-DANCE RELIGION [eth.aiw.H 



The Kiowa were predisposed to accept the doctrine of the Ghost 

 dance. No tribe had made more desperate resistance to the encroach- 

 ments of the whites upon their hunting grounds, and even after the 

 failure of the last effort of the confederated tribes in 1874-75, the 

 Kiowa were slow to accept the verdict of defeat. The result of this 

 unsuccessful struggle was to put an end to the boundless freedom of 

 the prairie, where they had roamed unquestioned from Dakota almost 

 to central Mexico, and henceforth the tribes were confined within ihe 

 narrow limits of reservations. Within five years the great southern 

 buffalo herd was extinct and the Indians found themselves at once 

 prisoners and paupers. The change was so swift and terrible in its 

 effects that they could not believe it real and final. It seemed to them 

 like a dream of sorrow, a supernatural cloud of darkness to punish 

 their derelictions, but which could be lifted from them by prayer and 

 sacrifice. Their old men told of years when the buffalo was scarce or 

 had gone a long way off, but never since the beginning of the world of 

 a time when there was no buffalo. The buffalo still lived beyond their 

 horizon or in caves under the. earth, and with its return would come 

 back prosperity and freedom. Before we wonder at their faith we 

 must remember that the disappearance of these millions of buffalo in 

 the space of a few years has no parallel in the annals of natural history. 



In 1881 a young Kiowa named Da'tekan, " Keeps-his-name-always," 

 began to "make medicine'' to bring back the buffalo. He set up a 

 sacred tipi, in frout of which he erected a pole with a buffalo skin at the 

 top, and made for himself a priestly robe of red color, trimmed with 

 rows of eagle feathers. Then stauding in front of his tipi he called the 

 people around him and told them that he had been commanded and 

 empowered in a dream to bring back the buffalo, and if they observed 

 strictly the prayers and ceremonies which he enjoined the great herds 

 would once more cover the prairie. His hearers believed his words, 

 promised strict obedience, and gave freely of their blankets and other 

 property to reward his efforts in their behalf. Da'tekan retired to his 

 sacred tipi, where, in his feathered robe of office, he continued to 

 prophesy and make buffalo medicine for a year, when he died without 

 seeing the realization of his hopes. The excitement caused by his pre- 

 dictions came to the notice of the agent then in charge, who mentions 

 it in his annual report, without understanding the cause. On a Kiowa 

 calendar obtained by the author the event is recorded in a pictograph 

 which represents the medicine-man in his tipi, with his scarlet robe 

 over his shoulders and a buffalo beneath his feet (figure 84). 



About six years later, in 18S7, another prophet, named Pa'-ingya, 

 <• In the Middle," revived the prophecy, claiming to be heir to all the 

 supernatural powers of his late predecessor. He amplified the doctrine 

 by asserting, logically enough, that as the whites were responsible 

 for the disappearance of the buffalo, the whites themselves would be 

 destroyed by the gods when the time was al hand for the return of 



