MOONEY] 



A KIOWA PREDICTION 



907 



the buffalo. He preached also his own invulnerability and claimed 

 the power to kill with a look those who might offend him, as far as 

 his glance could reach. He fixed his headquarters on Elk creek, near 

 the western limit of the reservation, where he inaugurated a regular 

 series of ritual observances, under the management of ten chosen 

 assistants. Finally he announced that the time was at hand when the 

 whites would be removed and the buffalo would return. He ordered 

 all the tribe to assemble on Elk creek, where after four days he would 

 bring down fire from heaven which would destroy the agency, the 

 schools, and the white race, with the Indian unbelievers all together. 

 The faithful need not tear pursuit by the troops, for the soldiers who 

 might follow would 

 wither before his glance 

 and their bullets would 

 have no effect on the 

 Indians. On the same 

 Kiowa calendar this 

 prediction isrecorded in 

 another pictograph in- 

 tended to represent dy- 

 ing bullets. The whole 

 Kiowa tribe caught the 

 infection of his words. 

 Every camp was aban- 

 doned, parents took 

 their children from the 

 schools, and all fled to 

 the rendezvous on Elk 

 creek. Here they waited 

 patiently for their de- 

 liverance till the pre- 

 dicted day came and 

 passed without event, 

 when they returned 



with sadness to their camps and their government rations of white 

 man's beef. Pa'-ingya still lives, but the halo of prophecy no longer 

 surrounds him. To account for the disappointment he claimed that his 

 people had violated some of the ordinances and thereby postponed the 

 destined happiness. In this way their minds were kept dwelling on 

 the subject, and when at last the rumor of a messiah came from the 

 north he hailed it as the fulfillment of the prediction. 



Early in the summer of 1800 the news of the advent of the messiah 

 reached the Kiowa, and in June of that year they sent a delegation of 

 about twenty men under the leadership of Pa'tadal, "Poor Buffalo," to 

 Cheyenne and Arapaho agency at Darlington to learn more about the 

 matter. They brought back a favorable report and also a quantity of 



Flo. 84— Two K 



ii Kiowa calendar). 



