MooNEY] POPULATION — RELIGIOUS SYSTEM 237 



1881—1,145. 



1882-1,176. 



1883—1,167. 



1884—1,152. 



1885—1,169. 



1886—1,164. 



1887—1,179. 



1888—1,121. 



1889 — 1,142, "a very careful census." 



1890—1,140. 



1891—1,151. 



1892 — 1,014 (decrease from epidemic). 



1893—1,017. 



1894 — same; takeu from preceding. 



1895—1,037. 



1896—1,065. 



RELIGIOX OF TIIK KIOWA 



SCOPE OF THEIR BELIEF 



In religion the Kiowa are polytheists aud animists, deifying all the 

 powers of nature and praying to eacli in turn, according to the occasion. 

 Their native system has no Great Spirit, no heaven, no hell, although 

 they are now familiar with these ideas from contact with the whites; 

 their otlier world is a shadowy counterpart of this. There is an indis- 

 tinct idea of transmigration, owls and other night birds being sup- 

 posed to be animated by the souls of the dead, with a general belief 

 in ghosts, witches, and various sorts of good and bad "medicine." 

 Dreams and visions are supernatural revelations, to be trusted and 

 obeyed implicitly. 



A curious instance of the persistence of the Indian beliefs in spite of 

 educational influences is afforded by the case of the late Kiowa inter- 

 preter, a full-blood Indian, who had been reared and educated in the 

 east, graduated in theology, and was ordained to the ministry, married 

 a white woman, and returned as a missionary to his people. The Indi- 

 ans accused him of deceiving them as to the terms of the treaty, and 

 told him that he "could not live," and he died shortly afterward in the 

 belief that he had been bewitched by the medicine-men as a punish- 

 ment for his part in the negotiations. The fact is a matter of official 

 record, as well as of contemporary newspaper publication. 



THE SUN 



The greatest of the Kiowa gods is the Sun ; by him they swear, to 

 him they make sacrifice of their own flesh, and in his honor they held 

 the great annual k'ado or sun dance. Next to the sun the buffalo 

 and the seui or peyote plant claim reverence, and these too may be 

 reduced to the same analysis, as the buffalo bull in his strength and 

 majesty is regarded as the animal symbol of the sun, while the peyote, 

 with its circular disk and its bright center, surrounded by white spots 

 or rays, is its vegetal representative. The d'dalhedhya also derives 

 Its origin from the sun. Unlike the agricultural tribes, they pay but 



