242 CALENDAR HISTORY OP THE KIOWA [ethann.17 



the other case the Kiowa had taken the two smaller images, as a i)alla- 

 (limn of victory, upou a war expedition, when they were met by a war 

 party of Ute, who defeated them, killed the bearer of the medicine, 

 and carried off the images, which have never since been recovered. 

 The larger image is still with the tribe (see the calendar, 18(iS; also 

 plate LXix). 



TRIBAL MEDICINES OF OTHER INDIANS 



Nearly every important tribe, excepting perhaps those aboriginal 

 skeptics, the Comanche, has or did have a tribal "medicine" equivalent 

 to the talme, around which centers the tribal mythology and ceremonial 

 with which the prosperity and fate of the tribe is bound up. ^^'ith tiie 

 Cheyenne tliis is a l>undle of sacred arrows, now in the keeping of one 

 of the southern bands near Cantonment, Oklahoma. With the Arapaho 

 it consists of a pipe, a turtle, and an ear of corn, all of stone, wrapped 

 in skins, ami kei)t by the hereditary in-iest with the northern branch of 

 the tribe in Wyoming, Among the Omaha it was a large shel), now* 

 preserved in the Peabody Museum at Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

 With the Creeks it is a set of graven metal tablets, possibly relics of 

 De Soto's disastrous expedition through the gulf states, religiously 

 guarded by the priest of the Wind clan of the nation in Indian Territory. 



THE SUN DANCE 



The great tribal ceremony of the Kiowa was the A- ado, or sun 

 dance, which was commonly celebrated annually when the down apc 

 peared on the cottoiiwoods, i. e., about the middle of June. In their 

 calendar system the summers are counted by k'ados, the winters being 

 designated as "cold seasons." On this occasion the whole tribe 

 encaini)ed in a circle, each baud in its appropriate j)lace. with the 

 k aili'i or medicine lodge in the center. Within the medicine lodge 

 the tuime was exposed during the continuance of the ceremony, which 

 lasted four days, although the preliminary buffalo hunt and other 

 necessary arrangements occupied much more time. Space forbids a 

 detailed account of the cei-emony, which was common to most of the 

 prairie tribes, and has been described with more or less accuracy by 

 various writers. The Kiowa sun dance resembled that of the Dakota, 

 Cheyenne, and other tribes in its general features — the search for the 

 butValo, the arrangement of the camp circle, the procession of the 

 women to cut down the tree tor the center pole of the medicine lodge, 

 the sham battle tor possession of the pole, the building of the medicine 

 lodge, and the four days" dance without eating, drinking, or sleepiug. 

 It difl'ered radically, however, in the entire absence of those voluntary 

 self tortures which have made the sun dance among other tribes a 

 synonym for savage horrors. With the Kiowa even the accidental 

 shedding of blood on such an occasion was considered an evil omen, 

 and was the signal for abandoning the dance; voluntary laceration by 



