MooxKY] ANTELOPE DRIVES CHOLERA EPIDEMIC 289 



pushes them out alternately iu front of liimself, while the whole com- 

 pany — mostly women now, as the men have gone ou ahead — swell the 

 chorus, waving their arms with a sweeping motion, as if grasping at the 

 antelope. Then the two war chiefs place their hands upon his head as 

 before, and he gives them the sticks, with four other hand pressures. 

 Taking the rods, the two chiefs run forward on foot at full speed on 

 diverging lines until they meet two horsemen, to whom they deliver the 

 rods, and then return to the place where the priest is sitting with the 

 women and children. In the meantime the hunters have ridden far 

 out iu a semicircle, so as to inclose a large area of country. The two 

 hunters who have taken the rods now also ride far out on diverging 

 lines, then turn, cross each other's paths, and return to the priest. 

 The four songs "draw the minds'' of the antelope to the priests, and 

 the crossing of the paths typifies the surrounding of the game by the 

 lines of hunters. 



The horsemen now begin to close in toward the center, driving before 

 them the antelope and any other animals that may be within the semi- 

 circle; as they approach, the women close in from the opposite side, 

 and as the cii'cle contracts, with the frightened animals running about 

 within it, they seize them with their hands or with reatas. It is said 

 that once, iu such a drive, a woman caught a 

 coyote by throwing her arms about its neck. No 

 shooting is allowed within the circle, but any ante- 

 lope that break through are pursued and shot 

 outside (for other methods, see winter 1860-61). 



SITMMEB 1849 



Cholera sun dauce. 



Mayiagyu' K'ddo, "Cramp (i. e., cholera) sun 

 dance." The figure beside the medicine lodge 

 represents a man with his limbs drawn up by the 

 Ijangs of cholera, which the Kiowa name " the cramp," from its char- 

 acteristic feature. Compare the corresponding figure (101) from the 

 Dakota calendar for the same disease. 



This was during the great cholera epidemic that swept the country 

 in the spring and summer of 1819, which was carried to the plains by 

 the California and Oregon emigrants and by some of the tribes then in 

 process of renioval from the east. The Kiowa remember this as the 

 most terrible experience within their history, far exceeding in fatality 

 the smallpox of nine years before. It was a disease before entirely 

 unknown to them, and was particularly dreaded on account of its 

 dreadful suddenness, men who had been iu perfect health iu the morn- 

 ing being dead a few hours later. The disease appeared immediately 

 after the sun dance, which was held ou Mule creek {Adix'i P'a, "Tipi 

 wind-break river''), between Medicine-lodge creek and the Salt fork of 

 the Arkansas, and, like the previous smallpox, it was brought by visit- 

 ing Osage who attended the dance. During the performance a man 



