318 CALENDAR HISTORY OF THE KIOWA [etii.ann.17 



■VVII^TER 1865-G6 



In tliis winter the Set-t'an calendar records the death of the noted 

 war chief, Tii'n-koukya, " Black-warbonnet-top," on a southern tribu- 

 tary of the upper South Canadian. The war-bonnet is made conspicu- 

 ous in the figure to call attention to his name. 



The Anko calendar notes the death of the celebrated chief Dohi'isan, 

 "Little-bluff,'' the greatest and most noted chief iu the history of the 

 tribe, who died on the Cimarron in this winter. The event is indicated 

 by the figure of a wagon, he being the only Kiowa who owned a wagon 

 at that time. For more than thirty years from the mas- 

 sacre by the Osage in 1833, he had been the recognized 

 head chief of the Kiowa. His death left no one of suf- 

 ficiently commanding iufluence to unite the tribe under 

 one leadership, and thenceforth the councils of the Kiowa 

 were divided under such rival chieftains as Set-t'ainte and 

 Kicking-bird until the unsuccessful outbreak of 1874 

 finally reduced them to the position of a reservation tribe 



I and practically put an end to the power of the chiefs. 



This winter is notable also for the arrival of a large 

 trading party from Kansas under the leadershij) of a man 

 named John Smith. He traded also among the Cheyenne, 

 whose language he spoke, and was called by them 

 ruomiUs, "Gray-blanket," or "Saddle-blanket," these arti- 

 cles forming a part of his trading stock; this name the 

 Kiowa corrupted into Polwme. The party visited all 

 1865-66— Tan- the various camps of the Cheyenne and Kiowa, trading 

 korikya died; blankets and other goods for buffalo hides. Smith died 

 Dohiisiin died. j^^jQ^g ^i^g ciieyenne after having lived more than forty 

 years in the Indian country, and was buried iu the sand hills near 

 the present agency at Darlington, Oklahoma. His name appears iu 

 the official reports as government interpreter for the Cheyenne, and 

 he rendered valuable assistance at the Medicine Lodge treaty in 1867. 



SUMMER 180(5 



Hdii-Tcopedal K ado, "Flat metal (i. e. German silver) sun dance,'' 

 was held on Medicine-lodge creek, near its mouth, in Oklahoma. It was 

 so called because a trader brought them at this time a large quantity 

 of German silver, from which they made headdresses, belts for women, 

 bracelets, and other ornaments. German silver is known to the Kiowa 

 as "flat metal," because it is furnished to them in sheets, which they 

 cut and hammer into the desired shapes. On both calendars the event 

 is recorded in the same way, by the figure of a head pendent with 

 silver disks placed near the medicine lodge. Such pendants were 

 attached to the head of the scalplock, and consisted of a strip of 

 buffalo hide reaching nearly to the ground and covered along the whole 



