342 



C.AXiENDAR HISTORY OF THE KIOWA 



[ETIl. ANN. 17 



This summiT is noted for an epidemic of measles, which is said to 

 have killed more children in the tribe than the measles epidemic of 

 189:2. It is represented on both calendars by a hnmau tigiire covered 

 with red spots, above the medicine lodg:e. Strangely enough there is no 

 notice of this epidemic in the report of the ageutfor this year, which may 

 perhaps be accounted for by the fact that he was himself jtrostrated 

 by sickness which occasioned his retirement in the following spring. 

 From the report of the agent for the Cheyenne and Arapaho, however, 

 we learn that the ei)ideuiic broke out among the latter tribes in April, 

 and in spite of the best efforts of the physician, killed two hundred and 

 nineteen children, so that almost every family was in mourning. In 

 happy contrast to the more recent experience of the Kiowa, the gov- 

 ernment school was temporarily turned into a hospital, with the teachers 

 for nurses, so that although seventy-four children 

 were sick at the same time, not one died {Report, 95). 



WINTER 1S77-7S 



K op-taide-do-tsedal-de Sat, " Signal-mountain win- 

 ter." During this winter a part of the tribe camped 

 near 3Iount Scott, while the remainder camped west 

 of Fort Sill, at the foot of Signal mountain, called 



I by the Kiowa " the mountain with a house built 



upon it," referring to a stone lookout station built 

 during the last Indian outbreak. The figure on the 

 Sett'an calendar is sufflciently suggestive of a house 

 upon a mountain. 

 Anko records the fact that he hunted buffalo this 

 winter on Elk creek (on upper Red liver), called by 

 the Kiowa Ih'ntii'-i P'a, '-Pecan river." The rounded 

 figure below the winter mark is intended to repre- 

 sent a pecan nut. 



This winter is noted for an epidemic of fever, which 

 is mentioned in the report for 1878. In the fall of 

 1877, under Agent Haworth, as an inducement to the Indians to aban- 

 don their roaming habit, the government built houses for ten prominent 

 chiefs of the three tribes, including Stumbling-bear, Uaapiatan (Heid- 

 sick), Gunsadalte (Cat), and Sun-boy, of the Kiowa, and White man 

 and Taha, of the Apache. These were the first Indian houses ever 

 built upon the reservation, excepting two erected by the military. At 

 first the new owners continued to live in the tipis, which they pre- 

 ferred from long usage, but by the further gift of beds and chairs they 

 were induced to go into the houses. An attempt to get the Indians 

 to cut the logs and do a ])art of the work themselves under instruc- 

 tion seems to have been a failure. The houses were reasonably good 

 frame structures of three rooms, having doors, glass windows, and 

 substantial double fireplaces and chimneys of stone; they cost $600 



Fig. 163— Winter 1877- 

 78 — Camp at Sign.il 

 nioiiutaiu; hunt on 

 Pecan creek. 



