THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE WICHITA. 
INTRODUCTION. 
The Wichita, at the time of their first contact with the United 
States Government, occupied a village on the North Fork of the Red 
River, about four miles below its junction with Elm Fork, in Oklahoma. 
Soon afterwards they were removed to a place called Rush Springs, 
twenty-five miles east of Fort Sill, in 1882. The Wichita, with affiliated 
bands, were transferred to the north side of the Washita River, on lands 
a portion of which had been assigned to the Cheyenne and Arapaho 
in 1869. It is probable that they have now reached their final home, 
as they occupy their land in severalty and the tribal relationship has 
ceased to ewist. It seems probable that, at least for a hundred years or 
more, their permanent villages were never out of sight of the Wichita 
Mountains. Their range may be said to have been confined by the 
ninety-seventh and ninety-ninth parallels, and to have extended south 
from the Washita to about that part of Texas where the city of Waco 
now stands. The territory occupied by them in general may be char- 
acterized as a high, rolling, broken prairie, fairly well watered in places, 
of a sandy nature, and in the main treeless, except for irregular clus- 
ters of scrub oak, with heavier timber, chiefly of elm, cottonwood, and 
willow, along the water courses. 
According to Powell’s classification, the Wichita form the third 
of five groups of the Caddoan stock, the other groups being the Pawnee, 
Arikara, Kichai, and Caddo. With the Wichita proper, therefore, ac- 
cording to this classification, belong the Waco and Towakoni, which 
may be regarded as sub-tribes of the Wichita. For a very long time, 
however, the Kichai have also been closely affiliated with the Wichita, 
and to-day are regarded as an intrinsic part of the tribe. According 
to the well-known chief of the affiliated Wichita of to-day, Towakoni. 
Jim, there is but little difference in the language of the Wichita proper 
and the Towakoni and Waco, while neither of these three tribes is able 
to understand Kichai. The same informant maintains that but four full- 
blood Kichai exist. He is of the opinion that the Kichai is more closely 
related to the Hainai group of the Caddo and the Pawnee than to either 
the Wichita proper or the Towakoni or Waco. , 
The manners and customs of the four bands ‘have been practically . 
the same from very early times, and they have intermarried and lived 
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