Kiowa Wars

The Kiowa were among the most tenacious fighters among all the North American Indians. They launched raids for horses and other booty on many other Indian peoples—the CADDO, NAVAJO, Ute, and Apache bands other than the Kiowa-Apache. They also fought the ARA-PAHO, Cheyenne, and OSAGE until reaching peace accords with these tribes in the 1830s. They also proved a much-feared menace to Spaniards, Mexicans, and Euroamericans traveling the Santa Fe Trail and the Butterfield Southern Route (Southern Overland Trail). They raided settlements far and wide, even into Mexico.

The Kiowa wars of the 1800s closely parallel the Comanche wars. In most engagements, Comanche,

Kiowa, and Kiowa-Apache fought side by side. (Most of these conflicts are described in this book under the COMANCHE entry.) Yet certain Kiowa leaders should be mentioned here because they were among the most important individuals in the history of the American West.

From the 1830s until the 1860s, Little Mountain was the principal Kiowa chief. It was his hand that recorded the tribal history with pictographs on buffalo hide. When the hide wore out, the entire chronicle was recreated on a new hide. And in later years, when the buffalo herds had been slaughtered, Little Mountain’s nephew used heavy manila paper to redraw 60 years of Kiowa history.

By the 1870s and the final phase of the Comanche-Kiowa wars, the Kiowa had a number of influential chiefs. Sitting Bear (Satank) was the elderly leader of the Principal Dogs. White Bear (Satanta) led a faction of Kiowa who wanted war with the whites; he led many raids into Texas. Kicking Bird was the leader of the peace faction. When Little Mountain died in 1866, Lone Wolf was chosen as the principal chief; he was a compromise choice instead of White Bear or Kicking Bird. Yet Lone Wolf came to support White Bear and the militants. Big Tree was the youngest of the Kiowa war chiefs in the Kiowa wars of the 1860s and 1870s. Sky Walker (Mamanti) was a medicine man who was supposed to have prophetic powers.

Sitting Bear died in 1871. Held as a prisoner by whites, he preferred to die fighting for his freedom, with a knife against army carbines. Kicking Bird died mysteriously in 1875 right after the Red River War—probably from poison given to him by members of the militant faction, who resented his friendship with whites. Sky Walker died a prisoner at Fort Marion in Florida in 1875, supposedly right after learning about the death of Kicking Bird. Tribal legend has it that the medicine man willed himself to die because he had used his magical powers to kill a fellow Kiowa, Kicking Bird. White Bear died in 1878, while in a prison at Huntsville, Texas. Depressed at his fate, he jumped headfirst from the second-story balcony of a prison hospital. Lone Wolf had contracted malaria while imprisoned at Fort Marion in Florida and died in 1879, within a year after he was finally permitted to return to his homeland. Big Tree, the Kiowa pin of silver and turquoise, representing the Peyote Spirit Messenger Bird (modern)

Young warrior, outlasted the others. In 1875, he was released from the Fort Sill prison in the Indian Territory and in later years became a Sunday school teacher for the Rainy Mountain Baptist Church.

Many of these Kiowa leaders, including White Bear and Kicking Bird, along with other famous Indian leaders, including the Comanche Quanah Parker and the Apache Geronimo, are buried in a graveyard at Fort Sill. Since there are so many Native American warriors there, this cemetery is known as the Indian Arlington, after Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D. C., where American soldiers are buried.

Contemporary Kiowa

Modern-day Kiowa are still allied with the Comanche and the Apache of Oklahoma (descendants of both Kiowa-

Apache and Geronimo’s band). Most of the Kiowa lands, now protected as a federal trust area, are in Caddo County, Oklahoma, with tribal headquarters at Carnegie. The Kiowa Indian Council consists of all tribal members at least 18 years old. Many Kiowa have become professionals. Other tribal members earn a living through farming, raising livestock, and leasing oil rights to their lands.

The Kiowa have maintained traditional culture in the form of stories, songs, and dances. The Kiowa Gourd Dance, as performed by the warrior society known as the Kiowa Gourd Clan, can be seen at intertribal powwows.

Kiowa artists have played an important part in the recent flowering of Native American art. In the late 1920s, the “Kiowa Five”—Spenser Asah, James Auchiah, Jack Hokeah, Stephen Mopope, and Monroe Tsatoke—became known internationally. T. C. Cannon picked up the tradition in the 1970s. Parker Boyiddle, Sherman Chaddleson, and Mirac Creepingbear painted 10 murals illustrating Kiowa history for the Kiowa Nation Culture Museum in Carnegie, Oklahoma, in the 1980s. Another Kiowa, N. Scott Moma-day, a professor of comparative literature, won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for his novel House Made of Dawn. Among his other works are The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969), The Ancient Child (1990), and In the Bear’s House (1999).