Linguistic Affinity
Photo by Soule, about 1870.
Fig. 43—Zépko-eétte or Big-bow.
The Gâ´igwŭ´ or Kiowa, although originating in the far north, have been known for the last sixty years as one of the principal and most predatory tribes of the southern plains. Their linguistic affinity is still uncertain, the language apparently having no connection with that of any other tribe. This uncertainty, however, is due largely to the paucity of the linguistic material thus far collected from them, and to the fact that philologists have made the comparison with the languages of the southern tribes, with whom the Kiowa were found most closely associated, rather than with that of tribes nearer the Canadian border, whence they have drifted to the south. Another thing which serves to render comparison difficult is the fact that the Kiowa have the custom of dropping from the language any word which suggests the name of a person recently deceased, and substituting for the tabooed word another which will convey the same idea. The old word may be restored after a term of years, but it frequently happens that the new one keeps its place and the original word is entirely forgotten. The change is a new combination of existing roots, or a new use of an existing word, rather than the deliberate invention of a new word, although in some instances words seem to be borrowed for this purpose from existing languages. The same custom exists to a limited degree among the Comanche, who may have adopted it in consequence of their association with the Kiowa, and perhaps among other tribes. With the Kiowa it is carried to such an extent that old men sometimes remember as many as three names which have been used in chronologic succession for the same object. Further linguistic investigation may result in establishing their affinity with the Athapascan, northern Shoshonean, or Salishan tribes.
Tribal Names
Kiowa, the name by which the tribe is commonly known to the whites, is from the softened Comanche form of the name by which they call themselves, Gâ´igwŭ´ (see the glossary). It is claimed by one or two old men that Gâ´igwŭ´ was not originally their proper name, but a foreign name adopted by the tribe, and untranslatable in their own language. However that may be, it is now, in its root form, Gâi, synonymous with Kiowa, whether applied to the individual, language, territory, or utensils of the tribe. It is also the name of one of their recognized tribal divisions. Ancient names used to designate themselves are Kwú'dă´ and afterward Tépdă´, both names signifying "coming out," perhaps in allusion to their mystic origin. These two names are known now only to their oldest men. They sometimes refer to themselves as Kómpabíăntă, or people of the "large tipi flaps," although, so far as observation goes, their tipis are not peculiar in this respect. Their name for Indians in general is Gíăguádaltágâ, "people of the red flesh." Among other tribes they are called by various names, the best known being the Dakota or Cheyenne form Witapähätu, of doubtful translation. The tribal sign, a quick motion of the hand past the right cheek, they explain as referring to a former custom of cutting the hair on that side on a level with the ear.
Genesis and Migration
According to Kiowa mythology, which has close parallels among other tribes, their first ancestors emerged from a hollow cottonwood log at the bidding of a supernatural progenitor. They came out one at a time as he tapped upon the log until it came to the turn of a pregnant woman, who stuck fast in the hole and thus blocked the way for those behind her so that they were unable to follow, which accounts for the small number of the Kiowa tribe. The same being gave them the sun, made the division of day and night, exterminated a number of malevolent monsters, and rendered the most ferocious animals harmless; he also taught them their simple hunting arts and finally left them to take his place among the stars. Other wonderful things were done for them by a supernatural boy hero, whose father was the son of the Sun and whose mother was an earthly woman. This boy afterward transformed himself into two, and finally gave himself to the Kiowa in eucharistic form as a tribal "medicine," which they still retain. Unlike the neighboring Cheyenne and Arapaho, who yet remember that they once lived east of the Missouri and cultivated corn, the Kiowa have no tradition of ever having been an agricultural people or anything but a tribe of hunters.
Leaving the mythic or genesis period, the earliest historic tradition of the Kiowa locates them in or beyond the mountains at the extreme sources of the Yellowstone and the Missouri, in what is now western Montana. They describe it as a region of great cold and deep snows, and say that they had the Flatheads (´daltoñ-ká-igihä´go, "compressed head people") near them, and that on the other side of the mountains was a large stream flowing westward, evidently an upper branch of the Columbia. These mountains they still call Gá´i K'op, "Kiowa mountains." Here, they say, while on a hunting expedition on one occasion, a dispute occurred between two rival chiefs over the possession of the udder of a female antelope, a delicacy particularly prized by Indians. The dispute grew into an angry quarrel, with the result that the chief who failed to secure the coveted portion left the party and withdrew with his band toward the northwest, while the rest of the tribe moved to the southeast, crossed the Yellowstone (Tsósá P'a, "pipe (?) stone river"), and continued onward until they met the Crows (Gaă-k'íägo, "crow people"), with whom they had hitherto been unacquainted. By permission of the Crows they took up their residence east of that tribe, with which they made their first alliance. Up to this time they had no horses, but used only dogs and the travois. For a while they continued to visit the mountains, but finally drifted out into the plains, where they first procured horses and became acquainted with the Arapaho and Cheyenne, and later with the Dakota.
Keim, writing in 1870, says that the Kiowa "claim that their primitive country was in the far north," from which they were driven out by wars, moving by the aid of dogs and dog sledges. "From the north they reached a river, now the south fork of the Platte. Their residence upon this river is within the recollection of the old men of the tribe. Not satisfied with the Platte country, they moved on across the Republican and Smoky Hill rivers until they reached the Arkansas. Thence they moved upon the headwaters of the Cimarron. Here they permanently located their council fire, and after much fighting secured control of all the country south of Arkansas river and north of the Wichita mountains and headwaters of Red river" (Keim, 1).
There can be no doubt as to the correctness of the main points of this tradition, which is corroborated by the testimony of the northern Arapaho and other tribes of that region. While to the ordinary reader the result of the quarrel may seem out of all due proportion to the cause, it will not appear so to anyone familiar with Indian life and thought. The savage is intellectually a child, and from the point of view of civilized man his history is shaped by trivial things, as will be sufficiently apparent from a study of the calendars. It is said that a war between the Delaware and Shawano originated in a dispute between two children concerning a grasshopper. The Crows themselves, according to their own story, separated from their kinsmen the Hidatsa or Minitari on the Missouri for a reason precisely like that of the Kiowa tradition—a quarrel between two chiefs over the proper division of a