KIOWA, ke&wit. An important Plains tribe, apparently constituting a distinct linguistic stock. The popular name is a corruption of 1Cd-i-gomi, the name by which they call them selves. According to their own traditions, which are borne out by those of other tribes, they at one time lived in the Rocky Mountains of west ern Montana on the headwaters of the Missouri and Columbia rivers. From this position they moved out into the plains and formed an alliance with the Crow, for whom they still entertain a friendly feeling. Following the buffalo herds and pressed by the Sioux and Cheyenne, they moved southward, halting for a time in the Black Hills, then making their camps upon the Platte. and later still upon the upper Arkansas. Here they first came into contact with the Comanche farther to the south, with whom they carried on war for sonic time. Since 1790 these tribes have acted as confederates. At a later period the Kiowa made peace with the Cheyenne and Arapahoe. They were noted as one of the most hostile and unruly tribes of the plains, and maintained almost constant warfare along the American and Mexican frontiers until the great Treaty of Medicine Lodge, Kansas, in 1867, when, with the Cheyenne, Arapahoe, Comanche, and Kiowa-Apache, they consented to give up their free range and come upon reservations in what is now Oklahoma. They were slow to move, however, and it required a winter campaign by Custer the next year to bring them in. In 1874 they again broke out, together with most of the other four tribes, but were subdued the next year b? Mackenzie, who shot their ponies, con fiscated their arms, and deported a number of their chiefs and warriors to Florida. Since then
they have remained quietly upon their reserva tion. which was thrown open by treaty in 1901, so that they are now in law American citizens. The majority now occupy houses and wear civi lized dress, instead of the tipi and G-string, the change having conic within the past few years. 1 n other respects they retain most of their primitive customs and habit of thought. Their great annual ceremony was the sun dance (q.v.), and their great tribal palladium was the Tains'', a stone image somewhat resembling a human figure. They did not have the elan system, lint were subdivided into six recognized hands, and had a well-organized military order of six de grees. They have also a pictograph calendar running back some seventy years. Associated with them, and constituting one of the six hands of their tribal circle, is a small tribe of Athapas can stock, locally known as Kiowa-Apaelle. The term is a misnomer, however, excepting as it inilieJtes the remote stock affinity; for these peo ple, who call themselves Nadashan-dina, have come down along the plains. and have no tra ditioh of a time when they were not associated with the Kiowa. The greatest strength of the Kiowa at any time within a century was prob ably less than 1800. They number now about 1100. while the Kiowa-Apaehe number I60.
Consult Mooney, "Calendar 'History of the Kiowa Indians." in Serenteenth Report of Bureau of American Ethnology ( Wash ing..ton. 1898 ) .