WICHITA, wich'i-tit. A tribe of Cad'loan stock (q.v.), formerly ranging over the country between the Washita and Upper lied [livers, in cluding the Wichita Mountains, in southern Oklahoma, and now gathered in a reservation on the north side of Washita in the vicinity of Anadarko. According to tradition, they, as well as their confederates, the Waco (q.v.) and Tawa coal, are direct offshoots of the Pawnee (q.v.), all these tribes speaking the same language with but slight dialectic differences. They call them selves K it ikitish and sometimes To of which their popular name may be a derivative. By the French they were called Tani `Tattooed Pawnee,' their common designation among other tribes being 'Tattooed People,' in allusion to the tribal custom of tattooing upon the face, arms, and breast. particularly among the women. Like all the Caddonn tribes, the Wichita were agricul t urn I and semi-sedentary, occupying villages of large dome-shaped houses hoilt of grass laid over a framework of poles. On temporary outings they used the ordinary skin tipi. They had a number of interesting ceremonials, most of whirl' they still retain, including a gift dance, a thanks giving or green corn dance, and a great eere nmnial foot race in which every one able to run participated. They were penevable and indus.
trim's and are one of the few tribes which have always kept peace with the whites.
Their earliest migration appears to have been up the lied or Canadian Myer from Arkansas or Louisiana. They are identieal with the people of Quivira visited by Coronado in 15-12. About 1780 they were living about the present Wiehita Falls, Tex. At a Inter period they fixed their village on the north fork of Red River, in the Wichita Mountains, where they were visited by a Government expedition in 1834, resulting in a treaty of friendship the next year, soon after which they removed to the site of the present Fort Si II. In 1851) they were assigned to their present reservation, but on the outbreak of the Civil War were compelled to take refuge in Kansas, camping about the present site of Wichita on the Arkansas, where they remained until 1867, They are now allotted eit izens, and, being self-supporting and. industrious, would he in fairly prosperous condition but. for the dissi pation brought among them by the opening of the country to white settlement. From nil esti mated total of over 3000 in 1804 the confederated hands have decreased to 692 in 1S72 and about 360 in 1901.