Who Are the Kiowa?
The Kiowa (Cáuigù, "Principal People") are a Plains people who migrated from the northern mountains to become one of the dominant powers of the Southern Plains alongside their Comanche allies. Today numbering approximately 12,000 enrolled members in the **Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma**, they are renowned for their unique pictographic calendar histories, the sacred **Táimé** (Sun Dance medicine), and exceptional artistic traditions that continue through the internationally acclaimed **Kiowa Six** artists and their successors. The Kiowa speak a language isolate—unrelated to any other known language—suggesting a distinctive and ancient heritage. From fierce mounted warriors to modern artists, writers, and scholars, the Kiowa have maintained cultural identity through dramatic historical transformation.
Migration and the Comanche Alliance
Kiowa oral history and linguistic evidence suggest origins in the northern Rocky Mountains, possibly near the headwaters of the Missouri River. Around 1700, they acquired horses and began migrating southward, entering the Black Hills where they encountered the Crow, who became lasting allies. Pushed south by Lakota expansion, the Kiowa reached the Southern Plains by the mid-1700s. Initially enemies of the Comanche, they forged a crucial alliance around 1790 that reshaped Southern Plains dynamics. Together with their associated **Kiowa-Apache** (Plains Apache) bands, the Kiowa-Comanche alliance dominated the region, conducting joint raids deep into Texas and Mexico, controlling trade routes, and resisting American expansion until the Red River War (1874-1875). The alliance was both military and social—Kiowa and Comanche camps often traveled together, intermarried, and shared ceremonies while maintaining distinct languages and identities.
Calendar Histories and Pictographic Records
The Kiowa developed one of the most sophisticated pictographic recording systems among Plains peoples: the **calendar histories** (tó gyäthon, "writing on skin"). Painted on buffalo or later muslin, these records documented significant events for each summer and winter over centuries. Each year was represented by a pictograph of a memorable event: a meteor shower, epidemic, notable battle, or important ceremony. Calendar keepers memorized the associated oral narratives, transforming the pictographs into a comprehensive historical record. The most famous calendars, kept by keepers like **Dohasan**, **Sett'an**, and **Anko**, were studied by ethnologist James Mooney in the 1890s, providing exceptionally detailed Kiowa history. This tradition of visual documentation continued through ledger art—drawings in accounting ledger books during the reservation era—and directly inspired the **Kiowa Six**, Native American artists trained at the University of Oklahoma in the 1920s who pioneered modern Native American fine art.
The Sun Dance and Sacred Táimé
The **Káidò** (Sun Dance) was the Kiowa's most sacred ceremony, held annually when the tribe gathered during buffalo hunts. Central to the ceremony was the **Táimé**—a small sacred image, the tribe's most powerful medicine bundle, kept by a hereditary Táimé keeper. The Táimé's origin is described in sacred narratives involving its acquisition from a neighboring tribe. During the Sun Dance, warriors fulfilled vows, youth were initiated, and the tribe renewed its spiritual power. The last traditional Kiowa Sun Dance was held in 1887; government suppression and the Táimé keeper's death without transferring custody disrupted the ceremony. Unlike some tribes who revived the Sun Dance, the Kiowa have not, respecting the tradition that the ceremony requires proper Táimé custody. Today, the Gourd Dance—originally a Kiowa warrior society ceremony—has spread across Native America and represents one of Kiowa cultural contributions to pan-Indian practice.
Contemporary Kiowa Nation
The **Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma** is headquartered in Carnegie, with tribal members concentrated in southwestern Oklahoma. The Kiowa share jurisdiction with Comanche and Apache in the former KCA (Kiowa-Comanche-Apache) reservation area, their lands broken up through allotment in 1901. Economic challenges persist in this rural area, though the tribe operates gaming facilities and various enterprises. Culturally, the Kiowa punch above their weight: writers like **N. Scott Momaday** (Pulitzer Prize winner for House Made of Dawn), artists continuing the Kiowa Six tradition, and scholars like **Gus Palmer Jr.** carry Kiowa perspectives to international audiences. The Kiowa language is endangered—fewer than 100 fluent speakers remain—but documentation and teaching efforts continue. The Kiowa Black Leggings and Tiah-Piah warrior societies maintain ceremonial traditions, while the annual **American Indian Exposition** in Anadarko showcases Kiowa dance, art, and community. Through artistic excellence and intellectual achievement, the Kiowa maintain influence far beyond their numbers.
References
- Mooney, J. (1898). Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians. Bureau of American Ethnology.
- Momaday, N. S. (1969). The Way to Rainy Mountain. University of New Mexico Press.
- Mishkin, B. (1940). Rank and Warfare Among the Plains Indians. University of Washington Press.
- Meadows, W. C. (1999). Kiowa, Apache, and Comanche Military Societies. University of Texas Press.