ANTHROPOLOGICAL PAPERS

OF

THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Vol. XI, Part XI

SOCIETIES OF THE KIOWA

BY

ROBERT H. LOWIE

NEW YORK PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE TRUSTEES 1916

SOCIETIES OF THE KIOWA.

By Robert H. Lowie.

PREFACE.

Before summarizing the results of the investigation of Plains Indian societies undertaken by the Department of Anthropology for a number of years, it appeared desirable to secure data from the Kiowa respecting certain theoretical points that had developed from a study of other tribes. Though Mr. Mooney's printed Kiowa material seemed to decide these questions implicitly, it seemed best to take a view of the subject in the field from the particular vantage ground afforded by the systematic survey of the region presented in this volume. For this purpose I made a side trip to Anadarko, Oklahoma, in June, 1915. There I had the good fortune of enlisting the services of Mr. Andres Martinez, a Mexican who had been captured by the Apache while a boy, sold to the Kiowa two years later, and who had lived a large portion of his life as a Kiowa among Kiowa, marrying native women, entering some of the men's societies, and so forth. Mr. Martinez became my main informant and acted as my interpreter in questioning two full-blood Indians on doubtful points. He also corrected several errors in his published biography,[1] which he explained were due to his inadequate knowledge of English at the time of its composition.

It is obvious that several days' work, however intensive, cannot exhaust such a topic as the military and related organizations of a Plains tribe: all I attempted was to shed some light on the problems treated in this series of papers.

February, 1916.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

From Battey we learn that in the seventies of the last century the Kiowa had a police organization designed to prevent the young men from going on raids that might bring trouble upon the tribe.

... a strong guard of their soldiers were continually watching, day and night, while in camp, to prevent any such enterprise from being undertaken. In moving from place to place, these soldiers marched on each side of the main body, while a front guard went before, and a rear guard behind, thus preventing any from straggling away.

A corresponding body regulated the buffalo hunt.

The soldiers, going out first, surrounded a tract of country in which were a large herd of buffalo; and no one might chase a buffalo past this ring guard on pain of having his horse shot by the soldiers.[2]

Clark merely lists the names of five men's societies.[3]

In Rev. Methvin's biography of my chief informant there is a brief chapter on military societies,[4] but as these data were revised and amplified in connection with my own inquiries, they need not be summarized as there presented.

Our principal sources on this subject, however, are Mr. Mooney's statements.[5] These largely corroborate my own notes and will be presented with them so far as they do not coincide.

The older literature cited above does not in any way contradict the general results I obtained independently, which may be summarized as follows.

In recent times the Kiowa had six men's societies and two women's societies. There once existed in the time of one informant's greatgrandfather an additional men's society, the qo´+itëm, "Kiowa's Bone"(?). The