The Kiowa of Oklahoma

Tribe: The Kiowa. There is one very large tribe, called the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma.

Meaning of Name: The Kiowa call themselves the "Ka'igwu" which means "The Principal People." The name "Kiowa" may also be mangled Arapaho for "Koh'owu," which means "Creek."

Location: Originally from the upper Mississippi River, they were bumped south by the Ojibwe tribe to Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas in the mid-1600's AD.  In the 1800's, they were forced to relocate to reservations in Oklahoma, and now most of them live off-reservations in towns.

Original Language: Kiowa, of the Tanoan language family.

Tribal Affiliations: Pueblo and Mandan tribes for trading things like crops. Also the Crow and the Comanche for the purpose of sharing hunting grounds.

Traditional Enemies: Cheyenne, Arapaho, Navajo, Ute, Osage, Dakota, Lakota, Nakota and basically everyone else on the Plains. However, they weren't terribly interested in utterly destroying their enemies. Mostly, they wanted to prove their bravery by counting coup, which was like a game of "Tag! You're it!" on horseback. And they liked to steal horses from the Spanish ranches and from other tribes like the Navajo and their own friends, the Pueblo.

Traditional Style of Housing:  Buffalo-skin teepees, since they followed the bison. These were made and owned by the women.

Traditional Attire: Women wore long fringed white three-piece deerskin dresses decorated in beading and yellow and green. Men wore breechcloth and leggings and no shirt until contact with the white man, at which point, they added long-sleeved shirts with long fringes. Both wore moccasins and had long hair, sometimes in braids. The Kiowa women had tribal tattoos on their foreheads.

Traditional Foods: The Kiowa men hunted bison, elk, pronghorn sheep, turkey, wild mustang and bears. Also lizards, waterfowl, snakes, skunks, horses, mules, camp dogs, and stolen Longhorn cattle when times were lean. The women made pemmican and gathered berries, tubers (potatoes), seeds, nuts (pecans, acorns), vegetables (wild onions) and wild fruits such as prickly pear, persimmons, and plums. Since they were nomadic, they traded with agrarian tribes for squash, corn and beans. 

Position of Women: The Kiowa were patrilineal, so they reckoned kinship through the father, not the mother. The women put up and took down the teepees, did the gathering, raised the children, did the sewing, and did a little hunting, but the Kiowa were a male-dominant culture, and women gained their status primarily through the achievements of their husbands, fathers and sons.

Kiowa Courtship: None that I could find. Probably patrilineal descent, with flute-playing substituting for the bride-price of horses.

Interesting Tidbits: The Kiowa liked to dress up their horses for war with beaded masks, horns and feathers.... Many non-Kiowa (probably male) who were captured by them elected to stay with them or return to them if they were "rescued" by their people, which speaks well of the way that they were treated.... Kiowa are also well represented in Native American fine arts.

Slavery and the Kiowa: The Kiowa joined forces with that Comanche in the 1800's in order to execute violent raids in Texas and Mexico for the purpose of stealing horses, taking women and children as slave-laborers, and asserting their domination over the territory.

Current Population: There are more than 12,000 registered Kiowa.

Current Sources of Tribal Revenue: Oil and gas, casinos in Oklahoma and small businesses.

Famous Kiowa: None that I have heard of.