Kiowa

Member of an American Indian people who moved from the Rocky Mountains of Montana to the Great Plains of South Dakota in the 1600s. Their language belongs to the Kiowa-Tanoan family. Originally hunter-gatherers, they acquired horses and adopted the nomadic culture of the Plains Indians, hunting buffalo and raiding Spanish and Apache settlements as far south as Texas and Mexico. The Kiowa were one of the last Plains Indians to capitulate to the US government, after which they settled on reservations in Oklahoma. Today the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Business Committee, a joint business corporation, manages Kiowan interests. The population is some 8,600 (2000).

The Kiowa were divided into seven bands, including the Kiowa-Apache, a small Athabaskan-speaking band. Like the Comanche the Kiowa were extremely warlike. They had warrior societies and achieved rank by exhibiting prowess and bravery in warfare. The Kiowa believed that dreams and visions provided them with supernatural abilities in fighting and hunting. They recorded their history twice a year by painting pictures of important tribal events on animal skins. They also believed that their medicine bundles (bundles of magical items) would protect the tribe from enemies. Theses medicine bundles also had a prominent role in the sun dance, the Kiowa's main religious ritual. In the 1880s, the Kiowa, along with the Comanche, spread the Native American Church, a religion that involves using the hallucinogenic peyote cactus.

In 1867 the Kiowa, Comanche, and Kiowa-Apache signed a treaty at Medicine Lodge Creek, Kansas, but only a minority settled on the reservation set aside for them in Indian Territory, and it was not until the 1880s that the last bands settled. Reservation land was allotted to individuals in 1906. Today many Kiowa are cattle breeders or farmers, although some have entered the cities.