Dohäsan
Encyclopedia
Dohäsan, Dohosan, Tauhawsin or Tohausen (late 1780s to early 1790s – 1866) was a prominent Native American
. He was War Chief of the Kata or Arikara band of the Kiowa
Indians, and then Principal Chief of the entire Kiowa Tribe, a position he held for an extraordinary 33 years. He is best remembered as the last undisputed Principal Chief of the Kiowa people before the Reservation Era, and the battlefield leader of the Plains Tribes in the largest battle ever fought between the Plains tribes and the United States.
.
Although his position as Chief of the Arikara band was hereditary, the Principal Chief of the entire Kiowa
people was not a hereditary position. The elders of all the bands met together and elected the Principal Chief, and he generally held that position the rest of his life. Dohäsan became principal chief of the Kiowas in the spring of 1833, after the tribe elders and sub-chiefs deposed then-Principal Chief A'date. This followed the massacre of A'date's village
by Osage
s at Cutthroat Gap, near the head of Otter Creek in what became the Indian Territory
of the Oklahomas. Dohäsan was the last undisputed Principal Chief of the Kiowa Tribe while they were a free people.
became acquainted with Dohäsan. The slaughter of an entire village of the Kiowa prompted the dragoon expedition of Colonel Henry Dodge
to Western Oklahoma
in the summer of 1834. Dohäsan was among those on hand to greet the colonel and his expedition. Artist George Catlin
, who accompanied the expedition, sketched and painted Dohäsan 's portrait. The purpose of the expedition was to end the ferocious fighting between the various Plains Tribes, and in May 1837 Dohäsan was one of the principals who signed the Fort Gibson Treaty, by which the United States government sought to end intertribal warfare in Indian Territory.
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/DD/fdo47_print.html
Treaties did little to end the Kiowas' frequent raids for horses and other plunder, and it is arguable whether they even slowed the fighting between the tribes. Texas
was basically wide open to joint Kiowa-Comanche raids, and the annual raids into Mexico
became a dreaded part of life in both Mexico proper and its northern states. In his raids, Dohäsan and his tribesmen and allied Comanche
came to live in the winter in the Staked Plains, especially along the Canadian River
valley and Palo Duro Canyon
, which served as a base for both wintering and the ever increasing annual raids.
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/DD/fdo47_print.html
At Palo Duro Canyon, on September 17, 1845, he was sketched by Lt. James W. Abert in his watercolor portfolio. In the summer of 1851 Dohäsan led a war party of the various Kiowa bands, and allied Comanches against the Pawnees near the head of Medicine Lodge Creek in Kansas
, slaughtering them.
His name again rises in Army records in 1857 when he successfully led his warriors out of an ambush by Mexican soldiers at Hueco Tanks near El Paso Norte in Texas. The Mexicans had pursued the raiders north out of Mexico, and hoped to eliminate them. Instead, most of the Mexican troops were killed or wounded.
The American Government was anxious to keep the Kiowa friendly as the Civil War
beckoned, and in late 1859, as a goodwill gesture, Major John Sedgwick
's troops gave Dohäsan an old army ambulance wagon along with the usual presents. When he was unable to master the art of driving a team, Dohäsan had a couple of Kiowa boys ride the harnessed horses as he sat in the driver's seat.
In 1861, when federal authorities threatened to withhold annuity goods and send troops against the Kiowas if they did not cease their raiding, Dohäsan angrily and contemptuously called the "white chief" a fool with the "heart of a woman."
.
The first battle of Adobe Walls occurred on November 26, 1864, in the vicinity of Adobe Walls, the ruins of William Bent's abandoned adobe trading post and saloon near the Canadian River in Hutchinson County, Texas
. The battle was one of the largest engagements in terms of numbers between European-Americans and Indians on the Great Plains, and the largest engagement ever between the Comanche and Kiowa and their allies, against the non-Natives. It came about because Gen. James H. Carleton, commander of the military district of New Mexico, decided to punish Comanche and Kiowa attacks on Santa Fe wagon trains. The Indians saw the wagon trains as trespassers who killed buffalo and other game the Indians needed to survive.
Col. Christopher (Kit) Carson
, was given command of the First Cavalry, New Mexico Volunteers, and told to proceed and campaign against the winter campgrounds of the Comanches and Kiowas. This was the second invasion of the heart of the Comancheria, after the Antelope Hills Expedition. The campgrounds in question were reported to be somewhere on the south side of the Canadian River. On November 10, 1864 Carson started from Fort Bascom with 335 cavalry, and 75 Ute
and Jicarilla Apache
scouts. Those Carson had recruited from Lucien Maxwell
's ranch near Cimarron, New Mexico. On November 12, 1864, Carson’s force, supplied with two mountain howitzers under the command of Lt. George H. Pettis, twenty-seven wagons, an ambulance, and forty-five days' rations, proceeded down the Canadian River into the Texas Panhandle. Carson had decided to march first to Adobe Walls, which he was familiar with from his employment there by Bent over 20 years earlier. Inclement weather, including an early snow storm, caused slow progress, and on November 25, 1864, the First Cavalry reached Mule Springs, in Moore County, approximately 30 miles (48.3 km) west of Adobe Walls. Scouts reported the presence of a large Indian encampment at Adobe Walls, and Carson ordered his cavalry forward, to be followed by the wagons and howitzers.
Approximately two hours after daybreak on November 26, 1864, Carson's cavalry attacked a Kiowa village of 150 lodges. The Chief, Dohäsan, and his people fled, passing the alarm to allied Comanche villages nearby. Marching forward to Adobe Walls, Carson dug in there about 10 AM, using one corner of the ruins for a hospital. Carson discovered to his dismay that there were numerous villages in the area, including one very large Comanche village. The total number of Indians opposing Carson are often estimated at 3,000, but it is unlikely that the total manpower of the Comanche, Kiowa, and Kiowa-Apache amounted to more than one-half that number. Whatever their numbers, Carson saw he was outnumbered by the warriors pouring forward to engage him in battle, a much greater force than he had expected.
Dohäsan, assisted by Satank (Setting Bear) and Satanta
(White Bear), led the Kiowas in the first attack. Fierce fighting developed as the Kiowa, Kiowa Apache, and Comanche warriors repeatedly attacked Carson's position. Reportedly, Satanta replied to Carson's bugler with his own bugle calls. Carson succeeded in repelling the attacks only through his clever use of supporting fire from the twin howitzers. After six to eight hours of fairly continuous fighting, Carson realized he was beginning to run low on shells for the howitzers, and ammunition in general, and ordered his forces to withdraw. http://www.juntosociety.com/native/adobewalls.htm The angry Indians tried to block his retreat by setting fire to the grass and brush down near the river. The wily Carson, however, set back-fires and retreated to higher ground, where the twin howitzers continued to hold off the Indians. When twilight came, Carson ordered a group of his scouts to burn the lodges of the first village, which also resulted in the death of the Kiowa-Apache chief, Iron Shirt, when he refused to leave his tepee.
Despite the fact that Carson was forced to retreat in the face of much more opposition than he had expected, the United States Army declared the First Battle of Adobe Walls a victory. Carson was probably outnumbered 10-1, and his clever use of backfires and the howitzers prevented his being overrun. As it was, Carson lost 6 dead, 25 wounded, to approximately 50-60 killed among the Indians. Nothing could obscure the fact however that the Kiowa and their allies had driven the American army from the field. Dohäsan, probably in his 70's, had commanded the largest force of Plains Indians ever massed against the army, and compelled a force armed with howitzers to retreat and yield the day.
, but he vigorously protested confinement to a reservation, declaring that the Kiowas owned all the land from the North Platte River to the upper Texas Panhandle and needed room to roam about. Shortly afterward, in early 1866, he died.
Indians was hereditary, it was not necessarily given from father to son, and in this case, it was not.
Dohäsan's sister's son, Agiati or "Gathering Feathers" inherited his name in 1864. The younger Dohäsan took part in the remaining battles as the Kiowa struggled to remain a free people. But time was running out, and he was part of the delegation to Washington in 1872, which appealed to the government to allow the Kiowa to remain free.
Afterward, as the remaining Kiowa went to the reservation, the younger Dohäsan lived with his family in peace on the reservation near Fort Sill until his death.
among the Kiowa throughout most of the 19th century. He added many innovations to Kiowa pictorial art. In his winter count
, he added an image for each year's summer Sun Dance
. To painted tipi
designs, Dohäsan introduced images of counting coup
. When he died, his nephew Agiati became a calendar keeper, followed in turn by Agiati's son, Silver Horn
(1860–1940), one of the most prolific of all Kiowa artists.
Dohäsen's original calendar is in the collection of the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley. In 1892 the young Dohäsan gave his annual family calendar history, begun by his uncle, the last great principal chief of the Kiowa, to Capt. Hugh L. Scott, who in turn donated it to the Smithsonian Institution
.
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
. He was War Chief of the Kata or Arikara band of the Kiowa
Kiowa
The Kiowa are a nation of American Indians and indigenous people of the Great Plains. They migrated from the northern plains to the southern plains in the late 17th century. In 1867, the Kiowa moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma...
Indians, and then Principal Chief of the entire Kiowa Tribe, a position he held for an extraordinary 33 years. He is best remembered as the last undisputed Principal Chief of the Kiowa people before the Reservation Era, and the battlefield leader of the Plains Tribes in the largest battle ever fought between the Plains tribes and the United States.
Name
Dohäsan's name, which was hereditary, has been variously translated as Little Mountain, Little Bluff, or Top-of-the-Mountain. He was the son of a chief named Dohá (Bluff). Because his name, and the Chieftainship of his band, was hereditary, (though not necessarily father to son) – Dohäsan himself was succeeded by his nephew, rather than one of his sons, and though his father was a chief, it was his uncle who was the hereditary war chief from whom he got his name.Life before becoming Principal Chief
The Arikara band was so named because of their close trading relationship with the Arikaras in the upper Missouri valley during the tribe's early recorded history. Because of their trading relationships with traders from the US, Spain, and the French, the Kiowa, and the Arikata in particular, were well known to European-Americans. Dohäsan was known to traders as early as the late 1820s. He gained a reputation as a fierce, but tricky, warrior and successful war chief. Dohäsan was a member of the elite warrior society, the KoitsenkoKoitsenko
The Koitsenko was a group of the ten greatest warriors of the Kiowa tribe as a whole, from all bands. Probably the most famous of them was Satank who died while being taken to trial for the Warren Wagon Train Raid...
.
Although his position as Chief of the Arikara band was hereditary, the Principal Chief of the entire Kiowa
Kiowa
The Kiowa are a nation of American Indians and indigenous people of the Great Plains. They migrated from the northern plains to the southern plains in the late 17th century. In 1867, the Kiowa moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma...
people was not a hereditary position. The elders of all the bands met together and elected the Principal Chief, and he generally held that position the rest of his life. Dohäsan became principal chief of the Kiowas in the spring of 1833, after the tribe elders and sub-chiefs deposed then-Principal Chief A'date. This followed the massacre of A'date's village
Cutthroat Gap Massacre
The Massacre of Cutthroat Gap occurred in the spring of 1833 in the Wichita Mountains. Osage Indians attacked the Kiowa village of Chief Islandman while most of the warriors were away: a party was raiding the Utes and the rest were on a buffalo hunt. They were raiding to acquire Kiowa horses. ...
by Osage
Osage
The Osage Nation, a Native American tribe in the United States, is the source of most other terms containing the word "osage".Osage can also refer to:*The Osage language, a Siouan language traditionally spoken by the Osage Nation...
s at Cutthroat Gap, near the head of Otter Creek in what became the Indian Territory
Indian Territory
The Indian Territory, also known as the Indian Territories and the Indian Country, was land set aside within the United States for the settlement of American Indians...
of the Oklahomas. Dohäsan was the last undisputed Principal Chief of the Kiowa Tribe while they were a free people.
After ascension to Principal Chieftainship
After A’date was deposed, and Dohäsan arose to become principal Chief of the entire Kiowa people, the United States ArmyUnited States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
became acquainted with Dohäsan. The slaughter of an entire village of the Kiowa prompted the dragoon expedition of Colonel Henry Dodge
Henry Dodge
Henry Dodge was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, Territorial Governor of Wisconsin and a veteran of the Black Hawk War. His son was Augustus C. Dodge with whom he served in the U.S. Senate, the first, and so far only, father-son pair to serve concurrently....
to Western Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
in the summer of 1834. Dohäsan was among those on hand to greet the colonel and his expedition. Artist George Catlin
George Catlin
George Catlin was an American painter, author and traveler who specialized in portraits of Native Americans in the Old West.-Early years:...
, who accompanied the expedition, sketched and painted Dohäsan 's portrait. The purpose of the expedition was to end the ferocious fighting between the various Plains Tribes, and in May 1837 Dohäsan was one of the principals who signed the Fort Gibson Treaty, by which the United States government sought to end intertribal warfare in Indian Territory.
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/DD/fdo47_print.html
Treaties did little to end the Kiowas' frequent raids for horses and other plunder, and it is arguable whether they even slowed the fighting between the tribes. Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
was basically wide open to joint Kiowa-Comanche raids, and the annual raids into Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
became a dreaded part of life in both Mexico proper and its northern states. In his raids, Dohäsan and his tribesmen and allied Comanche
Comanche
The Comanche are a Native American ethnic group whose historic range consisted of present-day eastern New Mexico, southern Colorado, northeastern Arizona, southern Kansas, all of Oklahoma, and most of northwest Texas. Historically, the Comanches were hunter-gatherers, with a typical Plains Indian...
came to live in the winter in the Staked Plains, especially along the Canadian River
Canadian River
The Canadian River is the longest tributary of the Arkansas River. It is about long, starting in Colorado and traveling through New Mexico, the Texas Panhandle, and most of Oklahoma....
valley and Palo Duro Canyon
Palo Duro Canyon
Palo Duro Canyon is a canyon system of the Caprock Escarpment located in the Texas Panhandle near the city of Amarillo, Texas, United States. As the second largest canyon in the United States, it is roughly long and has an average width of , but reaches a width of at places. Its depth is around...
, which served as a base for both wintering and the ever increasing annual raids.
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/DD/fdo47_print.html
At Palo Duro Canyon, on September 17, 1845, he was sketched by Lt. James W. Abert in his watercolor portfolio. In the summer of 1851 Dohäsan led a war party of the various Kiowa bands, and allied Comanches against the Pawnees near the head of Medicine Lodge Creek in Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
, slaughtering them.
His name again rises in Army records in 1857 when he successfully led his warriors out of an ambush by Mexican soldiers at Hueco Tanks near El Paso Norte in Texas. The Mexicans had pursued the raiders north out of Mexico, and hoped to eliminate them. Instead, most of the Mexican troops were killed or wounded.
The American Government was anxious to keep the Kiowa friendly as the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
beckoned, and in late 1859, as a goodwill gesture, Major John Sedgwick
John Sedgwick
John Sedgwick was a teacher, a career military officer, and a Union Army general in the American Civil War. He was the highest ranking Union casualty in the Civil War, killed by a sniper at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House.-Early life:Sedgwick was born in the Litchfield Hills town of...
's troops gave Dohäsan an old army ambulance wagon along with the usual presents. When he was unable to master the art of driving a team, Dohäsan had a couple of Kiowa boys ride the harnessed horses as he sat in the driver's seat.
In 1861, when federal authorities threatened to withhold annuity goods and send troops against the Kiowas if they did not cease their raiding, Dohäsan angrily and contemptuously called the "white chief" a fool with the "heart of a woman."
First Battle of Adobe Walls
Other than the extraordinary length of his service as Principal Chief, and being the last Principal Chief of the free Kiowa, Dohäsan will be remembered in military history for commanding the Native American forces at the First Battle of Adobe WallsFirst Battle of Adobe Walls
The First Battle of Adobe Walls, was a battle between the United States Army and native Americans. The Kiowa, Comanche and Plains Apache tribes drove from the battlefield a United States Expeditionary Force that was reacting to attacks on white settlers moving into the Southwest...
.
The first battle of Adobe Walls occurred on November 26, 1864, in the vicinity of Adobe Walls, the ruins of William Bent's abandoned adobe trading post and saloon near the Canadian River in Hutchinson County, Texas
Hutchinson County, Texas
Hutchinson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas in the northern portion of the Texas Panhandle. In 2000, its population was 23,857. Its seat is Stinnett . Hutchinson County is named for Andrew Hutchinson, an early Texas attorney....
. The battle was one of the largest engagements in terms of numbers between European-Americans and Indians on the Great Plains, and the largest engagement ever between the Comanche and Kiowa and their allies, against the non-Natives. It came about because Gen. James H. Carleton, commander of the military district of New Mexico, decided to punish Comanche and Kiowa attacks on Santa Fe wagon trains. The Indians saw the wagon trains as trespassers who killed buffalo and other game the Indians needed to survive.
Col. Christopher (Kit) Carson
Kit Carson
Christopher Houston "Kit" Carson was an American frontiersman and Indian fighter. Carson left home in rural present-day Missouri at age 16 and became a Mountain man and trapper in the West. Carson explored the west to California, and north through the Rocky Mountains. He lived among and married...
, was given command of the First Cavalry, New Mexico Volunteers, and told to proceed and campaign against the winter campgrounds of the Comanches and Kiowas. This was the second invasion of the heart of the Comancheria, after the Antelope Hills Expedition. The campgrounds in question were reported to be somewhere on the south side of the Canadian River. On November 10, 1864 Carson started from Fort Bascom with 335 cavalry, and 75 Ute
Ute Tribe
The Ute are an American Indian people now living primarily in Utah and Colorado. There are three Ute tribal reservations: Uintah-Ouray in northeastern Utah ; Southern Ute in Colorado ; and Ute Mountain which primarily lies in Colorado, but extends to Utah and New Mexico . The name of the state of...
and Jicarilla Apache
Jicarilla Apache
Jicarilla Apache refers to the members of the Jicarilla Apache Nation currently living in New Mexico and speaking a Southern Athabaskan language...
scouts. Those Carson had recruited from Lucien Maxwell
Lucien Maxwell
Lucien Bonaparte Maxwell was a rancher and entrepreneur who at one point owned more than . Along with Thomas Catron and Ted Turner, Maxwell was one of the largest private landowners in United States history....
's ranch near Cimarron, New Mexico. On November 12, 1864, Carson’s force, supplied with two mountain howitzers under the command of Lt. George H. Pettis, twenty-seven wagons, an ambulance, and forty-five days' rations, proceeded down the Canadian River into the Texas Panhandle. Carson had decided to march first to Adobe Walls, which he was familiar with from his employment there by Bent over 20 years earlier. Inclement weather, including an early snow storm, caused slow progress, and on November 25, 1864, the First Cavalry reached Mule Springs, in Moore County, approximately 30 miles (48.3 km) west of Adobe Walls. Scouts reported the presence of a large Indian encampment at Adobe Walls, and Carson ordered his cavalry forward, to be followed by the wagons and howitzers.
Approximately two hours after daybreak on November 26, 1864, Carson's cavalry attacked a Kiowa village of 150 lodges. The Chief, Dohäsan, and his people fled, passing the alarm to allied Comanche villages nearby. Marching forward to Adobe Walls, Carson dug in there about 10 AM, using one corner of the ruins for a hospital. Carson discovered to his dismay that there were numerous villages in the area, including one very large Comanche village. The total number of Indians opposing Carson are often estimated at 3,000, but it is unlikely that the total manpower of the Comanche, Kiowa, and Kiowa-Apache amounted to more than one-half that number. Whatever their numbers, Carson saw he was outnumbered by the warriors pouring forward to engage him in battle, a much greater force than he had expected.
Dohäsan, assisted by Satank (Setting Bear) and Satanta
Satanta
Satanta can refer to:* Satanta , a chief of the Kiowa Native Americans* Satanta, Kansas, a town in the United States...
(White Bear), led the Kiowas in the first attack. Fierce fighting developed as the Kiowa, Kiowa Apache, and Comanche warriors repeatedly attacked Carson's position. Reportedly, Satanta replied to Carson's bugler with his own bugle calls. Carson succeeded in repelling the attacks only through his clever use of supporting fire from the twin howitzers. After six to eight hours of fairly continuous fighting, Carson realized he was beginning to run low on shells for the howitzers, and ammunition in general, and ordered his forces to withdraw. http://www.juntosociety.com/native/adobewalls.htm The angry Indians tried to block his retreat by setting fire to the grass and brush down near the river. The wily Carson, however, set back-fires and retreated to higher ground, where the twin howitzers continued to hold off the Indians. When twilight came, Carson ordered a group of his scouts to burn the lodges of the first village, which also resulted in the death of the Kiowa-Apache chief, Iron Shirt, when he refused to leave his tepee.
Despite the fact that Carson was forced to retreat in the face of much more opposition than he had expected, the United States Army declared the First Battle of Adobe Walls a victory. Carson was probably outnumbered 10-1, and his clever use of backfires and the howitzers prevented his being overrun. As it was, Carson lost 6 dead, 25 wounded, to approximately 50-60 killed among the Indians. Nothing could obscure the fact however that the Kiowa and their allies had driven the American army from the field. Dohäsan, probably in his 70's, had commanded the largest force of Plains Indians ever massed against the army, and compelled a force armed with howitzers to retreat and yield the day.
Little Arkansas Treaty and death
In October 1865 Dohäsan signed the Little Arkansas TreatyLittle Arkansas Treaty
The Little Arkansas Treaty was a set of treaties signed between the United States of America and the Kiowa, Comanche, Plains Apache, Southern Cheyenne, and Southern Arapaho at Little Arkansas River, Kansas in October 1865...
, but he vigorously protested confinement to a reservation, declaring that the Kiowas owned all the land from the North Platte River to the upper Texas Panhandle and needed room to roam about. Shortly afterward, in early 1866, he died.
Beginning of the reservation era
As noted earlier, though the chief position in the Kata or Arikara band of the KiowaKiowa
The Kiowa are a nation of American Indians and indigenous people of the Great Plains. They migrated from the northern plains to the southern plains in the late 17th century. In 1867, the Kiowa moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma...
Indians was hereditary, it was not necessarily given from father to son, and in this case, it was not.
Dohäsan's sister's son, Agiati or "Gathering Feathers" inherited his name in 1864. The younger Dohäsan took part in the remaining battles as the Kiowa struggled to remain a free people. But time was running out, and he was part of the delegation to Washington in 1872, which appealed to the government to allow the Kiowa to remain free.
Afterward, as the remaining Kiowa went to the reservation, the younger Dohäsan lived with his family in peace on the reservation near Fort Sill until his death.
Artist and calendar keeper
Dohäsan was the primary calendar keeperWinter count
Winter counts are pictorial calendars or histories in which tribal records and events were recorded. The Blackfeet, Mandan, Kiowa, Lakota, and other Plains tribes used winter counts extensively...
among the Kiowa throughout most of the 19th century. He added many innovations to Kiowa pictorial art. In his winter count
Winter count
Winter counts are pictorial calendars or histories in which tribal records and events were recorded. The Blackfeet, Mandan, Kiowa, Lakota, and other Plains tribes used winter counts extensively...
, he added an image for each year's summer Sun Dance
Sun Dance
The Sun Dance is a religious ceremony practiced by a number of Native American and First Nations peoples, primarily those of the Plains Nations. Each tribe has its own distinct practices and ceremonial protocols...
. To painted tipi
Tipi
A tipi is a Lakota name for a conical tent traditionally made of animal skins and wooden poles used by the nomadic tribes and sedentary tribal dwellers of the Great Plains...
designs, Dohäsan introduced images of counting coup
Counting coup
Counting coup refers to the winning of prestige in battle, rather than having to prove a win by injuring one's opponent. Its earliest known reference is from Shakespeare's "Hamlet" where Laertes and Hamlet conduct a mock swordfight before King Claudius and Queen Gertrude...
. When he died, his nephew Agiati became a calendar keeper, followed in turn by Agiati's son, Silver Horn
Silver Horn
Silver Horn or Haungooah was a Kiowa Ledger Artist from Oklahoma.-Background:Silver Horn was born circa 1860 and was a member of the Kiowa Indian Tribe of Oklahoma. His Kiowa name, Haungooah, refers to sunlight reflecting off a buffalo horn, making it gleam like a polished, white metal...
(1860–1940), one of the most prolific of all Kiowa artists.
Dohäsen's original calendar is in the collection of the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley. In 1892 the young Dohäsan gave his annual family calendar history, begun by his uncle, the last great principal chief of the Kiowa, to Capt. Hugh L. Scott, who in turn donated it to the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
.
Further reading
- Bial, Raymond. Lifeways: The Comanche. New York: Benchmark Books, 2000.
- Brice, Donaly E. The Great Comanche Raid: Boldest Indian Attack on the Texas Republic McGowan Book Co. 1987
- John, Elizabeth and A.H. Storms Brewed in Other Men's Worlds: The Confrontation of the Indian, Spanish, and French in the Southwest, 1540-1795. College Station, TX: Texas A&M Press, 1975.