Here is a nice example of Kiowa dress. This lady is wearing an elk tooth blouse. The elk teeth are the white things in rows. They are sewn onto the blouse. The blouse is probably made of elk skin. Elk teeth and skin was believed to be powerful love magic. A woman wearing elk skin and teeth was irresistible to men. The Kiowa speak a language called Tanoan or Kiowa-Tanoan. Tanoan is a large family of several related languages. Kiowa is a form of Tanoan. This is important because there are other Tanoan speakers, the Pueblo Indians. Not all of the Pueblo Indians speak Tanoan. But, most of the Rio Grande river valley Pueblos speak a form of Tanoan. Tiwa is one branch of the Tanoan language. Towa and Tewa are two other closely related Tanoan languages. Language is an important way to trace ancestry because whole tribes do not drop one language and start speaking another. By looking at the relationship between cultures who speak related languages you can begin to see how societies are related and where they come from. Most of the Tanoan speakers live in south New Mexico along the Rio Grande river. The Tigua in El Paso Texas are another Tanoan speaking tribe. They speak a form of Tanoan called Tiwa. In fact, the word Tigua in Spanish is pronounced Tiwa. Also, you can add or remove the o and compare Kiowa with Tiwa or Tiowa or Kiwa with Tiwa. The T and the K are pronounced very much the same way. The other Texas tribe that probably spoke Tiwa or a form of Tanoan are the Jumano. In fact, Dr. Nancy Hickerson, author of The Jumano, UT press, speculates that the Kiowa may be descendants of the Plains Jumano. Another Tiwa speaking Pueblo tribe is still close to the old Kiowa land. The Taos Indians live in the Taos Pueblo in northern New Mexico. You can find this on a map. Just look in north eastern New Mexico for the city of Taos. The pueblo is right next to the town. It is still there and the Taos Indians still live there. It is a little know fact that the land the Kiowa claim in the Texas Panhandle used to have Pueblo villages. There are a number of Pueblo ruins along and near the Canadian River. These ruins were abandoned around 1350-1400 There are other Tiwa speaking Pueblo tribes. The Isleta Pueblos speak Tiwa and live near modern Albuquerque. In Spanish times a whole region just south of modern Albuquerque with many Tiwa Pueblos was called Tiguex. The Pueblo Indians live in big buildings called, ready now, pueblos. A pueblo is like a big apartment house with lots of rooms. Pueblos are made of big mud bricks. They look pretty cool and you should get a picture of one to look at. They grow corn, beans and squash. Taos Pueblo is famous for trading with the plains Indian tribes for buffalo hides and meat. They traded corn for these things. Now that you know about the Kiowa’s relatives, lets look at the Kiowa. It is not clear just where the Kiowa came from. Kiowa tradition says they came from the north up near Montana. The fact that they speak Tanoan suggests they came from New Mexico. It is possible that they are a group of Puebloan Indians who migrated north long ago and then migrated back. The Pueblo have old stories that say that they migrated in all four cardinal directions -- north, south, east and west. This was long ago. The stories say that after they had migrated east, west, south and north they returned to New Mexico and Arizona. They say where they live now in New Mexico and Arizona is the center of the earth, the best place to be. Some of these stories tell about monkeys and parrots that could only be found far to the south. Other stories tell about ice and deep snow, like what is found in the far north. The Kiowa also have stories of going south till they saw monkeys and parrots and of the far north and snow and ice. The Kiowa stories match up nicely with the Puebloan stories. .
Posted on: Sat, 22 Mar 2014 23:05:10 +0000
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