Kiowa Religion
The Kiowa became renowned for their horsemanship and raiding, and were known to raid as far north as Canada where they encountered polar bears, and as far south as central America where they encountered monkeys that they described as “men in trees”. They were an entirely nomadic society that centered on the movement of the bison up and down the plains. The bison was everything to the Kiowa, providing food, housing, and clothing, so it is no surprise that the bison featured heavily in their traditional religious practice and belief. The Kiowa did not worship anything in particular as a deity, but they did very strongly believe in a world of spirits and power that were in every element, animal, or place and these could be drawn upon for good or for bad. The most important religious event of the Kiowa calendar was the Sun Dance, also known as a Medicine Lodge, which would be held nearly yearly right before the main bison hunting season began in early summer. The ceremony was used to draw power from the sun and the bison for the year and provide an opportunity for all of the bands to get together and plan their raids for the coming year and later, with their confederations with other tribes, those tribes such as the Plains Apache and Cheyenne would also attend and sometimes participate in the Kiowa Sun Dance. The Kiowa and Comanche together controlled the southern plains and pushed Spanish expansion back towards the Rio Grande. Through the 19th century, their conflict with Americans increased as American traders and settlers came through on the trails. With American settlers came the support and interest from the United States Army. The bison were being killed so rapidly that the Kiowa began to hunt antelope to avoid starvation and there were many years in which there were not enough bison to hold a Sun Dance.
In the 1850s several treaties were signed with the United States that reduced raids and provided land and food relief to the Kiowas and Cheyenne. However, American settlement continued to encroach on Kiowa land and a policy of extermination was adopted by settlers and soldiers. In the 1860s the Kiowa were attacked by Texas Rangers, while the Cheyenne were ordered to camp at Sand Creek and massacred in 1861. In 1865 they signed a treaty to give up their lands in Kansas and settle on land in Oklahoma and Texas and cease raiding on Americans.. The 1865 treaty failed immediately because Americans kept moving onto Kiowa land without consequence.The 1867 treaty, called “The Medicine Lodge Treaty” agreed that the Kiowa would remove to a shared reservation with the Comanche and Chyenne in southwestern Oklahoma, and that their section would be between the Red and the Washita Rivers. When they arrived, they found that the bison there was almost extinct and there was no food The Kiowa requested the supplies promised in the treaty they’d just signed, but the United States Congress had not ratified the Medicine Lodge Treaty, so no food would be sent. The Kiowa began raids on towns in Texas that continued through the 1870s and the U.S. Calvary responded with their own attacks. These attacks destroyed Kiowa horses and supplies.
Despite the attacks, the Kiowa raids continued until leaders Satanta and Big Tree were arrested and Santana was forced to give up his sacred medicine shield. He committed suicide in prison to avoid being a captive. By 1875, the tribe was completely out of supplies to make it through winter and settled on the reservation. Fort Sill was where the Indian agency was along with the military, and many Kiowa men, women, and children were imprisoned there during the later half of the 19th century. It was during this time that they experienced a concentrated effort by the government to erode Kiowa language, religion, and culture through reservation schools and conversion to Christianity through the efforts of missionaries invited in by the federal government. As bison were a requirement to hold a Sun Dance, the dances became fewer as it was impossible some years to find one. Later the Sun Dance was banned altogether by Indian agents. The peyote religion began to be embraced by the Kiowa and participation in the Ghost Dance movement began, both staying popular for a few decades. The peyote religion became the Native American Church in the 20th century in an effort to protect the religion.