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Shared Practices

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While the Kiowa, Lakota, and the Blackfoot all have their specific tribal beliefs about how the universe came about and how they move through the world, there are practices and movements that are common to all three tribes, and speaks to the interconnectivity and exchange of culture and practices and the importance of certain elements to life on the high plains. All three practiced a form of Sun Dance, all three view the sun as the source of all life. For all, the bison were revered and called upon in the Sun Dance as a primary source of food. The specific details of how the dance was practiced and who could participate could vary greatly. For the Lakota, Sun Dance involves piercing the skin and running sinew cords through the piercing that would be attached to the center pole of the dance. In contrast, the Kiowa were very reluctant to wound or draw blood in any way as this was considered to be a sign of misfortune to come. Even the ritually hunted bison for the ceremony had to be killed in such a way to reduce the shedding of the creature’s blood to a minimum. Rather, they would dance four days and nights without eating or drinking hoping to induce the dancer to fall down in a trance and have a vision. 

    The Kiowa and Blackfoot both have a strong emphasis on medicine bundles. The Blackfoot had a larger focus on small personal medicine bundles, which could be used for personal ritual and could be easily carried on a person, but they also had medicine bundles that could belong to the entire tribe . The Kiowa have ten large tribal bundles that were a great source of power for the tribe and it was a great honor to be the keeper of one of these bundles, and the keeping of medicine bundles might be passed on through specific families. 

    Some greater differences between tribes has to do with how powers or spirits are viewed. The Lakota have The Great Spirit known as Wakan Tanka who is worshiped as a deity, while the Kiowa have a concept called dwdw (dawdaw) or power that is from every thing in nature. They hold the sun as the source of all life, and they hold rituals to draw the dwdw from the sun, or bison, or whatever source of dwdw the individual wishes to draw upon. The Blackfoot also hold the sun as a central figure of power, but their practice is somewhere between the Kiowa with no deities, and the Lakota with their Great Spirit. 

    While both the Lakota and Kiowa participated in the Ghost Dance movement, their rituals and beliefs surrounding it and death in general were very different. Both believed that the spirit of a loved one could stay nearby, but the Lakota had a ritual that helped the spirit move on and helped the family manage their mourning. The Lakota believed that the Ghost Dance would bring back the spirits of the dead, who would help the Lakota force out the Americans from their land and bring back the buffalos. The Kiowa on the other hand, were very afraid of ghosts. When a family member died, their belongings would be burned or buried and the family would move out of the tipi that had been shared.  The main Ghost Dance movement was to bring back the spirits of the dead to fight alongside living warriors against the Americans, something the Kiowa were very suspicious about participating in. However, in a four year period in the 1890s, more than four hundred Kiowa children died of disease and the Kiowa perspective on Ghost Dance changed a little. While they did not try to harness the power of the spirits of the dead, they did practice a ceremony very like a Sun Dance in which the dancers would try to induce visions of the dead so that the Kiowa could visit with their recently deceased. Sometimes peyote would be used in conjunction with the Ghost Dance to aid in gaining a vision. 

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  1. Kiowa Sun Dance Coby Graham