little attention to the rain gods and seem to have no reverence for the snake. Each shield order prays to some special deity, and every man has also his own personal "medicine," somewhat like the guardian angel or patron saint of the Catholic system. There are also supernatural heroes, of whom the Sun-boy and Sindi are the greatest, with ogres, dwarfs, water people, monsters, and all the other features of the orthodox fairy book. OBJECTS OF RELIGIOUS VENERATION Their most sacred objects of religious veneration are the Ẩ'dalbeáhya, the Taime, the Gadómbitsoñhi, and the señi or peyote. Their great tribal religious ceremony is the kado or sun dance. Their tribal religion is that which centers around the â'dalbeáhya and the taime. The worship of the peyote, although now general, excepting among the oldest men, is comparatively modern with the Kiowa, having been adopted from the more southern tribes. These two systems are compatible and auxiliary to each other. In 1890 the new religion of the ghost dance was introduced among the Kiowa. It is essentially dif ferent from the older Indian systems and antagonistic to them, being based on the doctrine of one God, although it preaches a return to the old Indian life. The A'dalbeáhya (the word has some connection with âdal, "hair," and scalp) is the eucharistic body of their supernatural hero teacher, the Sun-boy, and has been known among them almost from the beginning of their existence as a people. According to the myth, which has close parallels in other tribes, a girl was one day playing with some companions when she discovered a porcupine in the branches of a tree. She climbed up to capture it, but as she climbed the tree grew, carrying her with it, until it pierced the arch of the sky into the upper world; here the porcupine took on his proper form as the Son of the Sun; they were married and had a son. Her husband had warned her that, in her excursions in search of berries and roots, she must never go near the plant called äzón (pomme blanche, Psoralea esculenta) if its top had been bitten off by a buffalo. Like Eve, or Pandora, she longed to test the prohibition, so one day while digging food plants she took hold of a pomme blanche which a buffalo had already cropped and pulled it up by the root, leaving a hole through which she saw far below the earth, which she had forgotten since the day that she had climbed the tree after the porcupine. Old memories awakened, and full of an intense longing for her former home she took her child and fastening a rope above the hole began letting herself down to the earth. Her husband, returning from the hunt, discovered her absence and the method of her escape, and throwing a stone after her through the hole, before she had reached the end of the rope, struck her upon the head and she fell to the ground dead. The child was uninjured, and after staying some time beside the body of his mother he was found MOONEY] Â'DALBEÁHYA, GADÓMBÍTSOÑHI, AND SEÑI 239 and cared for by Spider Woman, who became a second mother to him. One day in playing he threw upward a gaming wheel, which came down upon his head and cut through his body without killing him, so that instead of one boy there were now twin brothers. After many adventures, in the course of which they rid the world of several destructive monsters, one of the brothers walked into a lake and disappeared forever under its waters, after which the other transformed himself into this "medicine," and gave himself in that shape to the Kiowa, who still preserve it as the pledge and guardian of their national existence. This â'dalbeáhya, or, as it is sometimes called, the tä'lyi-dá-i, "boy-medicine," is in ten portions, in the keeping of as many priests. Its chief priest is T'ébodal, the oldest man of the tribe, with whom the author once had the opportunity of seeing the pouch in which it is carried, for no man, unless possibly the priest himself, has ever been permitted to open it and look upon the contents. It is kept in a small pouch fringed with numerous scalps, in a special tipi appointed for its residence; it is brought out for use in connection with a sweat-house ceremony as individuals may desire to sacrifice to it, and not, like the taime, at tribal gatherings. It is briefly mentioned by Clark in his work on the sign language (Clark, 7). The Gadómbitsoñhi, "Old-woman-under-the-ground," belonged to the Kiñep band of the Kiowa. It was a small image, less than a foot high, representing a woman with flowing hair. It was exposed in front of the taime at the great sun-dance ceremony, and by some unexplained jugglery the priest in charge of it caused it to rise out of the ground, dance in the sight of the people, and then again sink into the earth. A few years ago it was stolen by a crazy Indian from the priest who guarded it and has never since been recovered, although there are stories in the tribe of hunters belated in the mountains, or beside unfrequented streams, who have caught glimpses of a wailing dwarf with disheveled hair who vanished as soon as discovered, and is believed to have been the lost gadómbitsoñhi. The Señi, "prickly fruit," the peyote or mescal plant, is a small species of cactus of the genus Lophophora (Coulter), which grows in the stony hill country along the Mexican border. On account of its medical properties and its wonderful effect upon the imagination, it is regarded by the Indians as the vegetal incarnation of a deity, and a whole system of myth and ritual has grown up in connection with its use. The rite originated among the more southern tribes, and has come through the Mescalero and Comanche to the Kiowa within about fifty years. The ceremony was first brought to public notice by the author and may be the subject of a more extended monograph at some future time. Another ritual, pertaining more particularly to women, was dedicated to the Star Girls, or Pleiades (Da'-mä'tán). Its last priestess died a few years ago. The great central figure of the k'adó, or sun dance, ceremony is the taime. This is a small image, less than 2 feet in length, representing a human figure dressed in a robe of white feathers, with a headdress consisting of a single upright feather and pendants of ermine skin, with numerous strands of blue beads around its neck, and painted upon the face, breast, and back with designs symbolic of the sun and moon. The image itself is of dark-green stone, in form rudely resembling a human head and bust, probably shaped by art like the stone fetishes of the Pueblo tribes. It is preserved in a rawhide box in charge of the hereditary keeper, and is never under any circumstances exposed to view except at the annual sun dance, when it is fastened to a short upright stick planted within the medicine lodge, near the western side. It was last exposed in 1888 (see the calendar). The ancient taime image was of buckskin, with a stalk of Indian tobacco for a headdress. This buckskin image was left in the medicine lodge, with all the other adornments and sacrificial offerings, at the close of each ceremony. The present taime is one of three, two of which came originally from the Crows, through an Arapaho who married into the Kiowa tribe, while the third came by capture from the Blackfeet. The tobacco upon the head of the ancient taime is another evidence of the northern origin of the Kiowa, as the Kutenai, Blackfoot, and other tribes living near and across the Canadian border are noted for their cultivation of tobacco, and have a special tobacco dance and ceremonies. The more remote tribes along the northwest coast are equally celebrated for their carving in stone, the material used being commonly a black slate, and the original stone taimes may have come from that region. According to the legend, which is told with the exactness of an historical tradition, an Arapaho, who was without horses or other wealth, attended with his tribe the sun dance of the Crows and danced long and earnestly before the "medicine," in hope that it would pity him and make him prosperous. The chief priest of the Crows rewarded him by giving him the taime image, notwithstanding the protests of the Crows, who were angry at seeing such favor shown to a stranger. Fortune now smiled upon the Arapaho; he stole many horses and won new blessings for himself by tying numerous ponies to the medicine lodge as a sacrifice to the taime, until at last his herd was of the lar gest. Being now grown wealthy, when next his own people visited the Crows he collected his horses and started back with them, but the jealous Crows followed secretly, untied the taime bag from the pole in front of his tipi and stole it, as Rachel stole her father's gods. On discovering his loss the Arapaho made duplicates, which he took back with him to his own people. He afterward married a Kiowa woman and went to live with her tribe, bringing with him the taime, which thus became the medicine of the Kiowa. Since that time the taime has |