Kiowa Indian Art

INTRODUCTION BY
Oscar Brousse Jacobson
Director Art School
University of Oklahoma U.S.A.

Among the many races: Latin, Saxon, Slav and Jewish who make up the composite of the American population, well approximately 400,000 Amerinds, the scattered remnants of the red race. Nearly every state west of the Mississipi River harbors one or several tribes, but about half of the Indian population is to be found in the state of Oklahoma.

The aborigines of North America gave their land and wealth to the whites, they also gave America many beautiful names of states, rivers and cities : Kansas, Iowa, Dakota, Illinois, etc. Now they are beginning to contribute also their statesmanship and culture. A Kaw Indian has recently been nominated as Vice-President of the United States, an Oklahoma dramatist with part Cherokee ancestry is having his plays produced in New-York, Indian singers appear everywhere and many distinguished red men are to be found in the professions and in business.

The first contact with the red man revealed him as friendly, hospitable and a happy agriculturist and hunter. The relations between the French coureurs de bois and the Indians were usually cordial and friendly. The advance guard of the great wave of settlers found the Indians dependable and trustworthy and it was only when the frontier was pushed westward and new encroachments were made on their hunting grounds that the red skins became restless. They fought desperately to preserve their own. They learned treachery from their ruthles (sic) antagonists as they had learned improved methods of scalping from the whites during the Colonial Wars.

The opening of commerce between the United States and the Spanish Southwest by means of the Santa Fe trail sounded the death knell of open-range hunting.

Many of the eastern tribes like the Cherokees, Choctaws, and Creeks had already been ejected from their old homes and moved, in the early part of 1800, to a large tract of land in the center of the United States which was known as Indian Territory. These Indians, who formed the Five Civilized Tribes, have mixed with the whites producing a fine and interesting race of handsome men and beautiful women. This amalgamation has fortunately been painlessly accomplished and has left no taint of caste. When the western states were carved out of the virgin prairie, the Kaws, Osages, Poncas and other tribes from the north were assigned lands in the Indian Territory. It is the irony of things that some of these lands have been found to contain untold wealth in oil and minerals, so much so that the Osages are now the wealthiest people in the world.

Other tribes from the high plateaux (sic) east of the Rocky Mountains gravitated or were pushed by military force into Indian Territory. Among the best known of these are the Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Commanches and Kiowas, sturdy nomads of the western plains and mountains.

Finally the pressure of the land hungry whites became so great that the land set aside for the Indian\'s permanent home was also opened up for exploitation and Indian Territory was called Oklahoma which means red people.

One of the fiercest and most independent of the western Indian tribes that harrassed (sic) the ever closing frontier during the latter half of the nineteenth century were the Kiowas. These people seem to form a distinct linguistic stock unrelated to any of the other plains tribes in the United States. These varrior (sic) people have resisted with unusual virility the physical deterioration not uncommon when red men come into too close contact white civilisation.(sic) Up to the present time the Kiowas are in the main pure blooded Indians. They are gradually adopting white ways but have been able to retain their tribal characteristics and their identity; they have been able to keep their tribal lore, dances and customs. They live in houses, they drive cars, they buy modern farm machinery, but the women still dress their hair in braids and wear the bright colored shawls of tradition. On festival days beaded buck skins and feathered head dresses are donned.

The Kiowas first came into notice in 1732 and since 1830 they have recorded their history by means of a pictograph calendar that is of much scientific and some artistic interest. There is a well established tradition among them that originally they were a mountain people who lived along the headwaters of the Missouri and Colorado rivers in Montana. Following the receding buffalo herds southward along the plains, allying themselves with the Crows they invaded the territory of the Cheyennes and the Sioux and were successful in establishing themselves first in the Bad Lands of Dakota and later along the Arkansas River.

For a time the Kiowas were one of the most formidable scourges of the plains. They attacked with astonishing courage the United States troops; they also made frequent raids into Texas for horses, a habit that may have been secretly encouraged by our government during the war between the states. But Indians love horses, and even before the Civil War the Kiowas made forays into Mexican territory after mounts and sometimes captives.

In 1867 a treaty was signed with the United States government at Medicine Lodge, Kansas. Soon after, the Kiowas, Commanches, Cheyennes and Arapahoes were placed upon their present reservations near the Wichita Mountains in western Oklahoma where they have been living peacefully ever since, except for an outbreak in 1874.

In 1891 against the advice of their wise chief, Apiatan, the Kiowas participated in the Ghost Dance insurrection gesture of despair, the final attempt made by the plains Indians to rally around a Messiah who was to accomplish the restoration of all the American soil to its original owners, the red men.

When Oklahoma was opened to settlement the Kiowas accepted American citizenship and land allotments. They now number about 1300 people and this number has not greatly changed for the last fifty years. They are peaceful, law-abiding citizens practicing agriculture and trying in one generation to transform themselves from hunters and nomads into sedentary people. They have already succeeded remarkably well in the gigantic task of changing the character of a race modeled by countless generations to cope with their environment in a land then utterly devoid of draft animals.

All the young Kiowas are receiving good, often excellent schooling. Several are occupying positions of trust, some as statesmen representing a large white constituency. But the Kiowas still use their native language, the grandfathers and fathers still tell bed-time stories, legends and myths from the ancient days. They still sing their beautiful old songs, they woo their maidens with the music of the flute made by hand as of old. The old men still know how to make excellent bows and arrows, the women make beautiful, decorative bead work for which they find a market among the Osages.

At certain times of the year, usually in the Autumn when the harvest has been gathered, they hold their Thanksgiving dances, for the knowledge of their sacred songs and ritual is as alive as ever even among the younger generation. Young Mopope is considered the best dancer in his tribe and Tsa-to-ke (Hunting Horse) is a singer of folk songs and a splendid story teller... after his confidence is won.

At these festival dances the feathered head dress and beautiful embroidered buck skins are worn, scalp and face are painted according to ancient tradition. I have on occasions been their guest at these dances, which are magnificent performances and an art expression of a high order, Song, movement and color are synchronized into a beautiful exotic harmony whether it be in the Eagle Dance where the performers arms assume the shape of wings of huge eagles and the dancers pirouette in circles in haughty courtship, or in the gentle dance of the humming bird gathering sweets from every flower, or in the war dance where the soldier is making spiritual preparation for battle. This dance is still given but as an artistic spectacle only.

The dance of the lady maiden is a sweet and dainty dance in which both men and women perform, advancing and retreating coyly and ardently; the Hoop and Feather dance is a contest of terpischorean skill. Often they perform dances borrewed (sic) from other tribes like the Apache and even Hopi of the western desert of Arizona. In each case the costumes must be symbolically correct. One of the most beautiful expressions of their art is the flute music played in the twilight, love call to woo a shy maiden, hymn to the sunrise, ode to the autumn winds. Occasionally these performances are given as concerts for white audiences but they are at their best when held for themselves alone in some secluded spot of the forest on their reservation.

The Indian is by his very nature closely in communion with the mysterious forces of nature and makes no particular distinction between the real and the occult. In this respect his mind is closely akin to that of the Oriental.

These dances, songs, games, dramas, as well as the myths, legends and magical art of healing are the subjects for the pictures of the five young Indians, Spencer Asah, Jack Hokeah, Steve Mopope, Monreo Tsa-to-ke, and Miss Bou-ge-tah Smokey. It is the work of pure Indians, only one generation removed from the hunting grounds and the war path, the work of representatives of a race that the whites are sometimes pleased to call primitive. The examples reproduced in this book have been chosen from the writer\'s collection.

The Kiowas are now citizens and self-supporting but among the older people are many who do not speak the English language and have not been able to entirely adjust themselves to modern conditions of life. To prevent any exploitation by unscrupulous persons, the Federal Government maintains an Indian commissioner and a staff in their midst, as it does among many other tribes who have so recently abandoned their nomadie mode of life. These young Kiowa artists came to my attention last year (1928) thru the field matron, Miss Susan Peters, who was greatly interested in them and their weliare.

I immediately saw that these timid young red men possessed a remarkable talent. Encouraged and stimulated by the friendship and sympathetic interest of Professor Edith Mahier and the writer they have perfected their art until their work has acquired national attention. Collections of their paintings have been exhibited in many of the art museums of the country, and a large number of the paintings have found homes among art collectors.

The Kiowas are not a wealthy people; these artists, when discovered were working at manual labor and painting in their spare moments. Upon my recommendation a member of the Oklahoma Legislature, Mr. Lewis Ware, himself a Kiowa, succeeded in interesting Mr. L. H. Wentz of Ponca City, in the boys. Mr. Wentz generously supplied the boys with a modest stipend from January until May of this year, thus for a short time enabling them to devote all of their time to creative work free from economic worries. The results have been simply astounding. They have literally thrown themselves into their work and produced with diligence, industry and enthusiasm.

These are not the only artists among the Kiowas. To my personal knowledge there are several others perhaps equally talented.

This art of the Kiowas should not be judged by the white yard stick. The are created from a different racial point of view. Perhaps there remains in the subconsciousness of the Indian, memories of his Asiatic origin. Although a slight Occidental influence may be seen in his work, there is something archaic in his feeling and it seems to have some subtle relationship with old Mongolia. They know and have mastered fore-shortening but care little for the third dimension and for modeling. Their\'s (sic) a decorative art with a fine sense of harmony in line and color. They have an extraordinary faculty of observation, they can see with precision the human body in slow or violent movement and their memory retains what they have seen. Unlike the artists of the west they never use models but paint from memory all the subtle and complicated rhythms of bodies in action.

All Indians, whether it be the Navajo in his blankets, Pueblo in his pottery, or plainsman in his bead work and magnificent ceremonial costumes, have a fine sense for decorative design but these Indians have in their art also a beautiful and graceful line structure and a knowledge of anatomy. Their paintings are convincing because they are the records of an emotion felt by the artists themselves when participating in the ceremonies pictured. Their memory- even seems, in some instances, to retain the expression and likeness of their friends as several of their drawings have individualized heads that are almost portraits. They seem to posses instinctively the things that it takes the white art students years to acquire, a knowledge of the human body and how to draw it in action.

To quote Arnold Ronnebeck, the Denver art critic : All (Kiowa paintings) are full of the dark forces of the universe, full of the age of metaphysical symbolism and awe which is so characteristic of this very ancient race compared to whom we, white Americans, in spite of all our Books of Knowledge appear like a product of yesterday.

In America as elsewhere it has been the sam[e] old story. The Anglo-Saxon smashes the culture of any primitive people that gets in his way and then, with loving care, places the pieces in museums. It is in the effort not only to help preserve but to encourage the further expression of an artistically very gifted race that this volume has been prepared.

The white Americans are already beginning to reevaluate the Amerind and his civilization. In New Mexico a new, vigorous and beautiful style of architecture based on the community house of the Pueblo Indian is arising everywhere. The Indians have been a source of inspiration for whole colonies of artists in the Southwest. American musical composers have long been studying Indian themes, dramas and operas are being produced, Indian songs are being assembled in large volumes.

We now realize that the red man is essentially and artistic race. Who knows, as Mr. Joseph Thoburn. Director of the Oklahoma Historical Museum, said to me recently, but that the fusion of Indian and Anglo-Saxon blood in Oklahoma may not in time result in an artistically tremendously gifted race. We know what happened in Hungary.

But in the meantime the work of these pure blooded Kiowas will stand as a real contribution to art.
-OSCAR BROUSSE JACOBSON NORMAN, OKLAHOMA.