Just over twenty years ago, I brought broadcast quality video and audio equipment to my Grandfather’s home in Meers, Oklahoma to preserve precious stories from Kiowa Grandparents. My grandpa, C. E. Rowell lived his life within five miles of where he had been born near Jimmy Creek Spring; the land allotted to his Grandpa Jimmy…
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Kiowa History in Pictures
Most Plains Indian Tribe’s history were in oral traditions; told and shared from one generation to the next. Of the Plains Indians, only four tribes; the Kiowa, Lakota, Blackfeet and Mandan added to their oral storytelling tradition with picture markings of significant events that occurred to the tribe. The tribes recorded their history in pictures….
Continue ReadingMy Kiowa Name
Just over twenty years ago Tribal Elder Atwater Onco told me, “It was time.” I was to have a Kiowa Name. Atwater said, my Name had come to him after our time together, then confirmed in a dream. Kiowa Naming Ceremony My father started a fire early that morning. As it blazed, Grandpa fed resin-rich…
Continue ReadingElders On The Importance of Kiowa Names
For Cultures with Oral Traditions, Words are sacred. They have power. Through words, we exist. Just as the Kiowa Emergence Story celebrated the consciousness and naming of the Kiowa Tribe, the Kiowa Naming Ceremony honors the consciousness of an individual, a Kiowa finding their way, their identity. That is Koy taw gee geah daw, the…
Continue ReadingThe Kiowa: The Coming Out People
“There are some stories that all Kiowa children should know.” These were the words of my Great Aunt Arletta, my grandfather’s sister, my grandmother in the Kiowa Way. While most of my Grandfather’s stories told of the Kiowa history, my Great Aunts shared songs and stories of Saynday, the Kiowa protector and trickster God. In…
Continue ReadingForging the Kiowa Memory Chain
It is said … Three words that connected me to my culture, history and self. My tribe the Kiowas, like most Plains Indian tribes did not have books documenting our history, we had stories shared from one generation to the next, an oral memory chain. Always one generation away from extinction. It is said, these three…
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