THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE WICHITA

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The Wichita, at the time of their first contact with the United States Government, occupied a village on the North Fork of the Red River, about four miles below its junction with Elm Fork, in Oklahoma.

Soon afterwards they were removed to a place called Rush Springs, twenty-five miles east of Fort Sill, in 1882. The Wichita, with affiliated bands, were transferred to the north side of the Washita River, on lands a portion of which had been assigned to the Cheyenne and Arapaho in 1869. It is probable that they have now reached their final home, as they occupy their land in severalty and the tribal relationship has ceased to ewist. It seems probable that, at least for a hundred years or more, their permanent villages were never out of sight of the Wichita Mountains. Their range may be said to have been confined by the ninety-seventh and ninety-ninth parallels, and to have extended south from the Washita to about that part of Texas where the city of Waco now stands. The territory occupied by them in general may be characterized as a high, rolling, broken prairie, fairly well watered in places, of a sandy nature, and in the main treeless, except for irregular clusters of scrub oak, with heavier timber, chiefly of elm, cottonwood, and willow, along the water courses.

According to Powell’s classification, the Wichita form the third of five groups of the Caddoan stock, the other groups being the Pawnee, Arikara, Kichai, and Caddo. With the Wichita proper, therefore, according to this classification, belong the Waco and Towakoni, which may be regarded as sub-tribes of the Wichita. For a very long time, however, the Kichai have also been closely affiliated with the Wichita, and to-day are regarded as an intrinsic part of the tribe. According to the well-known chief of the affiliated Wichita of to-day, Towakoni Jim, there is but little difference in the language of the Wichita proper and the Towakoni and Waco, while neither of these three tribes is able to understand Kichai. The same informant maintains that but four fullblood Kichai exist. He is of the opinion that the Kichai is more closely related to the Hainai group of the Caddo and the Pawnee than to either the Wichita proper or the Towakoni or Waco. , The manners and customs of the four bands ‘have been practically the same from very early times, and they have intermarried and livedtogether to such an extent that it is no longer possible for one custom or another to be considered as the exclusive property of a single tribe.