Woman´s Heart, Kiowa Chief

[chicheman]

Regarding the 19th Century Kiowa Chief Manyi-ten / Woman´s Heart, I was wondering about finding only limited information on him.
I wasn´t able to find dates like birth and death dates and also not much about his family.
One reference we can read in "The Kiowas" by Mildred P. Mayhall, about his son Datekan:
In 1881, Datekan (son of Woman´s Heart), a medicine man, began to preach and to foretell the return of the buffalo. He renamed himself Pa-tepte (Buffalo Bull Returns) and invited all the tribes to join him in ceremonies, copying the ritual of the Sun Dance, to bring back the buffalo. Near Mountain View a Medicine Lodge was constructed. . . . Great numbers of people gathered, but not all were devout; in fact, some were rather skeptical of his powers. . . .For ten days and nights the prophet carried on his prayers, but there was no buffalo. Finally, he explained that his medicine had been ruined by the lack of faith of the Indians. He lost face as a prophet and died within a year.

There is not much information around on Woman´s Heart, other than recordings of battles with soldiers he took part in, or the Delegation of Kiowa chiefs of which he was one chief, in favor for the release of Satanta and Big Tree, after they have been arrested. Also he is known as one of the Fort Marion prisoners.

Does anybody have additional informations about the life of this chief ?
Do we have any Kiowas around here ?
Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[tkavanagh]

The above Mayhall quote is from her p. 307, whereon she cites Mooney (Calenders), pp. 349-350, from whence the name spellings, which she simplified, removing the diacritics. Whatever: Beware Mooney’s spellings!

That said: The agency spelling of ‘Woman’s Heart’ is ‘Miyetane’. He is listed on the 1879 census, along with a wife and a minor daughter (adults, males and and (rarely) single women, would be listed separately from their parents). I find no name on the 1879 list vaguely corresponding to Datekan (that, of course, would be before the alleged name change to ‘Pa-tepte’ [it is somewhat ironic that someone whose name is given by Mooney as “Keeps-His-Name-Always” would change his name!]. Miyatane was listed on the 1883 census, but he must have died soon thereafter as his name is scratched out.

Working from the other direction, e.g., Polly Murphy’s (DAR) transcription of the 1901 KCA Family Record Book [again, beware her spellings] has one listing for “Meyeatone”, aka Woman’s Heart : e.g., as the father of Keahtigh. (He is on the 1879- 1883 lists as an adult male and so was not necessarily listed in proximity to his parents, although in his case he was but with no indication of relationship). Keahtigh was alive in 1889 (the next Kiowa census I have to hand); by 1901 he had married a Potawatami woman, with whom he had children. They were allotted in 1901.

Not much, but I hope of some help.

tk

[Dietmar]

Woman´s Heart was met by Mason Pratt, son of Captain Richard Pratt of Carlisle Indian School, in July 1882. Pratt toured the agencies at Darlington and Anadarko in Indian Territory to visit former prisoners of Fort Marion still living. It was said that Woman´s Heart died later that year (see: "Wardance at Fort Marion" by Brad Lookingbill, University of Oklahoma Press, page 186).
That would mean he died in the second half of 1882, although the date given in Lookingbill´s book is not too exact and it may be (see tk´s post), that he lived even until 1883.

Woman´s Heart was of the Kivep or Big Shield band of Kiowas.


Woman´s Heart by W. S. Soule

[Dietmar]

...some pictures while Woman´s Heart was a prisoner at Fort Marion:







...and another photo by an yet unidentified photographer:

[chicheman]

Thanks a lot Mr. Kavanagh,

that sheds at least some light on the whereabouts of Women´s Heart. Thanks for your help !

As for the Kiowa name spelling, I was looking up the Kiowa words as given in the modern spelling for the Language. I found "ma:yi" (woman) and also "mahyen" (woman) and "tèn" (heart).
I don´t know if we can combine these words correctly into "Ma:yi-tèn" or "Mahyen-tèn", to get the right word for the name. We would need a Kiowa speaker to be sure I think.

chicheman

[chicheman]

Thanks also to you, Dietmar, for this additional information.
Some of the photos were unknown to me. So we have now a date when he died.
Looking at the photo´s I think Woman´s Heart might have been around 60 years old around 1880.
So maybe born around 1820. Just a guess of me. What do you think ?

chicheman

[charlie]

Other info about MA YE TIN (another transcription...):
He signed the Medicine Lodge treaty of 1867 (but never respected it);
In 25 December 1868 he fought against colonel Evans in the Soldier Spring (Oklahoma) battle;
In 21 November 1873 he partecipated to the murderer of Jacob Dilsey near Cottonwood Groove, on the Canadian River (Oklahoma).
He was one of the major hostile and fighter chiefs in the Red River war of 1874-75.

[tkavanagh]

Thanks for the etymology.

Jun 4, 2012 11:36:05 GMT -5 chicheman said:

<snip>As for the Kiowa name spelling, ...</snip>

Both the Kiowas and the Comanches (and KA) are among of the few NA groups who managed to come out of the census/allottment process with personal/family names bearing some (often minimal) linguistic relation to their native language names, albeit usually mangled by the Texican speaking-Agency employees. For my work with Numu (aka 'Comanche') names, since these are the spellings of record, they are the ones I generally use. I do make an attempt to give an etymology such as the one you gave. I then add the disclaimer that I will use the "agency spellings" . There are several competing orthographies out there, both linguistic/professional/techical and 'homegrown' (e.g., Parker MacKenzie's for Kiowa and Sam DeVenney's for Numutekwa) such that use of the 'agency spellings' is probably best for non-technical contexts such as this.

tk

[chicheman]

charlie wrote:
In 25 December 1868 he fought against colonel Evans in the Soldier Spring (Oklahoma) battle;

>> By then Woman´s Heart was rushing to aid, to help the Comanches who have been attacked by Col. Evans, from his village a short distance from that of the Comanches.


tkavanagh wrote:
Both the Kiowas and the Comanches (and KA) are among of the few NA groups who managed to come out of the census/allottment process with personal/family names bearing some (often minimal) linguistic relation to their native language names, albeit usually mangled by the Texican speaking-Agency employees. For my work with Numu (aka 'Comanche') names, since these are the spellings of record, they are the ones I generally use. I do make an attempt to give an etymology such as the one you gave. I then add the disclaimer that I will use the "agency spellings" . There are several competing orthographies out there, both linguistic/professional/techical and 'homegrown' (e.g., Parker MacKenzie's for Kiowa and Sam DeVenney's for Numutekwa) such that use of the 'agency spellings' is probably best for non-technical contexts such as this.

tk

>> Thanks again, Mr. Kavanagh, for sharing these informations,
thoughts and advice !

Now when you did mention it, that KCA people often still have surnames bearing some kind of linguistic relation in their native languages, I recall a meeting I had with a Kiowa man in 1992.
I recall him explaining me about his own surname, still sounding Kiowa, though not completely accurate in his language since agency employees probably wrote it down the way they could understand and hear the name. The man I met was Dennis Belindo, a respected elder and talented artist in his tribe.
I´ll post some Link on him separately.


chicheman