Kiowa Tribal Museum

The Kiowa Tribe tells its history in its own words, and the museum at the tribal complex on Oklahoma 9 at Carnegie tells it on its walls. In the Tribe's account the people came from the Kootenay country of British Columbia, moved into western Montana, and by about 1650 were living in the Black Hills alongside the Crow. Pushed south by the Cheyenne and Lakota, they reached the Arkansas River country, fought the Comanche who held it, and around 1790 made the alliance with them that lasted. The Plains Apache travelled with the Kiowa.

The reservation assigned in 1868 never held them, in the Tribe's words, and the fighting that resumed in 1874 ended the next year, when leaders and many horses were captured. On August 6, 1901 the reservation was opened to white settlement. Each Kiowa head of household was allotted 160 acres, and the Tribe notes that the only land it still owns is the scattered grass land once leased to cattlemen.

The museum shows ten murals by Kiowa artists, running from prehistory to the present, a large Sun Dance tipi, photographs, clothing, weapons, tools and toys. Kiowa painting reaches well beyond Carnegie. In 1926 and 1927 six young Kiowa artists trained at the University of Oklahoma, and two of them later painted the murals in the Anadarko post office. The Tribe's language department teaches in Carnegie and Anadarko to keep a language about three hundred people still spoke in 2000. Admission is free, and tours are given with advance notice.