For many Plains Indians, being a warrior and veteran has long been the traditional pathway to male honor and status. Men and boys formed military societies to celebrate victories in war, to perform community service, and to prepare young men for their role as warriors and hunters. By preserving cultural forms contained in song, dance, ritual, language, kinship, economics, naming, and other semireligious ceremonies, these societies have played an important role in maintaining Plains Indian culture from the pre-reservation era until today. In this book, Williams C. Meadows presents an in-depth ethnohistorical survey of Kiowa, Apache, and Comanche military societies, drawn from extensive interviews with tribal elders and military society members, unpublished archival sources, and linguistic data. He examines their structure, functions, rituals, and martial symbols, showing how they fit within larger tribal organizations. And he explores how military societies, like powwows, have become a distinct public format for cultural and ethnic continuity.

Warrior culture has long been an important facet of Plains Indian life. For Kiowa Indians, military societies have special significance. They serve not only to honor veterans and celebrate and publicize martial achievements but also to foster strong role models for younger tribal members. To this day, these societies serve to maintain traditional Kiowa values, culture, and ethnic identity. Previous scholarship has offered only glimpses of Kiowa military societies. William C. Meadows now provides a detailed account of the ritual structures, ceremonial composition, and historical development of each society: Rabbits, Mountain Sheep, Horses Headdresses, Black Legs, Skunkberry /Unafraid of Death, Scout Dogs, Kiowa Bone Strikers, and Omaha, as well as past and present women’s groups. Two dozen illustrations depict personages and ceremonies, and an appendix provides membership rosters from the late 1800s. The most comprehensive description ever published on Kiowa military societies, this work is unmatched by previous studies in its level of detail and depth of scholarship. It demonstrates the evolution of these groups within the larger context of American Indian history and anthropology, while documenting and preserving tribal traditions.

In this book the author presents an in-depth ethnohistorical survey of Kiowa, Apache, and Comanche military societies, drawn from extensive interviews with tribal elders and military society members, unpublished archival sources, and linguistic data. He examines their structure, functions, rituals, and martial symbols, showing how they fit within larger tribal organizations. And he explores how military societies, like powwows, have become a distinct public format for cultural and ethnic continuity.--Publisher's description.

A must read for anyone with an interest in the far Southwest or Native American history.

Rare stories from more than 250 years of Native Americans' service in the military Why We Serve commemorates the 2020 opening of the National Native American Veterans Memorial at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, the first landmark in Washington, DC, to recognize the bravery and sacrifice of Native veterans. American Indians' history of military service dates to colonial times, and today, they serve at one of the highest rates of any ethnic group. Why We Serve explores the range of reasons why, from love of their home to an expression of their warrior traditions. The book brings fascinating history to life with historical photographs, sketches, paintings, and maps. Incredible contributions from important voices in the field offer a complex examination of the history of Native American service. Why We Serve celebrates the unsung legacy of Native military service and what it means to their community and country.

A groundbreaking history of the rise and decline of the vast and imposing Native American empire. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a Native American empire rose to dominate the fiercely contested lands of the American Southwest, the southern Great Plains, and northern Mexico. This powerful empire, built by the Comanche Indians, eclipsed its various European rivals in military prowess, political prestige, economic power, commercial reach, and cultural influence. Yet, until now, the Comanche empire has gone unrecognized in American history. This compelling and original book uncovers the lost story of the Comanches. It is a story that challenges the idea of indigenous peoples as victims of European expansion and offers a new model for the history of colonial expansion, colonial frontiers, and Native-European relations in North America and elsewhere. Pekka Hämäläinen shows in vivid detail how the Comanches built their unique empire and resisted European colonization, and why they fell to defeat in 1875. With extensive knowledge and deep insight, the author brings into clear relief the Comanches’ remarkable impact on the trajectory of history. 2009 Winner of the Bancroft Prize in American History “Cutting-edge revisionist western history…. Immensely informative, particularly about activities in the eighteenth century.”—Larry McMurtry, The New York Review of Books “Exhilarating…a pleasure to read…. It is a nuanced account of the complex social, cultural, and biological interactions that the acquisition of the horse unleashed in North America, and a brilliant analysis of a Comanche social formation that dominated the Southern Plains.”—Richard White, author of The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815

Examining the place names, geographical knowledge, and cultural associations of the Kiowa from the earliest recorded sources to the present, Kiowa Ethnogeography is the most in-depth study of its kind in the realm of Plains Indian tribal analysis. Linking geography to political and social changes, William Meadows applies a chronological approach that demonstrates a cultural evolution within the Kiowa community. Preserved in both linguistic and cartographic forms, the concepts of place, homeland, intertribal sharing of land, religious practice, and other aspects of Kiowa life are clarified in detail. Native religious relationships to land (termed "geosacred" by the author) are carefully documented as well. Meadows also provides analysis of the only known extant Kiowa map of Black Goose, its unique pictographic place labels, and its relationship to reservation-era land policies. Additional coverage of rivers, lakes, and military forts makes this a remarkably comprehensive and illuminating guide.