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CHAPTER 1
DIASPORAS, 1860S–1910S
FOR SOME PEOPLE the past is distinctly divided into a before and an after. That holds true for both Indigenous peoples and for immigrants. Reminiscences as well as records from the past identify a break, when that which had until then been normal, recognizable, and true was altered forever. For the Kiowas and their Indigenous neighbors on the Southern Plains, this time came in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, when a dramatic loss of independence in terms of subsistence and social organization forced them into a limited existence on a reservation — in effect, an unwilling diaspora in their own country. For thousands of Swedes who emigrated from the 1840s and into the early twentieth century, this period too signified a form of diaspora. Most people left Sweden voluntarily and with hopes of a better and brighter future; some returned or traveled back and forth. Migration for many nonetheless represented a break that led to hardship and loss and threw into question issues of identity and belonging. Dislocated, but with dramatically different perspectives, by the end of the century Kiowas and Swedes struggled with how to re-create structures of belonging under new and unfamiliar conditions. For Swedish emigrants, locations shifted through a distance of more than four thousand miles, across an ocean and often farther to the interior of a vast continent, while for the Kiowas the most dominant feature of their situation was the contraction of mobility through imposed boundaries. For both groups, culture in the form of art, dancing, music, and stories became a crucial vehicle for expressing and asserting identity and meaning.
Anthropologist James Clifford defines the term "diaspora" as "a history of dispersal, myths/memories of the homeland, alienation in the host country, desire for eventual return, ongoing support of the homeland, and a collective identity importantly defined by this relationship." Such a definition identifies specific temporal and spatial ruptures that give structure to this chapter. There is a "before" to which people look backward, an arrival in a new place, and a subsequent struggle to identify borders and formulate one's belongings.
Focusing on the experience of European migration as diaspora is not the most common, nor perhaps seemingly relevant, context for referring to the vast and prolonged chain of migrants crossing the Atlantic in response to perceived opportunities and escaping strictures in their home countries. Previous scholarship on Scandinavian emigration has focused more on opportunities and on the back-and-forth flow of migration networks that helped blunt ruptures and sharp breaks. Nor is it immediately apparent how diaspora can be an appropriate reference for American Indians, whose dispossession and loss often occurred in the very regions they considered home.
My argument is that diaspora provides an instrument for revealing the ambiguities that infused the lives of both American Indians and immigrants, such as the urgent search for new roots and the ambivalent meanings of belongings. The term "diaspora" resonates with scholars of colonialism because it serves to illuminate how regimes of colonial power structured relations not only within specific communities but also in encounters between communities. Colonialism gave the patterns of migration a particular shape in the United States. "Immigration and ethnic identity in U.S. history," writes historian Paul Spickard, "have been intimately tied to race and slavery, on the one hand, and to colonial expansion across the continent, on the other." Paying attention to transnational linkages enables "us to examine the flow of ideas and cultures across natural and politically constructed borders," as historian Gregory Smithers argues. "This [helps scholars] understand how the larger structures of colonialism impacted the ways in which indigenous people envisioned, heard, and experienced the world around them, [and how] they endured as indigenous peoples through creative and adaptive processes."
Immigrants were part of that flow of cultures, and focusing on their experiences serves two purposes. Like American Indians, they were embroiled in colonialism's reshuffling of human collectives and its hierarchies of race and culture. Their diaspora turned them inward, to focus on their own loss and subsequent need for reclamation, which insulated them from their own role in the dispossession of Indigenous peoples. Education scholar Celia Haig-Brown argues that the "very construction of a diasporic discourse in the U.S. holds a certain irony when it fails to see the oppression of Native Americans as integral to the formation of both the nation and inextricably related to the many Diasporas now there."
Another advantage of including both Swedes and Kiowas in the experiences of diaspora is that it enables recognition of the significance of aesthetic expressions. Anthropologists Pnina Werbner and Mattia Fumanti argue that people in diaspora shape "'a multisensory ambiance,' a space of multiple sensorial experiences that enrich their sense of self." According to Werbner, this space includes "collective literary genres, symbolic representations, historical narratives of loss and redemption, and practical forms of political alliance and lobbying that are uniquely theirs." These forms, which certainly must include visual art, are actively asserted through embodied communal celebrations. Communities collectively emphasized their links to a common past through stories and reminiscences. Practices such as dancing, public celebrations, and commemorations established diasporic communities' claims on the present, and through organized political and religious institutions and alliances people sought to build a future as self-identified collectives.
The following sections ("Before," "Arrival," and "Belonging") purposefully weave back and forth between Kiowa country and Sweden so as to create a context for both the Kiowas' loss of independence and the Swedish emigration to rural America — along with its role in the dispossession of Indigenous peoples, which framed the conditions of the encounter between Stephen Mopope and Oscar Jacobson. These sections also form a metaphorical link emphasizing the connection between past, present, and future in the individual and collective search for identification among both Kiowas and Swedes.
BEFORE
LIFE BEFORE THE RESERVATION
Kiowas relayed history as part of a vast and varied body of stories, retold and reenacted in camps and gatherings and passed on between generations. Kiowa anthropologist Gus Palmer Jr. describes these stories as "the best ideas Kiowas have of themselves. They are acts of the imagination and memory. They tell of time immemorial. By means of these stories Kiowas are able to remember people and relive events important in tribal history and culture." Stories placed the Kiowas in the world. At the center of the world there was a pool of water. Whoever dared jump into the pool would get to live there. But sharp points, like cattails, stuck out of the water, frightening the contestants. Finally, a Kiowa ran up, shouted, and jumped in, and he was not harmed. Instead he went through the roots of the sharp growths and came out on the other side. All assembled "heard a voice saying that the Kiowa had won the reward — to live in the centre of the world, all the others were to live around him, none could harm him or chase him away. So this is his land. The voice said again that after the life of the Kiowa ended there would be no more life on this earth. When the Indian race and language come to an end, there will be no more life on this earth."
This story, written down by anthropologist Elsie Clews Parsons when she was visiting among Stephen Mopope's family members in the early 1920s, describes how the Kiowas became prominent in the world. Yet, they too had migrated. Once, they had lived in the Rocky Mountains around the headwaters of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers, forming an enduring alliance with the Crow Nation. In the early nineteenth century, conflicts with the Cheyennes and Sioux forced the Kiowas to migrate south into the region between the North Platte and Arkansas Rivers and eventually to cross the Cimarron River and establish council fires south of the Washita River. There they had to contend with the powerful Comanche empire that initially threatened their existence.
The new country, a dry and undulating land surrounding the rocky outcroppings of the Wichita Mountains, caught their imagination; it was filled with bison and other animals that provided plenty of sustenance for them. Kiowa author N. Scott Momaday describes the enchantment of this country: "Loneliness is an aspect of the land. All things in the plain are isolated; there is no confusion of objects in the eye, but one hill or one tree or one man. To look upon that landscape in the early morning, with the sun at your back, is to lose the sense of proportion. Your imagination comes to life, and this, you think, is where Creation was begun."
Kiowas had already acquired horses in the early eighteenth century, possibly traded from the Wichitas and Caddos in the south, and they became mounted buffalo hunters. Horses changed the Indigenous social structures of the plains, shaping a hierarchical leadership fusing independent bands into political entities united by shared ceremonies and prominent men's societies that gathered members from across bands. Societies became more stratified, and individuals found opportunities to augment their personal status and that of their families. Families owning the best-trained buffalo horses and the largest herds began forming high- ranking groups, and this was particularly true for the Kiowas, who developed distinct social categories for horse-owning elites. These high- ranking families often also possessed powerful and expensive medicine bundles.
In the early decades of the nineteenth century the Kiowas sought peace with the powerful Comanchería empire. The alliance forged between 1790 and 1806 turned out to be the strongest and most enduring on the Southern Plains and allowed the less populous Kiowas and their even smaller allies, the Naishans (or Kiowa-Apaches), access to fertile grazing land and a more accommodating climate on the upper Canadian and Red Rivers at the northern edge of Comanche territory. The alliance between Kiowas and Comanches primarily involved commerce, and the Kiowas served as middlemen in the trade. Importantly, this exchange also included customs and beliefs. The Comanches participated in the Kiowa Sun Dance, eventually developing their own version of the ceremony. Historian Pekka Hämäläinen describes the Comanche empire as a large kinship network: "Affinity was the medium through which Comanches organized exchange across boundaries, and their trading empire can be seen as a vast kinship circle where ritual exchanges of words, food, gifts, and spouses stabilized intersocial spaces, creating a high threshold for intergroup violence." The Kiowas who had come into its orbit found it a "safe place to live."
The Kiowas constituted a formidable presence on the Southern Plains, fanning out from their central location around the Wichita Mountains. Their foundational stories contained narratives of migration as well as the establishment of significant relations with enemies and new neighbors. Mary Buffalo described how her people came to Oklahoma from the Black Hills in South Dakota, traveling on horses with tipi poles tied on them to transport their household belongings. "That was our only way of traveling in those days — before the white man came." Other stories describe the sharing of rituals and the acquisition of powerful medicine that could heal war wounds and disease and could be used to both predict the future and influence its outcome. One of these stories testifies to the dramatic change brought by the acquisition of the horse, equating the power of the horse to that of the tornado. The Kiowas heard stories of an animal that could run great distances and was "brave enough to face a charging buffalo bull." They had never seen a horse but decided to try to make one out of earth and their own medicine. "The beast's head was created a monstrous size. But it was so strong and powerful that the Kiowas and their Medicine Men were not able to stay close enough to finish making four legs and hooves. It moved about with incredible speed and power on the prairie on only one leg!" The "power in that single ominous hoof" confounded the Kiowas and it broke "free from its heavy buffalo ropes, throwing the handlers and the Medicine Men to the ground as it roared off, away from the camp, destroying the brush and trees and blinding everyone with the dust on the Great Southern Plains."
The story demonstrates the uncontainable nature of power and the unpredictable consequences of human actions. Living in such an environment required order, system, and respect. Kinship shaped social ties that structured Kiowa society through band, social rank, and tribal nation. Extended family groups formed bands, comprising between twelve and fifty tipis. A generally complementary division of labor characterized women's and men's contributions to society. For example, women constructed and owned the tipis and were dependent on men's skills as hunters. Girls and boys were socialized into their roles and responsibilities through different social organizations. Military societies, which cut across families and bands, performed duties in connection with the Sun Dance but also had social and economic functions. Kiowas recognized four named ranks that striated society, forming around horse ownership and war honors.
Many stories related war deeds. One referred to Stephen Mopope's paternal grandfather, Ghoulayee. The Kiowas and Comanches attacked a Spanish wagon train crossing through northern Texas. The wagon train's leader fought valiantly, but the Kiowa warriors observed him making a movement with his hand behind him. They decided to let the man live because of his bravery. But the Comanches did not honor their decision and killed all the Spaniards. When the victors looked behind the wagon, they found a small boy. The Kiowas claimed him and adopted him, naming him Little Colt ("Ghoulay" means "colt," and the "–ee" is a diminutive). Ghoulayee grew up to become a Kiowa warrior, earning a war name in a horse-stealing raid, and came to be known as Pokeitay (meaning "He Ropes His Enemy"). He died fairly young leaving two small children: Maigoday (known as George Mopope) and Sendemah (also known as Sindy Keahbone).
During the early decades of the nineteenth century Kiowas established peace accords with various neighbors on the Southern Plains, and such relations included receiving and sharing dances, medicine, and warrior societies. Vanessa Paukeigope Jennings recounts what she has learned about the exchanges of the important Sun Dance. The Sun Dance began in Kiowa country and then spread to the Comanches, who took it to their allies and relatives the Shoshones. They in turn carried it to the Crows, and from the Crows the Sun Dance made its way to the Sioux, and from there it began to move south again. Other accounts, however, suggest that the Sun Dance was a gift to the Kiowas from the Crows, who also gave them the dominant sacred object of this ceremony, the Taime effigy.
One of the most powerful gifts was that of the Buffalo Medicine. One account attributes it to a young Kiowa woman who was captured by Pawnees and destined for sacrifice. She managed to escape and hid from her captors inside a buffalo carcass. While she was lying there, the buffalo spoke to her and gave her instructions on how to make a medicine that could heal battle injuries and gunshot wounds. The girl made her way back to her people, and she married a Kiowa man. She asked him to bring her a piece of hide from a buffalo's neck and also a piece of deer hide. With this she constructed a shield, which her husband carried in battle. The couple adopted two orphaned boys, to whom they passed on the gift of the Buffalo Medicine. Through stories and dances, Kiowas made the Southern Plains their home and imbued the land with meaning, naming their connection to its places. The Wichita Mountains became the center of their world, in particular as it held the spirit of the buffalo, which sustained their society.
Being allies with the Comanches allowed the Kiowas a certain insulation from interaction with Americans, as Comanche diplomats conducted foreign affairs for both nations. Kiowas only came into direct contact with representatives of the US government in the summer of 1834, when some ninety Kiowas attended a council held in a Wichita village located on the North Fork of the Red River. Three years later the tribe signed its first treaty with the United States, which also established peace between the Kiowas and the Osages and the Creeks and guaranteed all signatories equal rights to hunting on the Southern Plains in exchange for allowing US citizens free passage across the Plains region. In 1840, however, the Kiowas and Comanches concluded a peace with the Cheyennes, and together the accords between Kiowas, Kiowa-Apaches, Comanches, and Cheyennes effectively barred white access along the southern overland trails.
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Excerpted from "Painting Culture, Painting Nature"
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