Kau-Tau-Bone (Gotebo)was a sub chief of the Kiowa. He was born about 1847, somewhere between the Colorado Mountains and Texas, and died in 1927. He is buried in the Rainy Mountain Cemetery, between Gotebo, the town named for him, and Mountain View.

Kau-Tau-Bone rode on many raids with the Kiowa during his time on the plains. As the wars on the prairie were winding down, he rode with a group of scouts in 1875, who were sent to persuade Lone Wolf to come in on the reservation. Among this group, led by Big Bow, were San Deigo, Gum-bi, Guot-sai, Tape-day-ah, Po-hau-ah, Se-loh, Tsain-tonkee (Hunting Horse) and Go-ah-te-bo.

Kau-Tau-Bone was one of the first Kiowa to be baptized at the Rainy Mountain Church in the 1880's. He and his wife, Ome-boke, a sister of Big Tree, had no children. He was as kind as Big Tree was mean. Many kind deeds were told about him by both the white and Indian people of the county. Church records show he accepted the white man's pronunciation and spelling of his name, and changed it to Gotebo, after the town named for him.

During the flood in May, 1903, the Jasper Giles family was living south of the Rainy Mountain Cemetery. Their home was swept away in the flood. Giles and his older son were clinging to a tree, when Gotebo heard them early the next morning, then swam out and saved them. Mrs. Giles and the younger son were found later, downstream, drowned.

Gotebo's Gravesite
Rainey Mountain Kiowa Cemetery
Kiowa CO. OK

Information from the History of Kiowa County, Carbine and Lance by W. S. Nye, 1937, University of Oklahoma Press, Calender History of the Kiowa Indian, James Mooney, 1898 Reports, Smithsonian Institute Press.

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