APIATAN (Wooden Lance)

When Gul pah go (Lone Wolf I) passed his name an succession on to his adopted son, in 1879, Apiatan disputed the succession, as it was not blood line, and he was a nephew.

The winter of 1890-1891 word came down along the edges of the Kiowa land about this "Man from the North"that had seen Jesus, had seen all the dead people, had seen the buffalo, and had seen the country where all the dead people lived with Jesus and the buffalo. He said there were rivers and good grass and plenty of food for everybody. It was the country the white people called the Happy Hunting Ground.

Wooden Lance was sent by the Kiowa to find this Man From the North and find out about belief. He traveled into the Cheyenne land, then on into the Arapaho land searching. He left his horse with the Arapaho, and taking a young man that could translate, boarded a train He rode North and when he left the train, he found a Sioux camp. They talked and the Sioux told him they had gotten word from west, from the Paiutes. That is where he would have to go.

The Sioux sold him a horse and he headed west to Paiute country. It was coming winter in the North country, and he was dressed for summer where he lived. He came to a Shoshoni Camp, where they told him the Paiutes were still father west. They had a young man who spoke Paiute and sign language and sent him with him. They traveled 5 more days and found the camp of Wovoka.

Wooden Lance talked to Wovoka for some time, then left, making his way back to Kiowa Country along the route he had taken. When he returned home, in February, 1891, he told of what he found out. Although Wooden Lance could not believe, there were many that did.

In 1898, Wooden Lance was a delegate to Washington D. C. to protest the opening of the Reservation.

Information from "The Ten Grandmothers" by Alice Marriott, published by University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK, 1945; and "Calender History of the Kiowa Indians" by James Mooney, published by Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. from reports, 1895-1896.

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