Aug. 25, 2011 - For all the noble and admirable traits that many of the great war chiefs and medicine men of the native tribes might have possessed, a sense of humor was not always among them. A practical joke played on these men could be deadly.
As a case in point we need look no farther than Kiowa chief and medicine man Satank, which is loosely translated as Sitting Bear. Satank was a proud and noble warrior at a time when it was hard for the Kiowa to be proud, noble or even warriors. Intertribal relations were at a low ebb, but Satank managed to rise through the ranks to become a member of the prestigious Kiowa warrior society known as the Koitsenko.
Membership in the Koitsenko was based on a warrior's success in warfare and Satank was well known for his raids on the Cheyenne, Saca and Fox. When the Anglo settlers arrived on the scene he raided them, too. A murderous raid near Menard in the Hill Country was widely attributed to Satank and his warriors.
Satank also played a significant role in organizing peace among the Kiowa, Arapaho and Cheyenne in order to unite against the white invaders. As the number of settlers continued to increase at alarming rates, no matter how many they killed, Satank tried another approach. He tried to ingratiate himself to George Peacock, a Kansas rancher and trader, in the spirit of a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" philosophy.
Satank was taken by the notion of the white man's written language and realized that it could be used to his advantage, even though he couldn't actually read or write it. He noticed that the white people tended to put great stock in the written word. Every time his people lost land or were forced to move or got killed, there was usually some sort of writing on paper that supported the action.
Taking this into consideration, Satank asked Peacock to write a letter vouching for his self-professed identity as a "good Indian" and generally fine and splendid fellow. Peacock wrote a letter and gave it to Satank, who set out on the trail in search of wagon trains and cattle outfits where, based on Peacock's letter of recommendation, he expected to be greeted with open arms.
Satank presented the letter to various wagon trains and cowboy, but nobody gave him food, money or trinkets. He couldn't figure it out but he had a sneaking suspicion that the white man's written word was being used against him again. He got a man named Buffalo Bill Mathewson to read him the letter. It read: "This is Satank, the biggest liar, beggar and thief on the plains. What he can't beg off you he will steal. Kick him out of your camp because he is lazy and good for nothing."
Whether Peacock thought this funny or not we don't know, but we do know that Satank was not amused. He returned to Kansas and killed and mutilated Peacock along with five other people who were unlucky enough to be there at the time. Satank continued on the warpath for a time, but the U.S. army, disease and the old habits of intertribal warfare left the Kiowa on the brink of extinction. In 1867, Satank along with Satanta and several other Kiowas signed the Medicine Lodge Treaty -- the written word again -- that relegated the tribe to a reservation in Oklahoma.
By this time Satank was about 70 years old and set in his ways. He never cottoned to reservation life. When his son was killed in Texas, Satank left the reservation to retrieve his son's bones. Along the way he stopped at least once to kill and scalp at least one white man. In cahoots with chiefs Big Tree, Satanta and other disaffected tribesmen, Satank was part of a series of raids in north and west Texas, including an attack on the Henry Warren wagon train that left 12 teamsters dead.
Oddly enough, Satank, Satanta and Big Tree showed up at Fort Sill not too long after that incident to request rations. Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie, who had been hunting the renegades, questioned them about the Warren Wagon Train massacre. Satanta copped to it right away and also implicated Big Tree and Satank.
Before he left to be tried for his crimes, Satank assured his family that he would die along the trail and he did just that when he knocked a guard down and grabbed his carbine. Several other guards opened fire on Satank before he could fire. His body was dumped by the side of the road and was later scalped by Tonkawa scouts. His remains were eventually interred at Fort Sill in a solemn, but informal, but unceremonious, ceremony.
