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Systemic Aesthetics: Kiowa-Apache Ritual

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

John Beatty
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The Kiowa-Apache are a small group of Apachean speakers living in the area in and near Anadarko, Oklahoma. Many anthropologists believe they separated from the other Apachean speakers, who now live in the Southwest, about 400 years ago, when they moved out onto the plains and began to function as a band of the linguistically unrelated Kiowa. Some of the early literature (Mooney 1895,1907), dismisses the Kiowa-Apache as simply being a band of the Kiowa, and in no way different than their Kiowa neighbors. This view has been refuted in some detail by McAllister (1937), Bittle (1954,1960,1962), Opler and Bittle (1962), Brant (1949, 1950,1953,1969) and Beatty (1974). There still seems to remain, nonetheless, some confusion among many people as to whether the Kiowa-Apache should be classified as Kiowa or Apache. Although the Kiowa-Apache themselves are quite clear on the fact that they are Apaches and not Kiowas, the surrounding population frequently holds that they are Kiowa. Bittle (1962) suspected that the continued confusion over the identity was in part responsible for the revitalization of the Manatidie society and the accompanying ceremonial dance.

The Manatidie is one of the Kiowa-Apache societies as well as the name of the dance performed by that society. McAllister (1937) discusses it in some detail although he had never seen the ceremony. Bittle (1962), who was present during the revitalization also describes it, as does Beatty (1974) who saw it after revitalization. Beatty's study of Kiowa-Apache music implies that although the music is generally in a “typical” Plains Indian style, it deviates occasionally into the musical style associated with their linguistic relatives (the south-western Apache and Navajo). The deviation is especially interesting in the Manatidie songs which tend to have more characteristics of the southwestern music style than might be expected. The Kiowa-Apache seem to borrow easily musical forms such as peyote songs, which stem from the Southwest and tend to have typical Southwest music patterns (Roberts 1936; Nettl 1954; McAllester 1949). The Manatidie society, on the other hand, seems not to be a southwestern institution as is peyote, and hence the appearance of southwestern music patterns in the Manatidie is somewhat surprising. The patterns can also be found in some of the more recently composed songs as well.

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 11 , Issue 1-2 , 1978 , pp. 31 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 1978

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References

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