[Illustration: FIG. 104--Cholera (from the Dakota calendars).]
In the spring of 1850 an attempt was made to assemble the tribes of the southern plains for the purpose of making treaties with them to insure the safety of the emigrant roads. The Comanche, however, declined to attend on account of the cholera, which they said their medicine-men had predicted would be communicated to them again by the whites unless they kept at a proper distance until the grass had died in the fall, when the cholera would die out with it, and they would no longer be afraid to meet their white friends (_Report, 80_). This caused a postponement of the negotiations, which resulted later in the treaties of Fort Laramie in 1851 and Fort Atkinson in 1853.
The Kiowa killed several of the Pawnee and were received by their friends with a dance on returning to camp. The figure over the winter mark (figure 105) represents a Pawnee, as shown by the peculiar shaving of the head, with two long scalp-locks or "horns." In this connection Dunbar says:
The name Pawnee is most probably derived from _páriki_, a horn, and seems to hare been once used by the Pawnees themselves to designate their peculiar scalp lock. From the fact that this was the most noticeable feature in their costume the name came naturally to be the denominative term of the tribe (_Clark, 18._ See also summers 1841 and 1851, and winter 1852-53).
The half circle above represents the circle of dancers opening in the direction from which the warriors are returning, and the cross in the center represents a fire made of a pile of buffalo chips around which they danced.
The Kiowa were camped in two divisions near the Salt fork of Arkansas river when a war party of Pawnee stole the horses of the first camp, whose warriors at once started in pursuit. In the meantime another party of Pawnee stole a number of horses from the Kiowa at the other camp, who also sent their warriors in pursuit of the thieves. The first Kiowa party overtook the Pawnee warriors, dismounted, and attacked them, killing one. While this was transpiring the other band of the Pawnee came up in the rear and stole the horses from which the riders had dismounted to fight. The second Kiowa party, coming up behind the Pawnee, at once attacked them, killed four, and recovered nearly all the horses.