Andele, Or, The Mexican-Kiowa Captive: A Story of Real Life Among The Indians

"Eye Witness Accounts of the Kiowa in Transition" contains the full original copies of two complete works: "Tahan - Out of Savagery into Civilization" and "Andele, or The Mexican-Kiowa Captive." Both of these works provide important ethnographic information on the Kiowa during a pivotal period in history. At a time when the Kiowa were being forced onto reservations and much of their traditional lands were being colonized towards the end of the 19th century, both Tahan and Andele came to live among the Kiowa. The works published here are the autobiographical and biographical accounts of these two individuals and their lives among the Kiowa, their adoption into the tribe, and their recounting of Kiowa life on the southern Plains. No other works provide first hand ethnographic accounts of the Kiowa during this pivotal period in Kiowa history.

Together, "Tahan - Out of Savagery into Civilization" and "Andele, or The Mexican-Kiowa Captive" provide unique, important information on a pivotal period in Kiowa history. Within a short period of time, the Kiowa were forced onto reservations and prevented from practicing much of their traditional lifeway, including their seasonal movements with the buffalo herds. Both Tahan and Andele lived among the Kiowa during this period, and the two books published here provide essential information on this transition.

Primary Sources In Native North America

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Bauu Institute's Primary Sources in Native North America Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting important sources on Native North America.

Early in 1867 Kiowa chief Many Bears paid the Mescalero Apache one mule, two buffalo robes, and a red blanket to purchase ten-year-old Jose Andres Martinez. Abducted near his home in Las Vegas, New Mexico, in October 1866, he became Many Bears's grandson, Andele. He quickly adapted to his new life, grew to manhood among the Kiowa, took part in Kiowa raiding parties when he turned sixteen, and three times married Kiowa women. Confined to a reservation in Oklahoma after 1875, Andele in the 1880s sought to reclaim his former life and returned to his family in Las Vegas. But in 1889, feeling "his interests were all identified with the Kiowa, and that he had learned to love them," he returned to the reservation, taught industrial arts at the agency school, and aided the Kiowa in defense of their lands. In the 1890s Andele began serving as a resource to a generation of anthropologists studying Kiowa and Apache society. His captivity narrative, published in 1899 by the Methodist missionary J. J. Methvin, is an invaluable eyewitness description of Plains Indians. It is reissued with an introduction by ethnohistorian James F. Brooks of the University of Maryland.