I´ha hyo´ o´ya i´ya´ i´ya' o i´ha ya´ya yo´yo´ A´he´ya ahe´ya´ ya´he´yo´ ya e´ya he´yo e´he´yo Kâ´itseñ´ko änä´obahe´ma haa´-ipai´-degi o´ba´-ika´ Kâi´tse´ñko änä´obahe´ma hadâ´mga´gi o´ba´-ika´ _I hahyo, etc._ _Aheya, etc._ O sun, you remain forever, but we Kâitse´ñko must die. O earth, you remain forever, but we Kâitse´ñko must die.
The song ended, he suddenly sprang upon the guard with a knife which he had managed to conceal about his person, and had cut him seriously when the soldiers following behind fired and he fell dead in the wagon. He was buried in the military cemetery at Fort Sill, but there is nothing to distinguish the grave. The Kiowa statement of his singing his death song is corroborated by Battey and by agent Tatum.
Although a noted warrior and a chief of the Kâitséñko, Set-ängya was generally feared and disliked by the tribe on account of his vindictive disposition and his supposed powers of magic. It was believed that he could kill an enemy by occult means, and that he had in this manner actually disposed of one or two who had incurred his displeasure. The knife with which he attacked the soldier is reputed to have been a "medicine knife," which he could swallow and disgorge as demanded by the necessity of concealment or use; several stories are told by the Indians to confirm this belief. His paternal grandmother was a woman of the Sarsi (_Pákiägo_, a small tribe incorporated with the Blackfeet,) who had married a Kiowa when the latter tribe lived in the far north. Unlike Indians generally, he habitually wore a mustache and straggling beard. He left two children; the elder, a son, was adopted into a white family under the name of Joshua Given, was educated in the east, married a white lady, afterward returned as a missionary to his people, and died of consumption about four years ago. The younger child, Julia Given, was until recently employed in one of the mission schools on the reservation.
[Illustration: FIG. 150--Set-t'aiñte in prison (from _Scribner's Monthly_, February, 1874)]
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
LAWRIE TATUM, FIRST KIOWA AGENT, WITH GROUP OF RESCUED CAPTIVES]
Bearing on the subject of the arrest of the three chiefs and the death of Set-ängya, we quote at length from a letter written by Lawrie Tatum, the first agent for the Kiowa and associated tribes, from whom the author has obtained much valuable information in response to letters of inquiry. Mr Tatum, who is now (1896) living in Springdale, Iowa, at the advanced age of 75 years, is a member of the Society of Friends, and was appointed, on their recommendation, in accordance with the "Indian peace policy" of President Grant, soon after the tribes were brought upon the reservation. He took charge, as he states, July 1, 1869, and resigned March 31, 1873, in consequence of the release of Set-t'aiñte and Big-tree, a measure which he opposed, as it was on his motion that these men were originally arrested. During his incumbency he rescued a number of white captives without ransom--a thing before unexampled. On this point he states, in a letter of March 31, 1896: