The tobacco upon the head of the ancient _taíme_ is another evidence of the northern origin of the Kiowa, as the Kutenai, Blackfoot, and other tribes living near and across the Canadian border are noted for their cultivation of tobacco, and have a special tobacco dance and ceremonies. The more remote tribes along the northwest coast are equally celebrated for their carving in stone, the material used being commonly a black slate, and the original stone _taímes_ may have come from that region.
According to the legend, which is told with the exactness of an historical tradition, an Arapaho, who was without horses or other wealth, attended with his tribe the sun dance of the Crows and danced long and earnestly before the "medicine," in hope that it would pity him and make him prosperous. The chief priest of the Crows rewarded him by giving him the _taíme_ image, notwithstanding the protests of the Crows, who were angry at seeing such favor shown to a stranger. Fortune now smiled upon the Arapaho; he stole many horses and won new blessings for himself by tying numerous ponies to the medicine lodge as a sacrifice to the _taíme_, until at last his herd was of the largest. Being now grown wealthy, when next his own people visited the Crows he collected his horses and started back with them, but the jealous Crows followed secretly, untied the _taíme_ bag from the pole in front of his tipi and stole it, as Rachel stole her father's gods. On discovering his loss the Arapaho made duplicates, which he took back with him to his own people. He afterward married a Kiowa woman and went to live with her tribe, bringing with him the _taíme_, which thus became the medicine of the Kiowa. Since that time the _taíme_ has been handed down in his family, the keeper being consequently always of part Arapaho blood.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
The present guardian is a woman, Émaä, who succeeded to the office on the death of Taíméte, "_Taíme_-man," in 1894; she is the ninth successive guardian, the Arapaho being the first. The fifth keeper, Ánsogíani, "Long Foot," or Ánso'te, held it forty years--from before the Osage massacre until his death in the winter of 1870-71. Assuming that the combined terms of the first four guardians equaled in time the combined terms of the last four--i. e., about sixty or sixty-five years, or from about 1830 to 1894--we would have 1770 as the approximate date when the Kiowa obtained the present _taíme_ image. As previously stated, they already had the ceremony and an equivalent image of buckskin. Of the two _taíme_ images, both of which were of the same shape and material, one, the "man," was small, only a few inches in length, while the other, the "woman," was much larger. It is believed among the Kiowa that the Crows still have the originals which they stole from the Arapaho.