The Kiowa have a better memory, and one of their old hero stories relates to the slaughter of an entire band of Kiowa by the Dakota. The ill-fated band was called the _K'úato_, a name signifying "pulling up, or pulling out" from the ground or from a hole, being indicated in the sign language by the motion of "pulling up" with one or both hands. According to the story the Kiowa, apparently nearly the whole tribe together, were attacked by an overwhelming body of the Dakota. Finding resistance hopeless, they fled, but the chief of the K'úato urged his people not to run, "because if they did their relatives in the other world would not receive them." Inspired to desperate courage by his words, the K'úato faced the enemy and were all killed where they stood, excepting one woman who had fled with the others. According to Te'bodal, who was born about 1817 and is now the oldest man in the tribe, this massacre took place when his grandfather was a young man, perhaps about 1770. Te'bodal himself remembered having seen the single woman survivor. It is said that the K'úato spoke a peculiar dialect of the Kiowa language, although recognized as a part of the tribe, and were noted for doing foolish and ridiculous things, a statement borne out by the story of their extermination.
INTERCOURSE WITH THE ARIKARA, MANDAN, AND HIDATSA.
Next to the Crows, the Kiowa have most to say of their friendship in these old days with the Arikara (Ree), Mandan, and Hidatsa or Minitari on Missouri river. For many years these three confederated tribes, now reduced to about 1,100 souls in all, have occupied jointly a single village on the northeastern bank of Missouri river, in the vicinity of old Fort Berthold, about opposite Knife river, in North Dakota. In 1805 the three tribes, with a small subtribe, now extinct, occupied eight villages, with a total population of nearly 6,000 souls. The Arikara were then considerably farther down the river, while the others were nearly in their present position. From the fact that Grand river, South Dakota, is known to the Dakota as Arikara river it is probable that the Arikara formerly had their residence there for a long period. In habits and home life the three tribes are almost identical, being sedentary agriculturists, living in substantial earth-covered log houses; but in language they are quite distinct. The Arikara or Ree are a branch, of the Pawnee and speak a dialect of that language; the Hidatsa, Grosventres, or Minitari were formerly a part of the Crows and speak a dialect of that language; while the language of the Mandan is distinct from either of the others, although remotely cognate with the Hidatsa. They are mentioned prominently by every traveler in that region during the last century, the best description of them being given by Matthews in his work on the Hidatsa.