Description and Location of the Kioway Indian Tribe

The upper basin of the Canadian branch of the Arkansas River was the home of the Kioways. At the middle of this century they were estimated to be over three thousand, all given to a wild hunting life over the great plains on which they lived. In close proximity to the Comanches and other tribes of Shoshonian lineage, their language presents many affinities to the Shoshonian stock, but not sufficient in the opinion of those who have examined both to justify classing them together as from a common source.

The Kioways are light in color, broad shouldered and strong armed, and for generations were the Arabs of the Great American Desert, depending on hunting and robbery for a subsistence. Their homes were light skin lodges, which they spread on poles about twelve feet long. With plenty of ponies and without fixed habitations, it was easy for them to
 move rapidly over the Plains. According to their traditions they came originally from the North, from some cold country, where they had to walk on snowshoes, definitely located near the Black Hills, Dakota, where they were associated with the Apaches. They were idol worshippers, their priesthood consisting of ten medicine-men. The dead were buried in deep graves. At present they have been reduced to about one thousand souls