About the Artist

"The Kiowa people's earliest known home was in Montana along with the Black Hills of western South Dakota. By the late 1870's, the Kiowa and Comanche were restricted to their reservation in southwestern Oklahoma, suffering further tragedies from epidemics and starvation after the disappearance of the buffalo in 1879. Prior to the early 19th century and the corresponding epidemics, their population was greater than 2,000. By the time of their surrender at Fort Sill in 1975, barely a thousand Kiowas could be counted. The present population of Kiowas live mainly in Caddo County, Oklahoma with the largest community near Carnegie. In 1992 there were almost 10,000 enrolled Kiowas, but their language was spoken by less than 400 people." Excerpted from the Encyclopedia of Native Tribes of North America by Michael Johnson