mooney] INDIAN CONGRESS A T OMAHA I 33
At the close of the exposition the grass house, with the mortars and metates, was purchased for the National Museum, and the materials transmitted to Washington to be again set up in the Columbian Park, where future visitors may have oppor- tunity to study the structure of the "straw houses" of old Quivira.
The Wichita delegation numbered thirty-eight, of whom fifteen lived in the grass house, while the remainder occupied several canvas tipis adjoining. The party had been carefully selected, and included several noted runners distinguished in the cere- monial foot-races of the tribe, two Kichai women, still retaining their peculiar language, and one of them with the old-style tat- tooing upon her face and body, and a mother with an infant in a cradle of willow rods. Physically the Wichita are dark and generally of medium size, with flowing hair inclined to wavi- ness. They were accompanied by their chief, known to the whites as Tawdkoni Jim, a man of commanding presence and fluent eloquence, and in former years a scout in the service of the government.
Another interesting southern tribe represented was that of the Kiowa Apache, now numbering about 220, on a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma, adjoining the Wichita. Although closely associated with the more numerous Kiowa, they are of Athapascan stock, coming originally from the far north. They call themselves Nadi-ishan-Dina, and are mentioned under their Pawnee name of Gdtaka in a French document of 1682, being then in the same general region where they became better known at a later period, participating with the Kiowa in all their raiding wars until assigned their present reservation in 1869. Until within a few years past they have been a typical plains tribe, without agriculture, pottery, or basketry, depending entirely on the buffalo for subsistence, and shifting their skin tipis from place to place as whim or necessity guided. They hunted and fought on horseback, carrying the bow, the lance, and the shield (and
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