Wichita (people)

A Wichita Indian camp around 1870, probably near Fort Sill . The Wichita used teepees made from buffalo hide to set up camps while they were hunting, for example, otherwise they lived in grass huts. The tipis shown are made of tarpaulin, presumably due to a lack of buffalo skins.

The Wichita are an Indian people (proper name: Towihaedshi ) who originally settled in Kansas , but were displaced to North Texas . The name of the largest city in the state of Kansas comes from the name of the Indians .

After their displacement, the tribesmen lived on the Red River , where they lived from agriculture (growing fruits) and hunting (especially buffalo hunting). They lived in grass huts. The Kiowa later moved to their country. The two tribes traded peacefully and shared various tasks among themselves. For example, the Wichita grew corn and other vegetables, while the Kiowa specialized in hunting. The Wichita were under the protection of the Kiowa. Even so, they were evicted by Texans in 1859 to a reservation in the Indian Territory of Oklahoma.

Today around 500 tribesmen still exist in this reservation.

The Wichita language is one of the Caddo languages and became extinct in 2016

Individual evidence

1. ^ Image description by the Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology. In: Wilbur Sturtevant Nye: Plains Indian raiders: the final phases of warfare from the Arkansas to the Red River, with original photographs by William S. Soule . First edition. University of Oklahoma Press, 1968, ISBN 0-8061-1175-5 , pp. 402-403.

See also

List of North American Indian tribes

Web links

Commons : Wichita  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Article "Wichita Indians" in the Handbook of Texas
• indianerwww.de