Read more
Anthropologist Benjamin R. Kracht presents one of the few Kiowa autobiographies in publication—the life narrative of Charles E. Apekaum of the Kiowa Nation of Oklahoma, whose services as a translator were sought by many.
List of contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Significance
Editing
Preface by Weston La Barre
Acknowledgments
1. Family Life: Childhood to Adulthood
Overview
Narrative
2. School Days, Navy Life, and Politics
Overview
School Days
Navy Life
Politics
3. Religion
Overview
Peyotism vs. Christian Beliefs
Early Peyote Use among the Kiowas
Peyote Doctoring, Visions, and Witching
Peyotism among the Comanches, Caddos, Osages, and Other Tribes
Peyote Songs
Mixed-Blood and Non-Indian Peyotists
Apekaum and the Native American Church
Peyote and the Ten Medicines
Notes
References
Index
About the author
Charles E. Apekaum (ca. 1890) was born during the final years of the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache Reservation. He served as interpreter for the Santa Fe Laboratory of Anthropology field expedition in 1935, among many other jobs as a translator.
Weston La Barre was an anthropologist best known for his work on traditional uses of plants in Native American religions and use of psychoanalysis in ethnography. He is the author of
The Peyote Cult, a landmark work in psychological anthropology.
Benjamin R. Kracht is a professor emeritus of anthropology at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. He is the editor of
Stories from Saddle Mountain: Autobiographies of a Kiowa Family by Henrietta Tongkeamha and Raymond Tongkeamha (Nebraska, 2021) and the author of
Kiowa Belief and Ritual (Nebraska, 2017), among other books.
