Читать книгу The Calendar History of Kiowa Indians (Illustrated Edition) - James Mooney - Страница 35

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In 1816 the smallpox made terrible ravages among all the tribes in the region of the Red and Rio Grande, being probably communicated from the Spanish settlements. The Comanche especially lost heavily (Morse, 1). The Kiowa suffered in proportion, and their old men speak of this as the first epidemic of smallpox within the memory of their tribe. It is probable, however, that they had suffered in the same way some years before, for we know that in 1801 a Pawnee war party, returning from New Mexico, brought the smallpox home with them, with the result that it spread among the tribes from the Missouri to the coast of Texas. The prairie tribes are said to have lost more than half their population at this time, while the Wichita, Caddo, and others in the south suffered almost as severely (Morse, 2; Lewis and Clark, 4).