Some northern tribe came to visit the Comanches two or three miles southwest of what is now Anadarko, Oklahoma, the location was about a half mile south of where Hog Creek joins the Washita River. The visiting tribe made ready and started putting on a dance with their hosts as spectators. This visiting tribe, as part of the dance’s ceremony, erected a pole that had been suitably prepared. The visitors, after arranging the pole, took pains to let the Comanches know that it was forbidden for any spectator to pass between the ceremonial pole and a certain designated area. The dance started and was well on its way to reaching its climax, the interested hosts respecting that area that their northern visitors had designated tabooed territory.
The dance was going along smoothly, everything turning out just right. The visitors, singers and dancers, nor the host-spectators saw a mounted older Comanche until he was approaching close to the forbidden part of the ceremony grounds. Before anybody could raise a voice he had entered the tabooed tract, not only did he enter it but he unconcernedly shuffled his pony at a slow pace right on through that area before any of the surprised visitors could move. Not until after the old buck had already passed their Do Not Enter area did the visitors recover enough so that several of them sprang after the old-timer and his mount. They quickly caught up to him and grabbed his mount by the bridle reins, brought him up short, and led the old man, still mounted, back into the dance’s ceremony area. Respect for visitors caused the otherwise war-ready Wusipuhi to react with indulgence.
After much excited talk among the visiting tribe, a spokesman for them told the host Comanches that a very serious violation of the visitors’ ceremonial rules had been committed by the mounted old Comanche. The old Comanche’s mount and all of his personal apparel as well as everything else he had taken into that forbidden area would have to be taken from the old Comanche by the visitors as a price for the wrong the old man had committed.
The leader of the host Comanches, Patsokoneki, was asked to explain this to the old man, who by now was asking, “What are they doing to me?”
The visitors who had caught his bridle reins had made no move to relin-
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