Bringing history to life

Ron McMillan portrays a Kiowa storyteller, Hagaoda (the Turtle), as he explains how the turtle, once the most beautiful creature, convinced birds to carry him south for the winter, even though they were tired of his boasting. The birds agreed but told the turtle he could not say a word the whole trip. The myth explains how the turtle grasped a stick in his mouth which two birds picked up with their feet. As the birds flew along they chatted and another bird came up to the group, marvelled at a flying turtle and asked who came up with the idea. The turtle opened his mouth to answer and fell to the ground far below, breaking his beautiful shell and ruining his appearance.

By Steve Moyer

Nevada Daily Mail

Ron, McMillan, Garden City, set up camp in the pocket park across Ash Street from the Community Center as Hagaoda, a Kiowa storyteller. Dressed in authentic garb, Hagaoda regaled the audience with stories explaining the lifestyle of the Kiowa.

Hagaoda managed to draw the audience's attention with his unassuming style and ability to answer questions posed by the members of the audience. He said he wanted others to pass on the stories he told.

"A story is a live thing," Hagaoda said. "If I tell you a story and you don't repeat it, it dies."

Hagaoda told how young boys grow into manhood, and girls into womanhood, slowly, with the help of family members.

"Boys belong to their mothers until they are 12," Hagaoda said. "They are taught to bead, quill, sew -- all the things women do until they are 12 years old. Then they go to their uncle or their grandfather, not their father for the rest of their learning. Girls go to their aunt or grandmother."

Kiowa children, like children everywhere, sometimes had issues with their parents and found it easier to talk things over with an uncle or aunt or grandmother or grandfather instead of a mother or father.

"It's easier to talk to a grandmother or grandfather," Hagaoda said. "Mothers and fathers can be hard to get along with, but grandmother or grandfather are glad to explain things to children."

The boys would work on making a special flute, with the help of their uncles and grandfathers, while the girls would work on a special dress with the help of their aunts and grandmothers. No one else would see what they were making.

"The boys would learn how to make a flute from their uncle or grandfather," Hagaoda said. "The length of a flute is from the elbow to the tip of the fingers, the sound hole is the width of the hand, the distance to the first hole is the width of the hand plus the width of a thumb and the distance between holes is the width of a thumb. Each flute is unique."

"The girls would learn from their aunts and grandmothers. They would take the finest hides and make moccasins that come up to their knees decorated with beadwork all the way and dresses that had the finest quillwork and beadwork they could do. It took years to make this dress."

"In time, the young men and women would grow to adulthood and the young brave would tell his intended, 'Tonight I will play my for you, if you like' and the young woman would put an elk hide on the ground to sit on outside after supper. The brave would hide behind a tree and play the flute. All over the camp the older women would say, 'I remember when the flute was played for me,' and the older men would say, 'Oh, I remember when I played the flute, I played the wrong notes, I was so nervous."

"At the end of the evening, the young woman would go back into her tent and start making preparations for the events of the next day."

"The next morning she would go to her father and tell him and they would go to the braves tent and wait for him," Hagaoda said. "The girl would stand next to the brave and her father would wrap a robe around them and tie the knot, and they were married."