Enduring the violence: Four centuries of Kirikir'i·s warfare

Abstract

Between AD 1200 and 1400, the Kirikir'i·s (Wichita and Affiliated Tribes) lived in small hamlets and villages scattered across the central and southern Plains and within the western Mississippian centers in the Arkansas River Basin. This relatively peaceful life changed about AD 1400 when the decline of Mississippian culture led to a reorganization of Plains communities. People aggregating into larger towns, participated in a continental wide exchange system, and increased inter-group conflict. Using Frank Secoy's three patterns of warfare on the Plains insights into the evolving strategies of the Kirikir'i·s from AD 1500 to 1850 may be obtained. Kirikir'i·s first responded by building fortified towns. By the eighteenth century, new patterns in Kirikir'i·s conflict developed as population loss led to new strategies of population replacement. The new strategies included the capture of women and children to compensate for those people who were lost to disease and warfare. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, Wichita scouts began a new tradition of fighting on the side of American forces, a tradition that continued into the twenty-first century.