Bird Shield
date: label: Accession Date
content: 18 Mar 1904
name: label: Collector
content: Mr. James Mooney
label: Donor Name
content: Bureau Of American Ethnology
notes: label: Notes
content: Green with white band down center decorated with a black pipe, bullet marks, and concave rectangle at bottom; bird figures on each side with arrows at left and bullet marks at right. Strips of red stroud cloth around edges with feathers at ends, scalp locks on left, ermine strips on right, brass bell at top. Inside. See 229818 for another model of this shield. 19" (48 cm). Records: The "dreamer," or author, of the bird shield was Adalboingyato, born about 1800, died 1870. He obtained his shield medicine from ten bird spirits when a boy and soon afterwards made ten shields according to their instruction. The first shield he kept for himself until 1851, when he gave it to Gaapiatan, from whose dictation this model was made. Gaapiatan carried it in many battles, remaining always unwounded, and buried it with his son in 1892. This was the last remaining bird shield. He himself died in 1901. The snake like figures parallel with the pipe represent flying bullets. The eagles are the male and female eagle from whom the originator got his principal medicine. The green represents the sky; the inclosed dots and rings below the pipe are stars. The red strouding border is twined on one side with ermine pendants and on the other with human scalp locks, with the whole tail of a large hawk at each end. There is much myth, ceremony and tabu connected with this shield. The owner must never smoke a red stone pipe, taste of bird meat, or allow any dead bird near his canoe (sic). Instead of being hung from a tripod, as usual with other shields, the bird shield was laid flat upon a framework of four poles joined with eight cross pieces to symbolize a bird's nest. A similar shield is in the collection of the National Museum of the American Indian (12/3230). (C). Associated names: Adalboingyato; Gaapiatan. (from Merrill, William L. et al. 1997. A Guide to the Kiowa Collections at the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, no. 40. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.)
label: Record Last Modified
content: 11 Dec 2014
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Not Given, Oklahoma, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Kiowa
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 042431
label: USNM Number
content: E229891-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Shield Model