First of all, I want to let everyone know that I'm back from hiatus. I've spent most of the summer in the desert of southwestern Oklahoma, living with and studying the Kiowa, Apache, and Comanches tribes (and a couple of Otoe, too). I've been back about a week.
Second, I wanted to let everyone in on some fortean tidbits that I picked up from the locals during my time there. These are things that probably wouldn't come to light under normal situations. I was staying in an area commonly called "Redstone," due to it's rock formations, outside of Anadarko, OK. To begin with, this is supposed to be the most haunted place in all the reservation areas.
I didn't experience anything, personally, but I heard a LOT of ghost stories. One was supposed to have been the sound of a phantom peyote drum, which could be heard late at night. Sure enough, I heard it. Several people backed up this story, but eventually someone told me it was nothing more than a strangely musical oil-well, which I'm inclined to believe.
On the "Earth Mysteries" end, a local historian who had previously taught at Oklahoma University informed me there was a "bottomless pit" at the top of a place called Longhorn Mt. I did find this mountain, which is more like a chain of three connected hills, but I didn't have an opportunity to climb them. The hole is supposed to be at the "first" hill, but I'm still not sure which is first and which is third... There is also, according to several elderly informants, a kind of tomb near the Redstone area, belonging to an unknown, previous tribe. It's supposed to be in a cave located near a natural bridge along a riverbed, and they all told the same story: it contains a large number of skeletal remains and an even larger number of "treasures" (copper bracelets, jewelry, and burial goods).
One red herring came in the form of "Dinosaur Canyon," which was where a "dinosaur" skeleton was unearthed containing prehistoric spearpoints. No big surprise, but the dinosaur, upon futher investigation, turned out to be a mastodon.
Finally there was the Kope-saw-pole (you can't technically write Kiowa, so I'm improvising here), which is a traditional monster. The name means "mountain owl" but only because owls in Kiowa society are emblematic of death. The Kope-saw-pole is, in actuality, a kind of ogre that lives in the mountains and uses it's keen eyesight to spy the villagers below. He carries a large bag, and when someone strays too close he captures them. When I asked someone if the monster lives in the Wichita Mts. (their current home) or the Black Hills (their ancestral home), I was informed that it "followed them." They also had an antler-bearing sea serpant-type of river monster, but as far as I know it had no name.
Second, I wanted to let everyone in on some fortean tidbits that I picked up from the locals during my time there. These are things that probably wouldn't come to light under normal situations. I was staying in an area commonly called "Redstone," due to it's rock formations, outside of Anadarko, OK. To begin with, this is supposed to be the most haunted place in all the reservation areas.
I didn't experience anything, personally, but I heard a LOT of ghost stories. One was supposed to have been the sound of a phantom peyote drum, which could be heard late at night. Sure enough, I heard it. Several people backed up this story, but eventually someone told me it was nothing more than a strangely musical oil-well, which I'm inclined to believe.
On the "Earth Mysteries" end, a local historian who had previously taught at Oklahoma University informed me there was a "bottomless pit" at the top of a place called Longhorn Mt. I did find this mountain, which is more like a chain of three connected hills, but I didn't have an opportunity to climb them. The hole is supposed to be at the "first" hill, but I'm still not sure which is first and which is third... There is also, according to several elderly informants, a kind of tomb near the Redstone area, belonging to an unknown, previous tribe. It's supposed to be in a cave located near a natural bridge along a riverbed, and they all told the same story: it contains a large number of skeletal remains and an even larger number of "treasures" (copper bracelets, jewelry, and burial goods).
One red herring came in the form of "Dinosaur Canyon," which was where a "dinosaur" skeleton was unearthed containing prehistoric spearpoints. No big surprise, but the dinosaur, upon futher investigation, turned out to be a mastodon.
Finally there was the Kope-saw-pole (you can't technically write Kiowa, so I'm improvising here), which is a traditional monster. The name means "mountain owl" but only because owls in Kiowa society are emblematic of death. The Kope-saw-pole is, in actuality, a kind of ogre that lives in the mountains and uses it's keen eyesight to spy the villagers below. He carries a large bag, and when someone strays too close he captures them. When I asked someone if the monster lives in the Wichita Mts. (their current home) or the Black Hills (their ancestral home), I was informed that it "followed them." They also had an antler-bearing sea serpant-type of river monster, but as far as I know it had no name.