In Search Of Daha's Grave

 
In Search of Daha's Grave
 
"Daha Creek," I said looking at the trees that curled through the pastures to our left.

"Yep," my guide told me. "Named after ol' Chief Daha, a Kiowa-Apache. The government built three homes back then for three chiefs: Stumblingbear, Whiteman and Daha. Hoped it would settle them down. Daha's was over there on the knole in front of those trees."

I strained to look as the car slowed. The house had long been razed.

"Daha didn't live in it, though. Never would. It had two bedrooms, but Chief Daha lived in a tent down by the creek."

"You think we can find his grave?" I asked.

"Well, ... ," the ol' man said as he sped up. I had made arrangements with him to go over and see an Indian Cemetery not far from where I was staying.

We turned the corner at Boone, just West of Apache and drove South.

"How did Boone get its name?"

"Albert Boone. Named after Albert Boone, grandson of Daniel Boone, the Indian Agent at Anadarko for the Kiowa-Apache Tribe. He was still there in 1907 when Oklahoma became a state," my friend said and then brightened. "Boone was where I went to school for many years."

I saw a graveyard ahead and figured it was the cemetery we wanted.

"No that's not it," I heard him telling me. "That is the white Cache Creek Cemetery. The Indian one is further on down."

We drove another mile and turned back about 1/2 mile. There it was to our left. A kind of cement archway greeted us which said "Comanche Indian Cemetery - 1934". Beyond was a well kept cemetery, decorated with flowers from recent Memorial Day visitors. Actually the cemetery is located in a field with pasture to the left and wheat fields to the right with a row of Chinese Elms as the boundaries.

"All these Indian graves?"

"All but one. One white crippled lady who worked for the mission was buried out here - Anna Coleman."

"Which gravestone's Daha's?" I asked as we parked on a small road adjacent to some gravestones.

"Follow me," my guide ordered, then began to lead me over to some graves.

"There's noone that knows anymore about these graves than I do," he said. "Shoot, I went to school for years with a bunch of these Indians. Back in the late teens and early twenties, I guess."

He began to give me a tour of the cemetery. I was amazed at how many names I recognized from school: Poafpybitty, Oyebi, Chalepah, Archilta, Hugar, Cisco, Wetselline, Killsfirst, Redbird,... . Some of the graves had large headstones with both their "white" name and their Indian name. I couldn't begin to pronounce the Indian names.

"Most of the Indians with the big stones had oil," he said pointing out some of the larger toombstones.
Lots of infant graves could be seen; many of those marked only with wooden crosses. I couldn't help but think of my own daughter's grave in northern Oklahoma. Graves represent not only the completion of life, but also lives that were never completed. My heart began to ache.

"Look over here," he yelled. "Here's where the Parkers are buried. Surely you've heard of Qunnah Parker. This is his family."

I stared at the names: Lynn, Thomas, Jerome. Some of the graves were homemade. Others were obviously commercial. I remembered a Boy Scout camper from Lawton whose name was Qunnah Parker.

"Tom and Lynn were his sons," he continued. My thoughts were distracted.

One of the graves had "Cynthia Ann Parker - Infant of ...". Again I felt the pain.

Then my eyes caught a glimpse of a large, flat stone with an inscription.
Knox Takawana
1888-194
1
The Last of the horseback bow and arrow buffalo killers.

"I saw him perform one time. He tried to kill a buffalo with just a bow and arrow," my guide told me. He then pointed out other graves such as Yellowfish and his son, Wiley Yellowfish. He told how they raised longhorns and sold them to the whites who would, in turn, sell them to the government to give back to the Indians.
"There she is," he shouted.

He was pointing at a large tombstone, taller than all the others, with Anna Coleman's inscription.

My thoughts raced as I jotted down some notes. If I were to take a test over all these names, who they were or what they did, I wouldn't do well. I remembered a young Indian student who was making A's in Oklahoma History.

"You didn't do that well in your other history classes," I quizzed. "What's going on?"

"Mr. Hill, this is different. This is about my people." Was I beginning to understand?

"But where is Daha's grave?" I finally asked after about a half hour of fruitless searching.

"Well, I can't say for sure," my guide said. "You see they were buried by us white folks back then, and sometimes they didn't bother to mark the graves. He was probably the first one ever buried in this cemetery, but ... I can give you a good guess."

He walked over to the Chinese Elm tree that straddled the middle of the cemetery and then walked just North. There he stopped at some graves marked with just stones.

"If I were a bettin' man, I'd bet it would be one of these," he said as he pointed to a cluster of graves with a single stone marking their heads. There was no writing on any of them.

I stared. How much Indian history have we lost? How many unmarked graves and unmarked cemeteries hide a fortune in Indian lore right here in Western Oklahoma?

Published first in the Cemetery Edition of Westview - Southwestern University. Weatherford, Oklahoma.
Dale Hill (c) 1988